Flyers rebound, kick off homestand with 3-1 victory over Leafs

Meh. They’re still not back to pre-Olympic levels of togetherness.

Carcillo and Leighton were good, as was Gagne. He is a man on a mission.

Let’s get some more wins.

To be fair in the answer to question three, wasn’t Richard’s 6 points in 3 games really 4 points in the first game followed by 1 point in each of the next two? So 1 more in the fourth game is still a good pace, but the pace was only ever torrid because of the one game in Tampa.

… Anaheim blew a 3-1 lead with less than 2 minutes to play and lost to Montreal in a shootout. The teams behind us need to lose and I don’t feel comfortable unless they do.

Good news: Jeff Deslauriers shut out the Devils. There’s proof that even if the Flyers had Ilya Kovalchuk, they would not have scored on Deslauriers.

Updated spreadsheet stats through 4 games.

http://tinyurl.com/yk48apv

Some reaction from the Wachovia Center:

• Carcillo deserves serious props for staying calm in the face of Orr’s lunacy. Serious, serious props. He stood there and took about four total shots before Orr was finally peeled off of him. Much more on this coming from me in the AM.

• Toronto is just bad, bad, bad. They were atrocious defensively, they couldn’t finish at all on the other end and Giguere was much more lucky than good.

• Jay Rosehill tried to mix it up every time he stepped on the ice. He tried fighting with Laperriere at one point and Lappy just shrugged him away like a mosquito on his shoulder. Then, a few seconds later, he sprinted across the ice and took a run at one of the Flyers (not sure who) near the Toronto bench. I’m glad nobody gave in to his crap, either.

• The Flyers weren’t great by any means tonight. They participated in a lot of sloppy passing, had trouble finishing themselves and they didn’t convert nearly as much as they should have on the power play. Still, the were good at limiting the Leafs chances and Michael Leighton made the saves he had to make to win the game.

• There were a decent amount of Leafs fans in the building tonight, and at one point in the game you likely heard a USA! USA! chant. While I’ll maintain that bringing national pride into an NHL environment is pretty inane, it was a fitting put down to a group of Leafs fans who inexplicably started waiving a giant Canadian flag while singing some excuse for ‘Oh, Canada!’ (which by the way was cheered by most, booed by none within my earshot when performed by Lauren Hart). Yet somehow, someway, this action causes some people to call us ‘the dregs of society’.

Did Giguere look slow tonight? Especially on those first two goals, but also throughout the game. Did anyone else notice this?

how did giggy stop that coburn shot in the third? the puck magically unded up bein lodged underneath his leg pad.

if the flyers put up 1 or 2 more goals on the PP, i would call last night’s game a very nice showing.but they didn’t.

C+

yes- we were lucky playin such an awful team like the Laffs – this might be a nice confidence builder in our march run.

Dear Coach Laviolette – please BENCH Scott Hartnell. We’d like to see Carter’s line playing the way it did against Florida and Buffalo, not the lackluster turn-over filled showing last night. That means reinserting Ville Leino to that line, and while normally that would mean either Asham or Powe rides the press box, neither of those two players has done anything but give their usual 100% effort. Arron Asham has played well on the line with Giroux and JVR, while Powe is absolutely essential to victory as part of the “Lucky Charms” Line with Betts and Lappy. Hartnell, on the other hand, has committed turnover after turnover, bad pass following bad pass, missed hit on the tails of missed hit. I think maybe following the Rangers lead on this, and benching players who need it regardless of salary is a good idea. Hell, for all his recent contributions, which in memory since the Olympic break consists of one fight against Phaneuf, you could just as easily dress Riley Cote for the same outcome. The Carter line needs to be firing on all cylinders come the playoffs, and frankly if that means Hartnell is the cylinder that needs replacing so be it. Thank you – A Concerned Fan.