Apparently we're being possessed by the bizarro Philadelphia Flyers. Shutouts? Good goaltending? Solid defense, even without Chris Pronger AND Kimmo Timonen? A relative lack of scoring? What is this?

Whatever it is, it's not all that bad. Five straight wins and the Flyers are suddenly right behind Pittsburgh in the battle for home ice in the first round of the postseason.

It's looking more and more like we could easily see a renewed Battle of PA in those quarterfinals, and the result of today's game against the Devils (and Tuesday's, the back end of a home-and-home) could go a long way towards making that happen. New Jersey sits just two points behind the Flyers but they've played an extra game, and two head-to-head win would be pretty big in terms of staying ahead of NJ for the duration of the season.

Aside from the two games against the Penguins in the final week of the year, this impending home-and-home against the Devils could be the most important games the rest of the way when it comes to playoff seeding and the Flyers first round fate. Of course, maybe losing these games wouldn't be all that awful ...

Anyway, Claude Giroux will probably do this again today, so you should probably watch. 7 pm tonight and stuff. We'll have a neat game thread and everything.