Broad Street Hockey: All Posts by Travis Hughes

Philadelphia Flyers at Montreal Canadiens: Game 42 discussion thread

2013-04-15T21:41:32Z

Philadelphia Flyers (17-21-3, 37) at Montreal Canadiens (26-10-5, 57)
7:30 p.m. | Bell Centre | Montreal, Quebec, Canada
TV: CSN Philly, TSN Habs, RDS | Radio: 93.3 WMMR
Get the Montreal perspective at Eyes On The Prize

Hockey doesn't seem to matter much today given what's happened in Boston, but while the Bruins vs. Senators game was postponed by the NHL, the rest of the hockey world still goes on, and the Flyers will hit the ice with the Canadiens at 7:30 p.m. ET this evening. In Boston, they will be watching.

Sports exist to help us through tough times. There'll be a Public Skate on Chowdah at 7PM to watch games from around the league. Come visit.
— StanleyCup ofChowder (@cupofchowdah) April 15, 2013

So we're going to join them. No game thread tonight here at BSH. Instead, if you're interested in discussing the game, come with us to Stanley Cup of Chowder where we'll join Bruins fans for an open discussion thread. Readers of SB Nation sites across the league will be joining us there as well.

Update #3 (10:15 pm): Join us in Public Skate Thread #4
~~Update #2 (9:00 pm): Join us in Public Skate Thread #3~~
~~Update #1 (7:35 pm): Join us in Public Skate Thread #2~~
~~Join us here.~~

Sports exist to help us through tough times. There'll be a Public Skate on Chowdah at 7PM to watch games from around the league. Come visit.
— StanleyCup ofChowder (@cupofchowdah) April 15, 2013

Update #3 (10:15 pm): Join us in Public Skate Thread #4
~~Update #2 (9:00 pm): Join us in Public Skate Thread #3~~
~~Update #1 (7:35 pm): Join us in Public Skate Thread #2~~
~~Join us here.~~

Thursday Morning Fly By: Gagne's successful return

2013-02-28T13:19:28Z

* Simon Gagne's return went pretty well as the Flyers walked all over the Caps. (BSH) (Flyers Faithful) {Meltzer) (Inquirer) (CSN) (Japers' Rink)

* Gagne spoke after the game: "I feel like I never left." (CSN)

* Erik Gustafsson suffered a lower body injury after blocking a shot, though. (CSN)

* Mike Milbury was all over Alex Ovechkin for his performance last night. (SBNation.com)

* The Danny Briere trade rumors are flying; the latest has him going to St. Louis. (BSH)

* Matt Read skated yesterday morning, which is great news. (CSN Philly)

* Brandon Prust wanted to fight. He dropped a glove. Dion Phaneuf just skated away, and the GIF is hilarious. (SBNation.com)

* Eddie Olczyk made a huge deal about Nail Yakupov ducking to avoid a Dan Carcillo hit the other day. He has a point? (Backhand Shelf)

* This NHL realignment scheme has somehow gotten worse. I think we all knew that would happen. (BSH)

* A hockey dad in British Columbia was just sentenced to fifteen days in jail for tripping a teenaged player. (CBC)

* Cam Ward absolutely robs Joel Ward, and it is pretty. (Puck Daddy)

Flyers vs. Penguins recap: Well, that was anticlimactic

2013-01-19T23:54:12Z

That's not exactly how we drew it up, is it? After waiting 256 days for Flyers hockey (and admittedly, still riding the high of last year's playoff win vs. Pittsburgh a bit), we were expecting another win at the Wells Fargo Center to kick off the 2013 season.

[Complete Coverage] - [Pittsburgh Reaction]
[Event Summary] - [PBP Log] - [TOI Log] - [Faceoff Report]

But in familiar Flyers fashion, it was one weak period that did them in, and thus, a 3-1 loss and an 0-1-0 record. Philly dominated possession and control of the game for much of the final 40 minutes, but they looked a bit lost in the first. Pittsburgh came in and walked all over the Flyers in all three zones during the first period, I thought, and it resulted in two goals that the Flyers could never gain back.

The second and third periods were much better. Pressure on Marc-Andre Fleury, finding the readily-available holes in the Pens defense, winning battles along the boards, solid puck movement. But if there's one aspect of the game the Flyers couldn't take over, it was the power play. They went 0-for-5 with the man advantage in the game.

It seems to be consensus that the Flyers' first PP unit of Wayne Simmonds, Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell, Jakub Voracek and Kimmo Timonen looked good for much of their opportunities, but that the second unit of Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier, Matt Read, Kurtis Foster and Andrej Meszaros looked like utter crap. Something to work on, for sure. Could have been the difference in the game today.

A few more assorted thoughts:

* Ilya Bryzgalov wasn't a storyline in any way, shape or form. Guess we'll take that as a good thing.

* Thought Brayden Schenn had a pretty rough game, and his ice time took a hit, so perhaps Peter Laviolette agreed. Brayden played just 13:55. Only Scott Laughton, Zac Rinaldo, Ruslan Fedotenko and Eric Wellwood skated less. Schenn's supposed to be a first line guy, remember.

* On defense, the Flyers leaned heavily on Braydon Coburn and Nicklas Grossmann. In terms of even strength ice time, those two played north of 18 minutes while Kimmo Timonen and Luke Schenn played 15:33 and 15:07, respectively. Andrej Meszaros played 14:45 and Foster played just 10:45. Kimmo picked up a lot of special teams minutes, as is typical, and Schenn did a lot of penalty killing.

* Eric Wellwood had a really good game and deserves more ice time. For real. And to think, he was battling for ice time both in camp this past week and all season under Terry Murray. Was one of the Flyers' best forwards today.

* Officiating was rough.

* Sidney Crosby felt pretty invisible, so that's always nice.

* Luke Schenn scored a goal! ... wrong team, though.

* Honestly, didn't pay too much attention to Scott Laughton. He didn't stand out, so that's good, but I want to go back and have another look at his game before commenting too much.

* We expected some rust to start, and it's not the end of the world that the team didn't look all that sharp in the first period after such a short training camp and such a long offseason. Encouraged by the final 40 to 50 minutes, for sure.

The Flyers are at PHL for a flight to Buffalo at 7:30 tonight. Quick turnaround for tomorrow's 12:30 puck drop. We'll forget this one and move on.

Comment of the Day

Flyers haven't scored since the Eagles hired Chip Kelly.

>> everybodyhitswoohoo, who be trollin'