I blame Mike Knuble.

Ok, it's a little tongue in cheek but I do feel that way. Today he cost us the game. A stupid, idiotic penalty taken in the first period that set up the all important first goal. You cannot stop skating. Useless, as I like to call him, has never skated in his defensive zone. He's a liability and he's slow and he has never been defensively responsible. That being said, he did win Game 4 for us against Washington, a game I was at. So, you know...

Whatever. Moving on.

Today was a horrible way to end a season--any season, let alone one that saw a league worst team play their way up to the conference finals. What's worse is that the Flyers will not get the credit that they deserve from anyone but their own media stations and Philadelphia print/TV outlets. To lose a game like this away from your fans and have to chided and jeered by 15,000+ unintelligent bandwagon jumpers is just a horribly unfitting end to a brilliant team's run at glory.

Out of it all I feel worst for Martin Biron. He is an exceptional player, a brilliant goaltender and a good man who does not deserve to be blamed for any of the Flyers' woes. His play was inspiring in the series against Montreal, his leadership was necessary and his attitude was professional and brilliant. A six goal outing is not a proper way to end his season. He'll be back next year as our true number one.

It's funny that I found that picture that this blog begins with. Those four players are my heroes on the team. Thoresen is a player that I really feel for. Taken out of the line-up for, what I thought was no real reason, but when he was put back in he played with all heart. He's an amazing player, he plays hard no matter the situation and he plays physical at every single point in the game. Then, to rub salt in his proverbial wounds, they took away the goal that he rightfully scored. They say he prevented Fleury from making the save, it was a quick whistle from a ref that loves to make calls. It's just insult to injury and at that point, it really could have changed the game.

I can never say enough about Sami Kapenen. Some say that he doesn't do anything for the team as he doesn't always put points up on the board. I think that is as off base as the glory that Fleury is pulling down as a goalie. He plays with a 5'10" 185 pound heart and he is never one to make excuses.

R.J. Umberger. After his great series against Montreal, everyone put everything on this kids shoulders. "Oh he's going to play Pittsburgh, he always kills the Pens!" You cannot do that thing to a young player even when he's as great as R.J. He plays a great style of hockey and his talent and potential are there. He's only going to get better as the years go on. He is proof that the Flyers are going to be a force to be reckoned with until 2020....at least.

Richards will be our captain next year. His play and off-ice abilities have earned him that right. He is a leader and he is the Philadelphia Flyer attitude incarnate. Tenacious, energetic, and intelligent, Richards will be the face and the cornerstone of the team for years to come. He's a better player than Crosby, Ovechkin and Malkin and he'll never get the credit for that.

But that's how we like it in Philly. It's us against the world. So one last time...

WAKE UP PHILADELPHIA AND LET ME HEAR YOU SING!!

THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK! THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK!

They're Baaaaaack...

Watch out Pittsburgh.

The Philadelphia Flyers remembered how to play. Tonight they were running on all cylinders and they were ready for anything. Let's start out by giving credit where credit is due.

Scottie Upshall had one hell of a game tonight. He was hitting anything that moved and wore yellow (an appropriate color for the way the Penguins played tonight, just cowardly) and would take any hit to make a play. He is the epitome of sacrifice and the Flyers are lucky to have a guy like this in the line-up. His hit on Straka (I think it was him) at the end of the game was maybe a charge but since when does the league call that? There have been about 12 charges that I've seen go by the boards (no pun intended) this Playoff season. Where were the zebras then? Anyway, whether or not it was a penalty it was a huge message. He wasn't just hitting one man, he was telling all of Pittsburgh that they better watch out, and keep their head up because Philly is not going to say die.

Deiran Hatcher, another man who had some rough stuff at the end, played a great game. You want to know how I know? I didn't notice him at all. That's right, the marquee of a great defensemen is unless he's crushing your most hated enemy, you don't even know he played. The same can be said about Jason "Gator" Smith.

Two blue-liners I did notice, for all the right reasons, were Randy Jones and Ryan Parent. Besides one mistake per, the duo held their own and stifled a Pittsburg offense that has been getting the bounces and out-hustling the Flyers in the previous three games. Everyone on the back line for the Orange and Black played well tonight and they have to keep that effort there for any remaining games.

Let's see, who else deserves accolades? The whole team played well and after Stevens shook up the lines there was a new sense of chemistry. So kudos to him. Though I called for it during the second intermission of game 3, Stevens' retooling of the line-up no doubt played a part in tonight's victory.

So are they just delaying the inevitable? No. The Flyers have a legitimate shot at beating the Penguins in three straight games after tonight. Though they are both young teams, the Flyers roster is choc full o' leaders. Hatcher, Smith, Kapanen, Timmonen, and Richards are all that guy that you want in the locker room for your club.

What helps the Broadstreet Bullies even more is the fact that while young, the Penguins roster is not full of that kind of leadership. Malkin, Crosby, Stall these guys are one-man shows. They don't inspire their players, they try to do the job by themselves. Granted they are capable of doing so. However, you started to see the cracks in the foundation of the Penguins, they got mad and started running around when the game was out of reach. They're a young team that can be put back on the heels and shaken off their game. I think the Flyers are just the team to do that.

33 Years ago...it happened. Why not us?

The Orange and the Blech

Where the %&#!@ are the Philadelphia Flyers?!?!
I certainly haven't watched them pay in the past week. Where is the forecheck? The passion? Where's Marty Biron?!?! Aparently he wasn't allowed back into the country after game 5 in Montreal.
When it comes down to it, Game 3 was lost on a bad bounce and a lack of hustle. Towards the end of the regular season, the Flyers wouldn't have put up with half of the things that they took tonight. Too many times I screamed at the television "skate!" or "get the puck!" you can't even say they're losing the battles along the boards because half of the time they aren't entering those battles. No one was skating save Randy Jones, Mike Richards, RJ Umberger and Jeff Carter. From shift to shift Sami Kapenen and Jim Dowd turned it on too. Tell me what prevented John Stevens from putting some new lines together? Please somebody tell me that. If RJ, Jeff and Mike are the only people who have jump them stick 'em together (or at least Cartsy and RJ since Richards is another center) and watch them score 4 unanswered goals to win the damn game and turn the series around.
I expect everyone to jump on top of Steve Downie as the new goat to ride out of the playoffs. Yeah he turned it over again when he shoudln't have but what about the four other guys that Malkin weaved through to make a stupid broken play goal happen? There's got to be culpability from everyone. The Flyers aren't going to blame Downie, Downie isn't even going to blame Downie, its the media and the horrible broadcasting of VS and NBC that will jump all over the guy needlessly and without fail. They're just vultures waiting, with Gary Betman and the rest of the NHL for the Flyers to screw up so that they can celebrate with a bottle of Don Perignon and a tape of highlights from Sid the Kid Sanchez-Louganis.
What's even worse than the way that the Flyers took to the ice tonight was the coverage from VS. If I wanted to hear two guys rag on the Orange and the Black for an entire night I could have just called some of my friends from collage. They're not even trying to be unbiased or present the game in a balanced fashion. Whatever the color commentator's name is, he was horrible and just stupid. Half the time, though I must admit I would tune out when he spoke, I could not tell what he was saying at all. He spoke in circles and his voice is just grating and horribly annoying no matter what team your rooting for.
I can take losing, when the other team earns it. The Penguins have not earned a dam thing. Scott Hartnell was completely correct when he said the Flyers made the "magic" happen for Pittsburg. The Flyers have beaten the Flyers in three games and hopefully in the fourth they can stop getting in their own way.

Ravings of a mad fan

Let's get right back into the swing of things by talking about the NHL playoffs.

The Flyers are good enough to win the Stanley Cup this year, but they are being defeated, not by the other teams, but by small bounces, atrocious calls, and just plain bad luck.

Take game 2 against the Pittsburg Penguins as an example. The 4-2 loss came after the Flyers outworked and flat-out beat the Penguins through two and three quarters periods. Face it Pens fans, the Flyers controlled the tempo, which is hard to do on the horrible ice conditions provided by the Mellon Arena, and dominated the physical play. There's no two ways about it, the Orange and the Black came to play in the second game.

However, Sid the Kid, or as he has been called by Steve Coates of CSN and David Boreanez, a celebrity blogger for NHL.com, Sidney Lugainis and Rico Sanchez, got lucky. It's that simple. He still hasn't deserved a goal that he scored against the Flyers. In game one he was given a gift and did absoultely nothing to earn that point. In game two he got a lucky (or unlucky, depending on your location) bounce off the stick of Lasse. It was just weak. What's worse is that he's still touted as the best player in the league when for my money he'd be the fourth pick after Mike Richards, Evgeni Malkin and Dion Phaneuff of player under 25. He's a punk and he can't even grow a good playoff beard, god sakes.

Next up, the atrocious officiating. So far in this playoff year the referees and linesmen have had the consistancy of vomit and the taste to boot. The hit that Malkin gave Danny Briere was down right cheap. "A forearm shiver" as it was called on T.V. --that's funny I would have described it as a blatant elbow designed to injur one of the best players on the Flyers-- should have drawed more attention than just the Philadelphia bench. For a second let us imagine that the hit in question was dolled out by one Steve Downie on the aforementioned Sidney Rico Sanchez Lugainis. Downie would be gone, I mean suspended for 10+ games, fined upwards of $25,000 and the Flyers would also be shouldered with a bill from the league. The NHL won't even take a second look at the hit. As far as they are concerned it may as well never happened. Don't even get me started on that "hook" that Hatcher put on Malkin. How can one be capable of hookign when he doesn't even have two hands on his stick? Positional defense is aparently prohibited in the playoffs this year.

Luck. Yeah its a funny thing. One day you're nailing posts and crossbars with shots that should, in all right, be guaranteed goals, the next you can't miss the net even if you hit it with the but end of your stick. Although I just described Mike Knuble's career, I am more mad about the injuries that just piled up on the Fly Guys and give everone, but the team and die-hard fans, an excuse to count the team out of the race completely. First Kimmo Timonen goes down with a blod clot. The worst part of this is that all the media, all the print, all the television, all the talk is about how the Flyers cannot go on without him. Though it does spark some good, yet off-colour jokes. (How are the Flyers like a cancer patient? No one is giving them a shot without Kimmo--Horrible, I know, yet I cannot resist) On top of all that, Braydon Coburn, a young blue-liner who has come into his own and established himself as a top-shelf defensemen in the NHL under John Stevens, is out after getting hit in the face with a horribly unlucky shot. (The thing that really gets me is that he only got hit because Malkin booked it out of the way like a little puppy darting out of a room when the vaccuum comes on.) 50+ stitches later the Flyers are down two d-men and are faced with a 0-2 hole in the series.

But, I have faith. Coming back to Philly--where the ice is fast and the crowd is raucus--will be horribly difficult for the Penguins. Sanchez-Lugainis and Malkin have no idea what awaits them in the City of Brotherly Love. I cannot wait to see how loud the Wachovia Center gets when one of them gets planted by Hatcher or Gator. Look for the Flyers to win two straight, take it back to Pittsburg, whoop 'em on their ice then come back and wrap-up the series in Philly. 4-2 Flyers series win, four straight wins for the Flyers and a date with the Wings in the Finals. It's coming, so...WAKE UP PHILADELPHIA AND LET ME HEAR YOU SING--

THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK, THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK!

Don't call it a comeback!

Just call it a return from laziness. I apologize for my absence. I had to do that school thing and then finish it off with that whole graduating thing that "adults" do. It's still ridiculous to think about but none the less I promise now that I am free of accademic pressure I will return to my .76 blogs/per day pace that I set for myself over winter break. And no, I did not do that math. English major. remember?

Good Ol' Days pt. 1

Let's start with the easy ones shall we?

Bobby Clarke #16 (1969-1984)

The Flyer from Flin-Flon, there's no way that this guy could be left off the list. I could go on with a bunch of flowery language and awesome adjectives about how great a player he was and how he was THE Flyer throughout the 70's and early 80's. When one thinks of the Flyers, one can't not think of Clarkey. My cat is named after him, my mom still loves him and my uncle still has his name on the back of his jersey. Obviously he's the greatest Flyer to ever play in Philly.

Bernie Parent #1 (1967-71, 73-79)

Maybe the only Flyer to be on the cover of TIME Magazine, Bernie is one of the greatest goaltenders in NHL history and tops when it comes to Philly. The man's mask defined a generation of hockey in Pennsylvania and he put up hall-of-fame numbers in his two stints with the Broadstreet Bullies. Again the "duh factor" is high on this choice. Of course the two time Conn Smythe and two time Vezina trophy winner is one of the greatest of all time.

The Good Ol' Days prologue

So...to say that the Flyers aren't doing so hot right now would be an understatement. So, in lieu of good times to talk about now, I'll just get nostalgic. There's been some amazing players to come through Philadelphia since the team came into the NHL in 1967. The following couple blogs, which I'll try to update over the course of the next few days, will be my picks for the All-Time Philadelphia Flyers squad. I think I'm going to choose two lines worth of forwards (6) and two lines of defense (2) and two goaltenders (which will be bery hard). I'll probably put together a list of unsung heroes and honorable mentions too.