USA HOCKEY!

So tonight begins USA hockey's run for Gold (or Silver or Bronze). It will be very interesting to see if this team of young misfits can pull off something magical this year. There have been many previews of the team on the web (see: Flyers Goal Scored by..., and Puck Daddy on Yahoo), so I'm not going to waste my time with that. There are exactly ZERO Flyers players on the team, which is pretty much expected since we have what, 3 players on the roster from the U S of A. Out of those three, maybe in the future Carle and Reemer will make the team, most likely Reemer in 2014, but Boucher will never, ever, wear his country's colors to represent (sorry buddy, but you can't hang with Thomas, Miller and Quick). My best guess would be a 4th place finish for the team this year, I hope for better but am trying to be somewhat realistic here.

As for team Canada, we have two Flyers on there with Richards, and Pronger getting the call. Richards will probably play as a 3rd or 4th line center (shows how deep that team really is) and Pronger will most likely be on the top defensive pairing. It will be very interesting to see how they each play, and hopefully Richards can score a few, as well as Prongs. I'm looking forward to watching them play.

As for the Flyers themselves, jump over to a couple good reads on the Flyers SBNation blog, Broad Street Hockey, where they have a couple of great articles discussing Leighton and what to do with him as well as a defense against Flying P's blog post about why Briere has not been getting more heckling from Flyers fans. As for me, I might take some time off the next week or so before diving back into the blogosphere. I hope everyone has a great Olympic Break and Let's Go Team USA.

Extension and Wins

So, as most of you should know, Blair Betts got a contract extension late last night/early this morning for the next 2 years. This is probably the smartest thing Homer has done ever. Betts has been playing amazing for us this year and is someone that we will need moving forward. His skill in the faceoff circle and the fact that he plays a ton of the hard minutes (penalty kill) has been one of those things we have always needed and will always need being the Flyers. So hats off to Mr. Betts and maybe he can thank us by putting in a couple tonight, that would be very nice of him.

As for the game tonight and the last two against NJ, all I can say is WOW. 2 come from behind wins, against a division rival, and a team we may face in the playoffs. That's something to be extremely happy about. Now we play Montreal who is sitting 1 point ahead of us in the standings and we need to win these games. If we can steal these two games from them, then I will have been right on my prediction that they needed to win 6 of their last 8 before the break to be in a good place. These games will not be easy, but they are definitely not that hard. I am hopeing we can slip away with both of these games, and maybe have one of them be a huge blowout.

My predictions: Tonight 6 to 1 Flyers, tomorrow 3 to 0 Flyers. Let's hope for the best!

Let's Go Flyers!!!

"Must Win" Games

First, I apologize for disappearing for a few days. I went in for shoulder surgery on Thursday and have been down since. I made it back to work today, sling and all, and am still having trouble typing since I can only use one hand for the time being. So this is going to be short.

We haven't played over our competition in the last two games. This is not a good thing. We should have walked away from this trip 3-0-0 instead walking away 1-2-0. This is not good and we need to fix it. Tonight, we get back home and face a newly "offensive" New Jersey team. They have added Kovalchuk and all of his amazing offensive abilities, but that is all that he has. By adding him they have put a huge liability to their defensive end. I watched Kovis first game against NYR and he did not back check AT ALL. He sat in the neutral zone and "cherry picked" waiting for a cheap goal or break away. It was evident in their last game that he was not the "huge, season changing" acquisition that they had hoped for since they lost 3-1. I might be talking crazy, but we should be able to take both of these next two games from the division leader. I want to see our superstars play like superstars NOW. I'm predicting a 4 to 1 win tonight, and then a 3 to 0 win in Jersey. Let's see some hustle boys.

Let's Go Flyers!

The Flyers Savior is here...

Yeah, that's right, I said it. Lukas Krajicek will become the Flyers savior for the season. He will defy all odds, start playing like a first line d-man, and blow everyone's mind that he isn't making shit for money at the end of the year. But now back to reality, I really do like this guy. His face does scare the crap out of me, but he can play Lavi's system pretty much just as well as any other d-man on the team. He was jumping up into plays, he was putting shots on goal with a pretty huge slapper, he was being defensively responsible. A lot of this probably helps while playing with an All-Star such as Timonen, but never the less, he did his job. If you didn't notice, he also spent a decent bit of time playing with Oskars Bartulis. I like the addition, and I hope he will continue to prove to everyone that he deserved to go in the first round all those years ago.

Onto a quick recap of last night:

The best game of the season so far for every aspect. Defense, offense, (sort of) special teams, goaltending. It was all there for the entire team. The Richards goal from the Gange "smack the puck out of the air, perfect with no bounce for Richards to slam home" play was pretty intense and very lucky. Giroux's ridiculous backhander that completely fooled Kippy was sweet. And it's funny, after the game he was asked about it and he actually said, "I wanted to go forehand, but the defense got back and I had to shoot backhand". He really did make Kippy look stupid. Besides that, as I already said, it was one hell of a game and hopefully we can keep it rolling as we get to Edmonton. If we play another game like this against the lowely Edmonton squad, it will be about 6 or 8 to 0. I can't wait to see it. (Philly 3 - Calgary 0)

Let's Go Philly!!!