It’s too early to say the Flyers are on a winning streak, but the orange and black gained another valuable two points last night against archrivals the Pittsburgh Penguins in a 3-2 win at the CONSOL Energy Center. It was a battle from the drop of the puck, as Mike Richards decided to set the tone early by scrapping with Pens agitator Matt Cooke. Jody Shelley followed his lead shortly after, but was bloodied by rookie Deryk Engelland.
As a whole, the team played with their hearts on their sleeves. You could tell that they wanted to win this badly, and it helped that many of the players’ fathers were in attendance. For whatever reason, the referees were afraid to let them play early on and called six penalties in the first four minutes, leading to a ridiculous 1:43 of 3-on-3 play. The Flyers were penalized a few more times throughout the game, but they didn’t allow Sidney Crosby to take them apart like he did in their last meeting.
Claude Giroux had a fantastic game last night. Giroux joined Mike Richards on a shorthanded rush in the first period and knocked the puck past goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury with finesse. Giroux also had a powerplay goal in the third period that bolstered the lead for the Flyers. Giroux is off to a great start this season with six goals, including three shorthanded goals tallied.
Dan Carcillo had his first goal of the season, deflecting a point shot from defenseman Matt Carle through Fleury’s five hole. Many people think that coach Peter Laviolette has a grudge against Carcillo, but his statements about the pugilist tend to suggest otherwise. The Flyers simply have too many third and fourth line players vying for roster spots with the expectation that one of them steps up to fill a top nine role.
Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made the difference. The first goal for the Pens was a long cross-ice pass to defenseman Kris Letang, who was left completely open in front of the net. The defense tightened things up afterwards, but Bob was lights out.
The other big story of the game was the scratching of forward Nikolay Zherdev. Zherdev is expected to fill a top six position on this team, but his gameplay has been more flash than substance. It’s unknown if he was scratched due to character questions or if Laviolette thought he had a better match-up for the Penguins without him, but one things for certain- Zherdev is on notice.
Atlantic division rivals the New York Islanders will be in town tonight against the Flyers.
They probably scratched Z to send him a message. That message would be… “suck less”.
Weird thing about it, though, was he did score against Buffalo. I thought I remembered him doing something good recently… maybe there was something else going on.
From what I’ve seen so far of the Flyers,
They look slower and less skilled, Their new Goalie looks pretty good
I think they are a 40-42 win team and about a 4th-6th Seeding for the playoffs come Spring
They really blew their best chance for the Stanley Cup last year for the likeliehood that both the Caps/Pens get eliminated early in the Playoffs without the Flyers having to play against one of them is probably a once in a 20 year chance … back to medicority for the Orange and Black