There’s not a whole lot to say about last night’s 3-1 win against the Dallas Stars. The Flyers played a solid 60 minutes, minus a few defensive gaffes that allowed the Stars to go on the attack.
When Brenden Morrow, sitting on goaltender Brian Boucher’s doorstep, redirected a shot from Mike Ribeiro just above the crease, there was a collective groan from the media that the Flyers once again lost their opportunity for a shutout. If ever there was a game when they deserved one, last night was it, as Boucher was stellar in net.
“He made some big saves,” said Blair Betts. “One in particular, in the third period, I could’ve sworn it was by him… that low glove save, that was labeled for the corner… that was great for us.”
Boosh came up huge on a number of occasions, whether it was Steve Ott crashing the net on a 2-on-1 or settling the puck when the Stars began to swarm.
Earlier in the day, three teams notched their own shutouts- the Montreal Canadiens (Carey Price), San Jose Sharks (Antti Niemi), and the Anaheim Ducks (with Curtis McElhinney, of all people). Even Michael Leighton got a shutout yesterday, shutting down all 20 shots from the Hamilton Bulldogs of the AHL (Montreal’s farm team).
The league leaders for shutouts as of today are Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins and Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers, who have seven shutouts apiece. Price has five while Dwayne Roloson of the Tampa Bay Lightning has four and Marc Andre Fleury of the Pittsburgh Penguins has two.
When asked about the missed opportunity, Boosh said (jokingly), “Yeah, we’re not going to get one this year. It’s just not gonna happen, so we’ll just keep trying to win games and we’ll be happy with that.”
Tim Panaccio of CSNPhilly tweeted during the game that two teams have won the Stanley Cup without recording a shutout during the regular season- the 1981-82 New York Islanders and 1986-87 Edmonton Oilers. Boosh was relayed those facts in the locker room.
“Is that right? See, we’re not getting a shutout this year.”
The shutout really isn’t all that important, as much as it is a nice reward for goaltenders that’ve put in good performances. Boosh doesn’t tend to get a lot of credit, as the team now belongs to Sergei Bobrovsky and people remember the blown-up games more than the low scoring ones (the 7-5 loss to Boston comes to mind, usually).
He has the right mindset, though. As long as the Flyers keep winning games, they have nothing to complain about.
For post-game video from last night’s game, follow me on twitter (@JoshJanet).
