For all the pessimism that has lingered over the Flyers in the past few weeks, they have slowly been building momentum towards the end of the regular season. With a dominating 5-0 shutout win against the Southeast Division leading Florida Panthers, the Flyers have now won four straight and earned two shutouts in three games.
The losses of Jake Voracek and Pavel Kubina contributed to concerns that the Flyers could have their work cut out for them much like they did against the Detroit Red Wings, but the Flyers never allowed the Panthers to “take control” at any point of the game. They finished the game outshooting the Panthers 35-28 and blocked 18 shots compared to 6 for the Panthers.
Brayden Schenn, moving up to the top line while a sore Jaromir Jagr moved down to the fourth line, capitalized on a whiffed shot by Scott Hartnell on an early powerplay to put the Flyers on the scoreboard.
Matt Read chipped in an early second period goal on a great shift with Danny Briere and Wayne Simmonds as the Panthers’ defense became sloppy. Read now leads all NHL rookies with 19 goals.
Hartnell collected an errant pass mid-way through the second and sniped one over goaltender Jose Theodore to pad the lead.
Jagr, showing that even hurt he’s a better option on the fourth line than a rookie, scored on a 5-on-3 powerplay through traffic in the third period while Eric Wellwood tallied his second goal in three games.
Ilya Bryzgalov continued his stretch of excellent play. As Bob H. of FlyersFaithful pointed out, tonight’s shutout was the first time that the Flyers had a regulation, regular season shutout on home ice since January 21, 2010 against the New York Rangers. If you count the playoffs, then Michael Leighton’s shutout in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Montreal Canadiens in May, 2010 would be the last home ice shutout.
Defenseman Brandon Manning, making his NHL debut, had three shots and a +2 rating in 14:59 of ice time. While he made a few uneasy turnovers, he handled himself decently.
Danny Briere also played his 800th game, earning two assists in the process. Briere hasn’t broken out of his slump just yet, but the competitiveness of his line was palpable. If it weren’t for the goal post, he would have made it 6-0 in the third period.
The Flyers have back-to-back games this weekend against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New Jersey Devils. As I’ve said before, it’s likely Sergei Bobrovsky gets a start in one of those games, but it remains to be seen how Peter Laviolette will spread the minutes.
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BRYZ is finally living up to his hype. He better keep it up.
Crowd gave him a lot of love last night. Dude looks like a different person out there.
How about Matt Effin Read? All the talk about the stud rookies in Couterier and Schenn, but Read is leading rookies in goals. Love everything about him. And Wellwood accelerates like DeSean Jackson. The future is bright.
Hopefully he stays in the net for the playoffs, cup run, and laviollette does not start the goalie carousel with bob
The team is finally blocking shots for Bryz consistently, he needs that help.
Bryz has been a guy who needs work to be sharp and is now getting it. Hopefully he can play like this with a full lineup in front of him come playoff time.
bugs, the young dudes are a breath of fresh air. That’s why I was saying before, that Hartnell might be expendable. IMHO, his or VanRiemsdyk’s contract has to go in the off-season, along with Coburn. Especially if you’re going to re-sign both Jagr & Grossmann, & make a run at Weber. He has to be priority #1, I don’t care at what cost. It’s ashame that Timonen & Briere are virtually un-tradeable, because that would help.
Talk of trading Briere is silly as he is a leader, a skilled player, and has all the heart in the world…Hartmell also valuable…Young guys?…Yes yes yes, but vets supply balance.