The Phils game forced us to push these bullets back to today, and besides, with a loss like last night, it’s usually good to let things sit a bit before completely dissecting them. Not that last night’s loss is any easier.
– Yet again, the Flyers found a way to turn a career backup into the next incarnation of Terry Sawchuk. Curtis McElhinney did look good last night, but there’s no way he was unbeatable. The Flyers can’t put pucks on net consistently.
– Lubo Visnovsky is a boss. 27 minutes last night, six blocked shots. By comparison, the Flyers as a team had eight blocks.
– Something we need an answer to: just why the Flyers have so many blocked shots against. It’s become a trend with these Flyers, as last night the Ducks blocked 28 shots. We usually just give credit to the other team for blocking shots, but at some point it becomes more the Flyers fault than the other teams’.
– Andreas Nodl had another fine game. He keeps on earning his way onto the roster.
– Jody Shelley and George Parros fought in the first period. It sucked. After the game, I saw Chris Pronger chatting with Parros as the Ducks were heading to their bus. Former teammate love, ya know?
– Chris Pronger and Kimmo Timonen played 24:08 and 25:38 respectively last night.
– Andrej Mezsaros actually had his first good game as a Flyer last night. He played the body, a decent number of his shots from up top actually got through the defense and on net and he didn’t flub up defensively.
– The Leino-Briere-Hartnell line was fantastic. There’s one reason why the game appeared to be dominated by the Flyers, and that’s because every few minutes when those guys stepped on the ice, they made something happen. If they can get going on a good stretch, it’s going to be incredible to watch.
– Shelley played just two minutes, five seconds. As someone said in the comments last night, yeah, he wasn’t in because the Flyers were trying to win a game in the third period. That’s exactly the point. Jody Shelley cannot be on the ice when you’re trying to win a hockey game.
