PHILADELPHIA — We’re at the Wachovia Center today, where the Flyers are (obviously) preparing for the Chicago Blackhawks and Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, which kicks off tonight. Yes, that’s right — the Stanley Cup Final begins tonight.
The Flyers, on home ice, hope to be much better equipped to take advantage of the breaks that come ones way when you’re playing in front of a raucous home crowd and all the advantages home cooking brings. Peter Laviolette talked about “getting in the race” at his morning press conference, saying that it’s a must win and that the Flyers need to get on the board in the series.
Laviolette also talked about the lack of pressure, and how being at home relieves that sort of thing even more. Asked about his emotional reaction to God Bless America being performed at the Wach, Laviolette said it gets him “fired up.” He’ll be “fired up all day and fired up all night.” He promptly smiled and left the podium.
They’ll look to get their first Stanley Cup Final game victory since 1987 tonight, and they’ll do it with the same lineup they used in Game 2. At the morning skate here, James van Riemsdyk and Ryan Parent were each skating with the other black aces, guys like Andreas Nodl and Danny Syvret.
After the jump, a bit of video from the tail end of this morning’s skate, as well as some other notes from the morning press availabilty.
Some notes from Laviolette’s presser:
- He talked about Jeff Carter, and the difficulty of returning to the lineup after suffering two broken feet. He made a point of mentioning how Carter is getting more involved in scoring chances and how it’s only a matter of time before he breaks through and scores a goal in this series
- Laviolette also talked about “fine-tuning” the shots on Antti Niemi. He said that part of the goal is to get the puck up high, but was obviously pretty vague in his assessment of how the Flyers plan to beat Niemi.
You can see JVR and Parent here, shooting on Brian Boucher.
UPDATE 11:36 AM — The ‘Hawks just took the ice, and Andrew Ladd was skating with them. We’ll hear from Joel Quenneville in a bit.
12:33 PM — Quenneville called the ‘Hawks lineup “status quo.” Ladd will not play tonight.
