So apparently there was a hockey game in Montreal tonight; everybody just forgot to tell the Flyers’ penalty kill that it was happening. A bunch of other weird things happened, so let’s get to some quick thoughts as everybody lets this one digest:
- Dale Weise had two goals. Yeah, that’s right. If you could bottle the stench of how Emery looked on both of them, you could definitely market the fragrance as “flatulence.” It just wasn’t his night.
- Speaking of Emery, the .777 he posted tonight was pretty indicative of his play. The penalty kill certainly didn’t help (I’ll get to that in a bit.), and the egregious errors in everybody’s positioning seemed to magnify the shortcomings of Emery on the penalty kill, but you can definitely put the rest of the game on him. He’s had pretty solid, if not great, outings to start the season, but it was only a matter of time before we saw a game like this out of him.
- Montreal is absolutely laughable on the power play. They haven’t scored a power play goal on the road ALL SEASON LONG. Before tonight, they had only scored 4 power play goals at home. Not to worry, they were lucky enough to find something very early on that fixed their troubles with the man advantage: play the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers have now allowed 6 goals on their last 7 “kills” dating back to last Saturday, during which period the penalty kill has looked upsetting at best and cringing at worst. They’re really missing Adam Hall and Kimmo Timonen.
- Matt Read scored a goal that had me laughing for about 5 minutes. Shades of Grossmann’s goal against Pittsburgh two seasons ago, eh?
Jake Voracek now leads the league in points by 1 over somebody in Pittsburgh (can’t quite think of the name). That’s pretty cool. Voracek’s got a 10 game point streak, and he’s only had 1 game in which he hasn’t registered a single point. #93’s been a superstar long before the start of this season, but at least everybody’s beginning to recognize it. Great to see. - The schedule stinks, but that’s not an excuse. Still — how do the Flyers get off six days then play a back-to-back? The NHL is crazy./
I’ll have more up tomorrow; Flyers head to MSG for the first time this season for “Rivalry Night” (Whatever.) on Wednesday, and I’m assuming the team will have off tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of weekend, ya’ll.
Go Flyers.
