WHISTLER, B.C. _ There's no snow in these mountains for skiiing right now. Yes, the caps have some but it is mostly the rainy season, I am told. And it is raining like hell here.
Flyers cancelled parts of their outdoor activities and did their bonding thing in rain gear. We're not allowed to be part of this and I was originally told it was held indoors.
I can just see Derian Hatcher is rain gear amid cold, rainy monsoon conditions ...
I'm not certain whether a little "bonding" is gonna fix some of the early problems I see and even coach John Stevens is in agreement here:
mental lapses; lack of a 60-minute commitment.
We're not talking just the 5-3 loss in Edmonton, but the first, two games. Yes, the first is doing all the scoring and has chemistry. We'll hold back on whether there is secondary scoring.
What really stands out though are things you saw the team do last season and cringed.
This is virtually a new roster and yet we're seeing timid starts to games; inability to get out of their own end; bad mental lapses on defense.
“We have to have consistency in our game plan,” Stevens said. "We have to come out ready to start hockey games. We can’t come out and start the way we did.
"We played hard, we really pursued the puck, we got on top of their defense and turned a lot of pucks over and turned offense the other way.
"You get down in the third period on the road like that, you kinda play into their hands. Now you gotta force the play to them. I certainly thought the effort was there right to the end.
"But we have to eliminate these mental mistakes and not allow them to get the opportunities they had."
The Flyers gave goalie Marty Biron virtually no help at the outset. He faced 33 shots- 16 in the first period.
“They threw everything at the net,” Biron told me. “We gave them opportunities. It’s not the shots we gave them, it’s the goals we gave them. A couple goals of ourselves, a couple from the slot. One at the beginning of the period, one at the end, We have to clean that up.
"We played hard, we really pursued the puck, we got on top of their defense and turned a lot of pucks over and turned offense the other way.
"You get down in the third period on the road like that, you kinda play into their hands. Now you gotta force the play to them. I certainly thought the effort was there right to the end.
"But we have to eliminate these mental mistakes and not allow them to get the opportunities they had."
Biron had it right: they have to get better and clean up their act.
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Joni Pitkanen did one thing in the game. Threw a puck on net from a bad spot - below the circle - and it accidentally goes in off Mike Knuble's stick.
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Anyone catch Geoff Sanderson literally stealing a goal away from youngster Kyle Brodziak? That puck was headed into the empty net in the final seconds and Sanderson swooped it, gobbled it up and guided in.
That is really low. He took a goal away from the kid.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger • 
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