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Meltzer's Musings: 12-31-09 |
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The Flyers did a tremendous job of building off their win on Long Island and playing one of their best all-around games of the season in humiliating the Rangers by a 6-0 score at Madison Square Garden last night. While the Rangers didn't help their own cause at all, the Flyers deserve credit for playing with the sort of focus and intensity that had back lacking far too often during the 2009 portion of the season.
Now comes the big test. The Flyers need to continue rolling as the opponents get tougher. The Winter Classic game will be a major challenge in its own right, and the Boston Bruins are also heading into the game coming off a convincing shutout win (4-0 over Atlanta last night) and playing well overall with four wins in their last five games.
Last night, it was especially heartening to see Simon Gagne play the way he can when he's healthy. His skating still isn't back to 100% -- Gagne still doesn't have the breakaway stride we saw in seasons past -- but you can see it starting to come back along with his offensive timing. The returns of Blair Betts and Darroll Powe have also been immensely helpful to the lineup. But the Flyers are hardly in position to relax, nor have they earned a pass for . The team has shown that it's just as capable of looking like one of the worst teams in the NHL as it is of being a tough matchup for the top clubs in the East.
Last night's shutout and four-game winning streak aside, Michael Leighton is really no more than a serviceable NHL backup or high-end third string (i.e., AHL) goaltender. Nevertheless, he has done a hell of a job for this team and significantly eased the pressure on the Flyers to rush Brian Boucher (and, ultimately, Ray Emery) back into the lineup. The craziest part of this whole topsy-turvy season for the Flyers has been that apart from the stretch where Emery was playing hurt before going on IR, goaltending has rarely been a main factor in games the Flyers have lost.
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I was happy to see Mike Richards earn a spot on the Canadian Olympic team, although he hasn't had the type of season so far that everyone had hoped to see. Richards will be a supporting cast player on the Canadian team and I think it will be a great learning experience that he can bring back to the Flyers for the stretch run. At his age, I'm not worried about late-season fatigue. As for injuries, well, there's always a risk. To me, the positives of Richards' participation outweigh the negatives.
I'd be remiss if I did not discuss Jeff Carter's exclusion from Team Canada. He and Richards have had equally disappointing seasons, but Richards is arguably a more natural fit for an Olympic checking line than Carter.
Earlier this season, a well-respected NHL scout opined that Carter's two-way play was a mantra hyped by John Stevens for Carter's benefit -- to get him to take pride in being a complete player -- more than it was a reality of the way Carter plays on a game-in and game-out basis.
The scout, who is at the Wachovia Center virtually every game, said of Carter, "When he's up on his skates and he feels confident, it spills over from his offensive game to his defensive game. There are games where I think he can match up against any team's top center. But every game? No, not yet. I think John [Stevens] wants Jeff to start believing it, and that's the biggest step. He has the ability."
Without having any knowledge of the thought process that led Steve Yzerman to pick Richards and leave off Carter, I suspect that they had an assessment similar to the scout's (who is not affiliated with Team Canada). Perhaps they felt that Carter had to score his way onto the final roster while they viewed Richards as grittier and more able to contribute in a variety of ways even if the grit/physicality went AWOL for awhile after the David Booth incident.
With Chris Pronger, I'm not quite as thrilled about his selection from a strictly Flyers-related standpoint. He was a shoo-in from the outset, so it's no surprise to anyone. He's still going to be relied on to play heavy minutes for Team Canada before returning for a stretch run schedule that is absolutely brutal. Ditto Kimmo Timonen with Team Finland. However, when I take off the orange-and-black-tinted glasses, I see the importance of their involvement for their respective national teams.
I realize am in the minority of American hockey lovers when it comes to major international hockey events such as the Olympics or World Cup of Hockey. I think such events are every bit as important in their own right as the NHL season and selected players should do everything in their power to play, the same as they do in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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