When a team is rolling the way the Flyers have been through their first two games, it's preferable not to have too many days between games. Unfortunately, the Flyers are idle until tomorrow night's home opener, by which point it will have been four nights since the 3-0 shutout win in New Jersey.

Last season, even during the first half of the year when the Flyers were challenging Vancouver for the best record in the NHL, the club seemed to struggle in the first game back after long layoffs. We'll see how this year's edition of the team fares.

One positive about the lengthy stretch of non-game nights in the first week of the season is that has given the team's older veterans (especially Chris Pronger) and players who got a little banged up in the first two games a little extra recuperation time. That's actually more valuable early in the season than one might think.

The intensity level of the first few games -- in which teams try to establish an identity and also have the adrenaline rush of playing opening night games that had been circled on their calendars for months -- is sometimes higher than it will be at any point until the stretch drive. Of course there are individual "measuring stick" games that teams get up for throughout the entire season. But there is typically an early-season energy plateau that drops gradually on a week-by-week basis until there is reason to press hard on the gas pedal once again.

Given the choice between a few too many days off this week and already having to endure a three-game-in-four-night stretch as the Dallas Stars have done, I think it better serves Pronger in particular to have the extra days right now. He looked rusty in the season opener, better in New Jersey. The additional practice days and the routine at home can help him get caught up to where he'd normally be physically at that point.

*****

In watching several games from around the NHL yesterday, several points were hammered home into my head:

* The nearly empty stands in Dallas (an announced crowd of 6,306 but seemingly half that size in actual turnstile count) reminded me of how much the Flyers expect packed houses or at least mostly full stands whenever they play at home. Although not every home game is a sellout, it's noteworthy in Philadelphia when there are even 1,000 unsold seats left over for a non-marquee game with an odd start time.

That was the case in Dallas yesterday, with a local 5 p.m. start time for a game against Phoenix on a night that overlapped with the Rangers playing at home in the ALCS. I'm not going to go into the reasons why fan interest in the Stars has been on the wane in recent years, except to say that I hope it picks up again once the club's bankruptcy process is finished and the sale completed. I will say, though, that yesterday's attendance was an embarrassment no matter how it's spun. To be fair, the Stars' opening game at American Airlines Center officially drew a crowd of 15, 285.

* Ilya Bryzgalov is going to have a few rough nights over the course of the season. Not every game is going to be a one-goal game or shutout, as the first two matches have been. There will be games where he lets in goals he should have stopped. He's human, and even elite goalies (he's been one for most of the last two-plus seasons) are going to get out of rhythm at times. I hope that when the inevitable bad nights happen that people keep the bigger picture in mind.

Watching what has befallen Washington's Tomas Vokoun over the past week -- losing out on the opening night assignment to Michal Neuvirth because of a so-so preseason and then struggling something awful in the Caps' game yesterday -- made me grateful that the Flyers' goalie has come out sharp in the early going.

Could you imagine what would be going on locally if the situation were reversed and Vokoun had outplayed Bryzgalov for a couple games? Alternatively, suppose the Flyers had opted for Vokoun at a lower price than they paid to sign Bryzgalov, and Bryz got off to a strong start elsewhere while Vokoun let in a few goals like the flat-angle ones that got by him yesterday? There would be mass hysteria about how the Flyers went on the cheap again when it came to their goaltender and were already doomed to failure.

Vokoun is still a quality NHL goaltender. He's just off to a slow start. If this were a random midseason game, hardly anyone would blink an eye. There would be a few highlight clips with "rough night for Vokoun" commentary, but not be an entire segment on Versus/ NBC in which Ed Olczyk and Jeremy Roenick questioned his mental toughness and already counted him out as someone on whom his club can rely come playoff time.

I'm just glad the drama is taking place elsewhere right now.

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