NHL Board of Guvs new realignment plan:

CONF. A CONF. B CONF. C CONF. D
Anaheim Chicago Boston Carolina
Calgary Columbus Buffalo NJ Devils
Colorado Dallas Florida NY Islanders
Edmonton Detroit Montreal NY Rangers
Los Angeles Minnesota Ottawa Philadelphia
Phoenix Nashville Tampa Bay Pittsburgh
San Jose St. Louis Toronto Washington
Vancouver Winnipeg







The difference in watching the Flyers when their power play is actually producing versus watching them slog through a tight game where 5-on-5 scoring is all they've got is amazing.

You can almost see the confidence level rise in these guys when they know they've got a goal off special teams.

Their power play was at 11 percent for the games played last month and is over 40 percent this month after two games.

I really sensed a sigh of relief on the West Coast trip because of the 5 power play goals these guys scored in Anaheim and Phoenix. For one, the club wasn't embarrassed to talk about the power play.

For another, guys were relaxed and smiling.

Jaromir Jagr, back this past weekend after missing 4 of 6 games with a groin pull, said confidence goes far here. He had two power play goals in the comeback win at Anaheim.

“You need the power play to score when you need it to score,” Jagr said. “Sometimes you don’t really need it if you have a 7-2 lead.

“You don’t need to score on the power play. When you play against a really good team, the chances on the power play can change the game.”

Joey Mullen takes a lot of criticism for the fact that given the wealth of talent on the Flyers it's not reflected in the power play and to some extent, I think that's fair. It should be in the top 5 of the NHL. Period.

But the other side, the Flyers spent a disproportionate amount of time on it in practice. They hammered it home during their practices in Anaheim last week. They did quite a bit of before they went west at Voorhees and today, they worked on it again, albeit, without some key members of the second unit, including Danny Briere (virus) and Andrej Meszaros (upper body).

Jagr, Kimmo Timonen and Briere have all said that the practice time is important. To me, puck movement, net traffic and quick shots from the point were things that made it really click at the start of the season and we saw that this weekend.

Again, coach Peter Laviolette said all this practice is paying off.

"What we had on the road was an opportunity and even here to work on it and practice it, and get comfortable with it and make mistakes and get movement and some continuity which has been difficult because of the injuries," he said.

“We’re in a stretch of games where there wasn’t a lot of practice time and when there was, we weren’t sure who was in the lineup, who was coming and going based on injuries.”

Right now, the Flyers are back up there at No. 6 overall in power play efficiency with Buffalo and Pittsburgh up next.

Let's see how far this hot string extends.

And while we're at it, isn't is fun to have a Flyer legitimately challenging for the Art Ross as Claude Giroux is? Not since Eric Lindros have the Flyers been in a position to see this happen.

“Anybody would like to win that [scoring title],” Giroux told me today. “There’s only 25 games in the season [so far] and lots of hockey left to play. I have a lot of other things to worry about.”

Gotta love that humility.

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