In baseball terms, the Philadelphia Flyers had a hanging curveball of a matchup last night against a struggling Minnesota Wild team that was playing without its best forward and its number one goalie. Philly came in with plenty of motivation to get their pre-All Star Break mini-homestand (3 of 4 games) off to a strong start.
To their credit, the Flyers blasted that hanging curve out of the park with a 5-1 victory. Philly forechecked well, backchecked diligently, took good care of the puck and remained patient when Minnesota goalie Josh Harding (who played well overall) robbed them a few times.
The Wild conceded point shots to the Flyers, and Philly made them pay repeatedly. Not only did the Flyers get goals from Kimmo Timonen (PPG) and Braydon Coburn, they also generated numerous deflection and rebound opportunities by getting traffic in front and accurate shots from their defense.
“We've been practicing that actually, almost every day," Timonen acknowledged after the game. "A lot of teams are playing the way Minnesota plays, they really sink down low and usually what happens is the D is open. So we practice getting the puck to the D and move sideways or go D-to-D and make sure the puck goes through the first guy. Good things will happen when the puck goes to the net, there's rebounds and sometimes, like Coby's goal, it'll hit someone and go in. We've got to try to keep going with that.”
Philadelphia was the better team in all manpower situations last night. They were +1 at even strength and +3 on special teams (two PPG, one SHG). In similar fashion to their win over Chicago earlier this month, the Flyers were aggressive but disciplined in taking only one penalty for the entire game. That allowed Peter Laviolette to roll his four lines and for everyone to get involved.
As a result, the Flyers' goals came from five different scorers, with members of all four starting forward lines and 12 of the Flyers' 18 position players earning at least one point. Claude Giroux's line was dominant, and Sean Couturier's partially flubbed shorthanded goal (on a 2-on-1 give-and-go) extended the rookie's goal scoring streak to five games.
Ilya Bryzgalov had to make a couple of tough stops early in the game, including an excellent lateral-movement save in the opening period. He took the blame for Darroll Powe's second period goal that briefly reduced Minnesota's deficit to 2-1. According to Bryz, the puck did not deflect and he simply didn't catch it even though his glove was in position to snare it.
Apart from that one hiccup and some early problems with rebound control (which the defense did a nice job of cleaning up), Bryz had a good game. He was not tested much over the latter 30 minutes of the game, but when he was, he made all the saves.
The Flyers practice today at the SkateZone in Voorhees. They're back in game action tomorrow night, taking on the New York Islanders at the Wells Fargo Center.
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Over the last few days, there has been widespread media coverage of the
story of three-year-old Amelia Rivera; a 3-year-old girl with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome who will be in need of a kidney transplant within the next year.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia denied the transplant to Amelia, declaring her an unsuitable candidate for a transplant. The little girl is mentally retarded and has progressive brain damage.
Amelia is the daughter of Chrissy and Joe Rivera, who live in south Jersey. Now working in the real estate business, Joe is a former Philadelphia Phantoms backup goaltender and equipment manager.
The twitter hash tag for raising awareness about Amelia's story and of the Riveras efforts to help their daughter is #teamamelia.
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