Last night at the Wells Fargo Center, a Buffalo Sabres team with shattered self-confidence got utterly dismantled after taking a 2-0 lead to the lockerroom for the first intermission. Give the Flyers, who were themselves in need of something positive, full marks for picking themselves off the ground following an awful opening 20 minutes of play.
There won't be too many nights where a team can let a full period get away from them and still go on to win, 7-2. But when Max Talbot scored the first of his two goals with a tip-in of Braydon Coburn's shot in the opening minute of the second period, one got the feeling that the Flyers were about to get the momentum rolling.
Did they ever. Wayne Simmonds (wearing a full face-shield after getting hit in the mouth with a puck during warmups, receiving 25 stitches) achieved his first career 20-goal season with a pair of tallies that showed his burgeoning power forward credentials. On both plays Simmonds got to the front of the net, received the puck and beat Jhonas Enroth from point blank range.
Exit Enroth, enter Ryan Miller. Personally, I thought the goalie switch was a sign of desperation by Lindy Ruff, because he didn't see anything else he could try to do to stop the bleeding. Goaltending had not been the problem at all. Enroth had little to no chance on any of three goals, and Miller fared no better.
Once the Flyers took the lead, they simply steamrolled the Sabres. Claude Giroux racked up his first five-assist game in the NHL to vault himself back into second place in the Art Ross Trophy race. Erik Gustafsson scored his first career NHL goal. Jakub Voracek became the 10th Flyer this season to reach double-digit goals. Scott Hartnell inched to within three goals away from his second career 30-goal season.
Philly's recently struggling special teams got a lift in this game as well. The power play converted two of three opportunities. The penalty kill was perfect on six tries. Just what the doctor ordered heading into Saturday's Atlantic Division showdown with the Penguins.
The Flyers lopsided victory did not come without a price, however. Danny Briere got rocked by Patrick Kaleta on a questionable looking hit near the bench, and it was initially feared that he may have sustained his second concussion of the season. The injury appears to be of the shoulder variety, however. Tom Sesisto sustained a lower-body injury at the end of a lost second-period fight with Zack Kassian.
The Flyers were already playing without Jaromir Jagr (flu), James van Riemsdyk (IR, concussion) and defenseman Andrej Meszaros (upper body). Jody Shelley, callup forward Eric Wellwood and seventh defenseman Andreas Lilja started in the vacated spots.
Ilya Bryzgalov had a shaky first period. He was fighting the puck early on his first game back from a lingering bout with the flu last week.
He had no chance on the game's first goal, as the Flyers suffered a complete defensive breakdown and Jason Pominville ended up with a slam dunk of a tally. Bryzgalov later allowed a potentially backbreaking five-hole goal off the rush from near the half boards by Thomas Vanek. The Austrian has a great shot and the capability of making goaltenders look bad, but that was one Bryzgalov should have stopped. The puck did not deflect off Matt Carle's stick nor was the goaltender screened.
Bryzgalov settled in as the game went along. He made the stops he needed to make (17 combined in the second and third periods). In one sequence, he actually caught a rare break this season with a friendly bounce off the goal post. Once staked to a lead, he never really gave the Sabres a sniff at a comeback, and that's all Philly needed of him at that point of the game.
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As long as people have realistic expectations, there is a lot to like about the team's acquisition of defenseman Nicklas Grossman from the Dallas Stars. The 27-year-old defensive defenseman reminds me a lot of ex-Flyer Marcus Ragnarsson: He's a no-frills player but usually effective. Just put him out there and "forget" about him.
Grossman is an underrated physical player who knows how to use his size to his advantage but doesn't take a lot of penalties. He is usually in the right position and he doesn't take many foolish chances. The big Swede will also block his fair share of shots.
Last season, Grossman saw a lot of playing time on Dallas' top pairing with Stephane Robidas, and he played fairly well. The team missed him down the stretch when he missed time with injuries. Dallas fell one win shy of reaching the playoffs last year.
This year, Grossman was bitten by the injury bug again early in the season but has been generally healthy over the last few months. With Robidas now paired with Sheldon Souray, Grossman saw time with Alex Goligoski and also spent some time with rookie puck-mover Philip Larsen (a player with a style similar to Erik Gustafsson, but with a little more size).
Now that he is with the Flyers, I would think Grossman would be best suited to play with Matt Carle, bumping rookie Marc-Andre Bourdon down to compete with Gustafsson for the third-pairing spot in partnership with Meszaros. But we'll have to see what Peter Laviolette and Kevin McCarthy have in mind.
The downside to Grossman's game is his puckhandling. He is not great with the puck on his stick and will turn over some pucks over if he doesn't have a "safety valve" play to make. He is good on the penalty kill but occasionally has issues on his clearing attempts. At the offensive end, he rarely pinches and although he has a hard shot, it is neither particularly accurate nor does he release it quickly.
Grossman makes a cap-friendly $1.65 million this season, but will be looking for a raise this summer as an unrestricted free agent. The Stars and his agent had apparently had some discussions about a contract extension in the weeks leading up to the trade, but never got all that close.
From a Flyers' point of view, I think that second-round and third-round draft picks were pretty much fair market value for an impending UFA such as Grossman. I am relieved that Philly did not have to part with forward prospect Nick Cousins, especially given the uncertainty about retaining Grossman's services beyond this season.
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