Heard in the Cheap Seats

It has been a rough week for me.  I have been fighting some kind of nasty virus that I will spare you all the fun details of.  I have barely made any contributions to this website which really pisses me off, but I am hoping the worst is behind me and I can get back to life as usual.  The one good thing about being creamed by sickness and having no energy to move, is I was able to watch a ton of sports.  I really don’t think I could have picked a better time to be sick.

If anyone hasn’t noticed, the Flyers regular season is winding down.  It’s the time of year where some teams hit their stride and carry momentum into the playoffs, and other teams just fizzle out.  I have been calling for the Flyers to step up and play with some fire, discipline, and basically to just “man up”.  Well, it seems like this Flyers team is starting to come together at the right time. 

The Flyers have been maddeningly inconsistent and mediocre of late, and have not been able to string together consecutive wins.  I’ll admit that I have been worried about this team, as other teams in the Eastern Conference seemed to be streaking in a positive direction.  But, as I have stated here before, just when we all start to worry about and question the Flyers, seems to be when they shut us all up by playing good hockey.

The Flyers won an impressive game on the road against a desperate Buffalo team on Friday, and followed that up with possibly their biggest and best win of the season over the rival Penguins.  The Flyers scored 2 power play goals (Simon Gagne and Scott Hartnell), and added an empty netter for a 3-1 victory.  Marty Biron was great between the pipes once again.  I have been pretty hard on Biron, but I have to give the guy credit.  He is playing outstanding.  I just wish that the Biron from last year’s playoffs and this past March would take the other Marty Biron into a dark alley and beat him senseless so he never returns.  The fact that the Flyers were able to generate 2 power play goals is a positive sign.  This team has struggled on the power play for awhile now, to say the least.  We all know that special teams will play a huge part in their success in the playoffs.  Danny Briere seems to be bolstering the Flyers on the power play and overall.  He finally looks to have found his legs, and that could be a great sign.  He doesn’t have the wear and tear of an 82 game NHL season on his body, so he should be fresh and energized. 

The win against the Penguins was huge for more than just playoff seeding, although with games in hand on the rest of the field and a 2 point lead for 4^th place in the conference, it did put the Flyers in the driver’’s seat to secure home ice advantage in the first round.  What last night’s win also did was instill some confidence in the Flyers that they can handle Pittsburgh.  Remember, this is a Pittsburgh team that smoked the Flyers in 5 games last year in the Eastern Conference Finals, and had bested the Flyers 4 out of 5 games this year.

I have to admit that when John Stevens changed up the lines prior to the Sabres game, I was skeptical.  While 2 games is certainly not a huge body of work, I like what I’ve seen.  I am realizing what Stevens’ goal was in changing the lines.  It seems to have created much more balance across the lines, with two 20 goal scorers each on the top 3 lines.  I also think that the line changes came at a perfect time.  With the Flyers needing to make a playoff push, they seemed to be pretty stagnant.  It is obvious that they have talented, skilled hockey players, but they were just scuffling a bit.  So, Stevens responded by shaking things up a bit.  I think he has the belief that they are talented enough to be able to play on any combination of lines, so why not change it up?  The line changes seem to have energized Briere as well as the entire team.  As Stevens said at the time, it “forces you to focus a little more”. 

That may be exactly what the Flyers were lacking.  There are 11 games left, including a big home game against the Devils tonight.  I think the Flyers are going to continue their momentum, and continue gelling on all lines.  I also think we may be looking back a few months from now at the line changes that John Stevens made and see it as a huge turning point for this Flyers team.