Flyers Drop 3rd Straight

The Flyers came out last night against their cross-state rivals and dropped a 3 - 2 decision in overtime. The Flyers have yet to get their first victory in three attempts so far on the young season.

The Flyers fell behind in the 2nd period 2 - 0 on a couple of goals where the Flyers play in their own zone was somewhat lacking. The Brook Orpik goal was screen shot and probably preventable had someone been pressuring Orpik on the shot. And on the goal where the Flyers fell behind 2 - 0, it was a case of an unchecked player being able to camp out near the faceoff circle and take a pass from behind the net.

The Flyers did bounce back before the end of the 2nd period, with a fluky goal by Jeff Carter that bounced off of Pens defenseman Hal Gill, and a Simon Gagne tip goal that was originally credited to Mike Richards.

Antero Niittymaki was in goal last night and looked good for the most part, but he did appear to go down a bit too early on the shot from Pascal Dupuis that ended the game in OT. Dupuis' goal may have been a perfect shot from where he took it (coming down the half boards at full speed), but still believe Niitty could have stopped it had he stayed up.

The Flyers will try to bounce back on Thursday, when they travel to Colorado to take on the Avs at 9pm.

Photo: yahoo.com (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Flyers Drop Opener

The Flyers, playing in their first regular season game of the year, dropped a strange game to the New York Rangers by a score of 4 - 3.

The Rangers, already playing their 4th game of the season, came out and blitzed the Flyers to the tune of 4 goals in the first period. Two of them were absolutely stoppable by goaltender Martin Biron, who was ultimately pulled from the game in favor of Antero Niittymaki.

Ultimately, however, the Rangers dominance had more to do with the Flyers looking as if they were still playing in the preseason. A couple of Flyers attempted to wake up the team; specifically, Riley Cote, who took on Colton Orr, and Mike Richards, who traded fives with Brandon Dubinsky.

Ultimately, however, it took until the 2nd period for the Flyers to wake up and get on the board. Scott Hartnell converted a Glen Metropolit face off win for a shorthanded goal early in the 2nd period by shooting high over Stephen Valiquette's glove hand. The period also featured Mike Richards flying around the ice; he drew two penalties in the period and seemed determined to dig the Flyers out of the hole they dug for themselves.

The Flyers struck again towards the end of the 2nd period when Simon Gagne batted in a Danny Briere rebound to chalk up his first goal in forever. For the game, I thought Gagne looked like a guy who hadn't played in awhile, but more importantly, he didn't look timid, which was a good sign for a guy coming off of post-concussive syndrome.

The third period was all Flyers, but they could only dent the Ranger net once on a Mike Richards goal from a sweet cross-ice feed from Danny Briere. The Flyers certainly had their opportunities in the 3rd period; they had a 2 man advantage with a little under 10 minutes left in the game, but they were turned away.

Notes:

- It's hard to understate how poorly the Flyers looked in the 1st peroid; the only consolation you can take from this game is that when they got their skating legs, they dominated the Rangers.

- Danny Briere....2 assists.

- Lasse Kukkonen was a -2 in the game and was the guy that got beat wide when Sjostrom scored.

- Luca Sbisa wasn't bad in his debut. He was a -1, but the whole team was so bad early, it was difficult to tell. By the end of the game, Sbisa was carrying the puck up ice confidently and even pursued on the forecheck at one point.

- Nice work from Glen Metropolit last night. One of the few Flyers that showed energy early on in the game and he got some increased ice time during the game.

- Stephen Valiquette? Again? Really? You gotta be kidding me.

- In case you missed it, I wrote a preview of the 2008-2009 Flyers season for The700level.com.

- Sarah Palin dropping the puck got alot of press after the game. I don't care about the home crowd booing her; what angers me is that she was there to drop the puck in the first place. I'm not angry about her presence at the game because of her politics; I'm angry that Owner Ed Snider would use his hockey team as a bully pulpit for his political views.

Many of us go to the hockey games to forget about politics and the real world for awhile. While I have no problem with highlighting the contributions of the armed services during the game (as the Flyers are wont to do), I am appalled that Snider, a known McCain donor, would push his choice for President under the disingenuous guise of inviting a well-known "Hockey Mom" to drop the puck. I don't care for it when Rock Stars prosthelize their political beliefs during a concert I pay to attend and I don't like it when rich hockey owners do the same.

Photo: yahoo.com....(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Flyers Sign Backup Goalie

Hockey posts two days in a row, sportsfans. Must mean training camp is around the corner.

The Flyers signed a backup goaltender to Martin Biron today, when they inked Jean-Sebastian Aubin to a one-year deal.

Why do they need a backup you ask?

Because Antero Niittymaki will be out of commission for up to 6 weeks to have some more work done on his hip. Heard this one before with Nitty? Don't forget in 2006-2007, he had torn his left hip labrum and was so bad as he tried to play through it, the organization (but NOT John Stevens) lost confidence in the goaltender and brought in Marty Biron.

Hopefully, fixing this injury now will allow Niittymaki to somehow regain the early momentum he had in his career when he led Finland to a Silver medal in the 2006 Olympics.

Flyers Lose, Pull Biron; Eagles Need WR

The Flyers dropped one to the Sabres last night by a score of 5 - 2. The game was marked by some bad defensive breakdowns and a weak night by Martin Biron. They desperately needed a big game from the goaltender, as Danny Briere was out with what is being called a shoulder sprain. The Flyers don't know (or aren't saying) how long he'll be out.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I can't remember the last time Martin Biron made a really big save. I especially cannot recall the last time he made a stop on a breakaway. When Biron seems to encounter a break away situation, you can see him backing into the net and making himself smaller; as if he has no confidence that he can make the save.

Biron's ineffectiveness in net became an issue for at least two of the goals last night. I felt like he should have made better plays on both Maxim Afinogenov goals. The first Afinogenov goal featured Jaroslav Modry being treated like a pylon, but once Afinogenov made a play past Modry, Biron never even attempted anything remotely resembling an aggressive maneuver to make the save, despite their being, at least, a poke check opportunity. The second Afinogenov goal, Biron flat out missed out on the short side.

The worst part of Biron's performance last night is that it gives John Stevens an excuse to give Antero Niittymaki more time than he rightfully deserves in net. And while we're on the topic of John Stevens, someone needs to help me understand how an injured Jaroslav Modry (he will require shoulder surgery and looked old and slow in the last two games) is a better option on the ice than Lasse Kukkonen. Stevens really, really seems to have it out for Kukkonen and I don't understand why. All Kukkonen does is skate well and block shots. My bet is that if Kukkonen were one of Stevens' Calder Cup boys, then the Modry trade never happens.

Photo: Yahoo.com ((AP Photo/Tom Mihalek))

Eagles' WR Situation

With Javon Walker signing with the Raiders last night, it would appear that the Eagles WR situation will not be resolved by going the free agent route. That leaves two alternatives, with really, only one of them being probable:

1.) The Eagles will draft a WR. The problem with this route is that Andy Reid almost never starts rookies, let alone rookie WRs, because apparently, it takes like 10 years to learn Reid's highly intricate offense. Of course, that is a smaller piece of a bigger problem that Reid has, in general; his complete inability to quickly put rookies in a position to help the team. Available at pick 17 for the Eagles will be some quality wideouts: Malcolm Kelly from Oklahoma and Limas Sweed from Texas immediately come to mind. Another choice, perhaps further down in the draft, could be Indiana WR James Hardy. I saw Hardy burn Penn State's best CB Justin King for double-digit catches during last football season with great size and quickness, which are two attributes the Eagles desperately need at wide receiver.

2.) The Eagles will trade for a WR. This is the more likely route. Each of the last couple of years, starting with the acquisition of Donte Stallworth from the Saints, the Eagles pulled off some sort of trade that absolutely no one saw coming. Last year was the Takeo Spikes deal. Could such a trade be in the offing this year? Perhaps. The internet has been rife with rumors of the Cardinals and the Eagles hooking up, with the Eagles landing Larry Fitzgerald. Also, as Roy Williams of Detroit expressed unhappiness with his situation in Detroit, it was/is thought that there is a trade opportunity with Detroit.

Furthering the idea of the Eagles getting a WR via trade is the presence of a premium trading chip: CB Lito Sheppard. Sheppard's only problem is staying on the field; he simply can't stay healthy. Otherwise, he's a really good player, who is unhappy about his contract (which I think happens to be fair considering he's missed 14 games in the past 3 years).

Regardless of the player acquired, the Eagles front office, for all of their faults, have been creative in the past couple of years in filling holes through the trade route and this is the likely avenue for this hole to be fixed, or at least patched.

Super Tuesday Indeed; Flyers and Sixers Win

While America seemed to either going to or monitoring the polls in what is probably one of the messiest, least understood process in American politics (the system of primaries and caucuses), the home teams were busy winning their respective games.

The Flyers, behind a late goal by Steve Downie, beat Atlanta by a score of 3 -2. This game had some interesting moments when action was back and forth, but Atlanta mostly played a patient game of laying back and waiting for Flyer mistakes. As a result, the Flyers had to do the same; it was very similar to last Tuesday's game against the Kings in both tempo and score.

One thing from yesterday's previews of this game in the media bothered me.

Alot was made in previews of yesterday's game and in today's reports in the papers about how well Antero Niitymaki plays against the Atlanta Thrashers, and specifically, his countryman Kari Lehtonen (check here, here, and here). I guess there was some sort of rivalry with Lehtonen when these two were younger back in Finland, but who cares? Unless they've changed the game such that the two goalies now can simply shoot on each other, air hockey-style, I don't understand the relevance of matching goalies up against one another. That's as dumb as swapping out your starting QB for your backup simply because your backup beat the other team's starting QB back in college.

As for Niitymaki's playing well against Atlanta, well, what are the odds of that? They made the playoffs last year for the first time in their short 7 year history! That means there are plenty of goalies with good records against the Thrashers. This was simply another excuse for Stevens to get his boy Niitymaki some extra playing time. At least Biron will be going tomorrow night against the Caps on Ron Hextall Night.

The Sixers Comeback

The Sixers, who choked up a 20-point lead to lose on Monday, came back at home last night against the Washington Wizards and won by a score of 101 - 96. The guy quickly becoming one of my favorite Sixers, Thaddeus Young, had another good night, scoring 17 points and grabbing 9 boards.

Cheeks went with a younger lineup and it paid dividends. They pressed defensively and guys were generating easy offense off of it. It sounds simple, but with the young legs Cheeks had on the court often come the mistakes typical of inexperience. The risk worked out last night. Specifically benefitting was Rodney Carney, who had a couple of sweet open court dunks. I don't know about Carney's future as a player on the Sixers, but he does look so smooth when he runs the floor.

Other heroes in the Sixers win were Andre Iguodala with 20 points and Andre Miller with 11 points and 14 assists. Miller has had double-digit assists in two of the last three games, but before that, it had been more than a month (12/30 vs. Portland) since he had a double-digit assist night.