Around The Rink - 4/26

The Flyers came 28.8 seconds away from winning Game 1 in Montreal, if not for Cart's broken stick, I feel like they could have pulled this one off, but a broken stick on the face off against Kouvi tied the game up, and Kouvi sent the puck to Kovalev and the puck went into the net.

In my previous post on The Arena Program, I talked about the negatives of the Flyers in game 1. But it wasn't all that bad. The Flyers controlled much of the first and third period. There was nothing the Flyers could of done on the penalty to Mike Richards, the penalty was crap, and was a case of players going in opposite directions, kinda like Umberger's "tripping" call on Ovechkin in Game 3 in the first round. Ya Think they should go to the war room every time a coach calls a penalty illegitimate? Of course, that still won't help the Flyers are the red-headed stepchild of the NHL, or so seems. lol.

Anyway The Flyers did a good job of rolling all four lines, even though the top line was shaky, and did a good job with protecting the lead in the third. Lupul did well offensively, and got his second goal in as many games, and from what it seemed like, the Flyers where well charged through out the game 1, despite playing 3 games, in 4 nights, in four different cities. This gives me a good feeling about how this team will play in the second round. Another good sign was, Stevens yelling at the Refs about the Richards penalty after Kovalev tied it 2. To me, that's awesome, because Stevens is usually almost robot like when it comes to showing emotion.

One thing they also need to work on is faceoffs, they need to win a lot more than they did in game 1, but this and the other 'problems' will get better as the series goes on.

The Phantoms rewrote the record books for the AHL for longest game played against the Albany River Rats for winning in 5OT. Ryan Potunly scored the 5 OT goal to beat the Rats 3-2, and take the 3-2 series lead, the Phantoms play in Philly tonight at the Wack. Flashbacks to the 5 OT game back in 2000 crossed Philly hockey fans minds as they watched/read about this game.

How about the Habs fans going wild in Montreal's streats after their 5-0 victory in game 7 against the Bruins? Seriously, they shouldn't of been that much excitement, when the series shoulda been wrapped up at least in 5 games. Wonder what will happen if the Canadiens beat the Flyers? And they call Philly fans pathetic, we may throw snowballs at Santa, but we don't go litter the streets and trash and torch cars.

More on the way....