Flyers Eliminated

Tuesday night marked the end of the Philadelphia Flyers season, losing 3-1 to the New Jersey Devils who won the best of 7 series 4-1. Not a lot of fans or analysts saw this coming, the Flyers were supposed to clobber the Devils and advance to the next round without any issues. But the Flyers were unable to manipulate the Devils, like they did with the Penguins, the Flyers were the ones taking bad penalties, and losing their cool.


Now Ilya Bryzgalov can't shoulder all the blame for the loss, he didn't play his best but his team wasn't very helpful on most nights. But after watching him this entire series (making routine saves look impossible) it is becoming more clear that the Flyers only survived their series against the Penguins because Marc-Andre Fleury was off his game. Had Fleury been on his game it could have been an entirely different first round match up! Anyways I bring this up to show that the Flyers aren't as dominate as people thought after the first round, those people include the Flyers themselves. The players got a little full of themselves and thought they could beat anyone, they didn't give their opponents the respect they deserved (like what happened out West with Nashville and Phoenix).


So breaking down the series we'll look at 3 reasons the Flyers lost and 3 reasons the Devils won.


Flyers


1. Undisciplined hockey:

This is a big one you're not going to win playoff series' playing undisciplined hockey. Especially when your opponents refuse to stoup to your level, and take bad penalties. The Flyers just took too many bad penalties that put them behind the 8 ball. You have Brayden Schenn, Zach Rinoldo, Scott Harntell and Wayne Simmonds playing with no control and taking very stupid, costly penalties. Then you have the little moment of selfishness from Claude Giroux which earned him as suspension! Not only were these guys all over the place they weren't able to help their team out on the scoresheet; Schenn, Simmonds, Hartnell combined for just 2 goals, a far cry from their production in the first round. A lot of the penalties taken were at horrible times, the Flyers would score a goal and go up 1-0 then moments later they're down a man trying to kill off a 5 on 4 which made it impossible for them to get momentum!


2. Ilya Bryzgalov:
Not all the blame falls squarely on the shoulder of Bryzgalov but he definitely has to should some of the blame. He gave his team a chance to win night in and night out, but what he didn't do was come up with a big save when they needed it! He also let in far too many weak goals that deflated the Flyers team, I'm sure if truth be told the Flyers didn't have a ton of confidence in their 51 million dollar goalie near the end of the playoffs. Bryzgalov didn't play bad but at the same time he didn't play phenomenal and was out duelled by the legend himself Marty Brodeur.
Bryzgalov went 5-6 with a GAA 3.46 and a Save Percentage of .887 not the kind of numbers you need to endure playoff success. To be honest I was very surprised the Flyers left Bryz in a lot of the games as he just wasn't getting the job done, maybe pulling him could have sparked the rest of the team?
Forget Bears in the playoffs he looked like Bryzgalov was afraid of the pucks!
But often times when a teams goalie is struggling the defense isn't too stellar either. The Devils exposed the Flyers poor defencive system and were able to keep them hemmed in their own end with ofter 1 fore checker. The Flyers had a very weak "puck moving defence" the Devils caught onto that and were able to disrupt the breakout and force the forwards to play more in their defensive end!


3. Were too satisfied after the first round:
The way the Flyers and their fans reacted after round one you would have thought they had won the Stanley Cup, instead of just barely squeaking out a first round victory. The Flyers were so amped up and ready to win at all costs against the Penguins, then in round 2 they couldn't get amped up to play the Devils there was no emotion. They only emotion they showed was frustration something you do not want to expose to your opponents, they made it painfully obvious and once that happened the Devils had won the series. It was easy for the Flyers to get amped up against the Pens due to their intense rivalry, but they couldn't get anything out of the Devils. The Devils wouldn't engage in stuff after the whistle, and they played a clean game giving them nothing to get a spark from! 

"They didn't give us anything to be emotional about, they weren't in scrums and it seemed like they really didn't hit us. It wasn't there and that was their mindset and game plan" Scott Hartnell

Devils
1. Martin Brodeur:
If Ilya Bryzgalov is shouldering some of the blame than Brodeur has to be given tons of credit for out battling his opponent. He sure as heck did not look like a 40 year old goaltender contemplating retirement, he looked more like an elite 32 year old with 3 Stanley Cup rings and 16 years of prior playoff success. Brodeur is proving he can still get the job done when it matters most, with his win on Tuesday which eliminated the Flyers he became only the 4th goalie in history to win 8 playoff games at the age of 40! He has shown glimpses of his old self, his Hall of Fame legacy and if the Devils want to win the cup they will need Brodeur to be on the top of his game!
*Random Stat Brodeur becomes the first goalie to play a playoff game in his teens and start a playoff game in his 40's*


2. Everyone chipped in: 
The Flyers relied heavily on Briere and Giroux's production in the playoffs, if those two weren't scoring no-one else would be either. But the Devils were able to rely on multiple goal scorers, in the 5 games in the series they scored 18 goals and had 11 different goal scorers! They were even able to muster up a win without their star Ilya Kovalchuck. Their depth ultimately outplayed Philly's depth, while Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds were busy taking dumb penalties, Adam Henrique and David Clarkson were busy scoring goals! 


3. The forecheck:
Something all teams use some not as well as others, but the Devils brought their "A game" with their forecheck and gave the Flyers a lot of trouble getting out of their end! Besides game 1 the Devils due to their relentless forecheck outshot the Flyers in every game. They were faster to lose pucks, harder on the puck, got more scoring opportunities and capitalized on them. The Devils may be the dark horse of the Eastern Conference!


Well the Flyers are out and the Devils are on to the Eastern Conference Championships something not a lot of people saw coming. The Flyers will now have to sit at home and watch their former teammates Jeff Carter and Mike Richards in the Western Conference Championships who stand a solid chance of going to the Stanley Cup Finals. Ilya Bryzgalov also must watch his former team battle against the Kings in the Western Conference Finals (Phoenix Coyotes). 


The Devils will await their opponent either the Washington Capitals or the New York Rangers, these playoffs have been so unpredictable there is no use predicting the outcome of any series'. 

The Week That Was

Time to wrap up another crazy week in the NHL.

Stamkos reaches 50
Steven Stamkos is quite the remarkable young hockey player who will likely win a Stanley Cup somewhere down the line in his historic NHL career. Stamkos isn't even 23, yet he has accomplished so much in his 4 years of NHL hockey. On Tuesday night Stamkos scored 2 goals against the Boston Bruins to give him 50 goals on the season, not only has did he reach the remarkable 50 goal platoue he joins an exclusive list of 7 players who have accomplished the feat twice in their career before turning 23! Wayne Gretzky (did it 5 times), Mario Lemieux, Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Bure, Joe Nieuwendyke and Mike Bossy. Not bad company if you ask me!
Stamkos is having an amazing season having scored 35 goals in 30 games he looks to be the front runner for the Rocket Richard trophy, it would be the second time the young sniper has won the award (2009-2010).
Since the beginning of the 2009-2010 season Stamkos has scored 149 goals, the most by any player over that time span and 35 more than Ovechkin and Perry (111). Every time Stamkos takes to the ice the chances of something magnificent happening are great!
This Kids going to heck of a career!

The other Penguin returnee
Perhaps lost in all the buzz over Crosby, was the return of Kris Letang to the Penguins line-up Thursday night. Now It's a stretch to say the Letang is better than Crosby, but right now many are saying having Letang out for the playoffs would be worse than Crosby. Letang is a very important member of the Penguins team, a crucial defenceman. Leang has just over 24 minutes of ice time notched an assists and was a plus-5. Letang was returning from a concussion just like Crosby, and it was Letang's 2nd concussion of the season.

Crosby returns!

Thursday night marked the 2nd return of Sidney Crosby for his concussion/neck issues. Crosby

 re-aggravated his concussion back December 5th after taking a butt end/elbow to the head. Crosby played exactly 16 minutes against the Rangers on Thursday, and finished with 1 assist and a plus-3. Wasn't an expectational return from Sid the kid but it didn't have to be, the Penguins were playing just fine without him. (sounds weird eh?) The 5-3 win for the Penguins marks their 10th straight win and truly solidifies them as top contenders in the Eastern conference. Crosby approached his 2nd return with a different mindset than his first, he was a little more hesitant, emotions weren't riding as high and he wasn't eager to test himself with contact. Not to be overshadowed by Crosby's return, is Malkin. This is still very much Malkins' team this season, so I hope he does not get forgotten about with everything he has done in Crosby's absence. Heck when your name is Sidney Crosby good things happen at 1:42pm on Friday the league officially credited Crosby with a second assist, on the Matt Cooke goal.

Tyler Myers gets suspended
Tyler Myers was handed a 3 game suspension from Brendan Shanahan for boarding Canadians Scott Gomez. Myers will forfeit $14,189.19 in salary over the 3 games. Myers has 2 games left in his suspension.

Hybrid Icing gets a vote of confidence
We've all seen them, a race for a icing skates and sticks get tangled up and one player goes flying into the boards; breaking a leg, dislocating a shoulder and even concussions have all come from icing races. When I watch hockey games and see close icing races I hold my breath, you never wanna see a player go flying into the boards and end up hurt. It would appear the NHL GM's feel the same way and are ready for a change in the icing rules. The change require the linesman to make a judgement call (we all know how those work out!), If the forecheker is leading the play by the faceoff dot the play continues or if the defenseman is leading the play or tied with the forechecker by the faceoff dot the play is to be blown dead and be ruled an icing. There are still a few technicalities with this new rule change, but it's a step in the right direction. It still has to be voted on by the competition comitee before being implemented into the NHL as early as next season.

The Universes goalie make history

Despite being one of the wackiest, strangest goalies you will probably ever find Ilya Bryzgalov is actually a solid netminder when he focus' on just hockey. Going into Thursday nights game against the Islanders, Bryzgalov was on a stretch of 3 straight shutouts and score less streak of 196:13 just 31 minutes shy of the Flyers record 227:40 set by John Vanbiesbrouck set in 1999. Midway through the second period Bryzgalov was able to beat the record and even extended it to 249:43 before two goals were scored on the Flyers netminder. As his teammates pointed out Bryz has finally got his "Swagger" back, and with that swagger he makes this Flyers team Cup contenders.

The ageless Selanne notches another accomplishment
Teemu Selanne passes his childhood idol Jari Kurri on the all-time scoring list, moving Selanne into 19th with 1,399 career points. Selanne also becomes the all time leading scorer from Finland and is third on the list of Europeans.

Suspected first overall pick on the shelf
Nail Yakupov who is widely expected to be drafted first overall at this years entry draft is on the shelf for the remainder of the season. Luckily it is just 3 games the Sarnia Sting winger will be missing, he is out with an upper body injury (stitches in his lip), he is hoping to re turn for the OHL playoffs.

Before I end this blog check out the must see moment from this week in the NHL; Eric Cole high fives the referee;