Is there a more fitting movie clip to describe last night’s fiasco in Newark called a hockey game?
Oh well, it was nice not to have to bag on the team for almost a week. I enjoyed our lengthy two-game winning streak, the longest one we’ve had since February last year. Alas, our supposed turnaround game in Boston barely carried us to one additional win against Tampa on Tuesday night. Last night’s effort (or lack thereof) was an absolute dud, to put it mildly. Let’s forget for a moment the Flyers came into the Rock after disgracing themselves Friday night on the heels of a horrendous season start, and thumbed their noses at the world even further by starting Ray Emery, who was front and center in Friday night’s craziness and escaped suspension on a technicality…apparently there’s no rule against a goalie beating the snot out of a defenseless opponent. I’m not so much annoyed we lost to that team – well okay maybe a little, but god knows we were probably due to lose one to them since we’d pretty much owned them from the ’12 playoffs on. Though I figured if we did lose, it would be an offensive show where Claude Giroux turned back the clock and went off, their other role players would chip in and they’d have a 4-2, 5-3 type win. I never dreamed we’d lose 1-0 to one of the worst goaltenders in hockey and get a meager fourteen shots on net with the type of urgency you’d expect from a preseason game.
I suppose in one respect it makes sense since you had more or less preseason lineups out for both teams last night with the Flyers losing Steve Downie and Vincent Lecavalier in Friday’s sideshow, while we lost Travis Zajac to a ‘minor’ ankle injury in practice and Patrik Elias to the ever-random upper-body injury. Our losses proved more key, despite Zajac’s awful offense this year it’s not like replacement Jacob Josefson is capable of producing goals either. And replacing Elias with Mattias Tedenby? Forgetaboutit. Without them a previously improving power play went into a black hole, going 0-5 and creating more blocked shots than actual good scoring chances. Only Jaromir Jagr and Danius Zubrus was even able to create any hope of offense last night, although Zubrus’s lack of finish has doomed him to a horrendous start on the stat sheet.
That said, there’s literally no excuse for either the lack of passion last night or the fact you were only able to get fourteen shots (and most of them not very good) against the Flyers last night. I mean come on, the Flyers’ D aren’t exactly the Devils of the early ’00’s with Stevens, Niedermayer, Rafalski and a Colin White with two good eyes. This same Flyer team gave up seven goals to a Caps team that didn’t have its best offensive player. I realize they were going to be more up for last night’s game after that performance but come on now. The Flyers weren’t exactly doing all that great even before last night either. At least look like a professional hockey team, especially when you’re not in position to be giving away points despite two wins in a row. Emery literally wasn’t challenged the whole night and still got the first star – our best chances were a couple of post shots, and one three-on-one Zubrus screwed up. Aside from that, there were long stretches of just sucking in oxygen and doing little else. Boos rained down from the skies during the third period and I was among them. Other than Martin Brodeur it looked like the team was already clocking out and ready to go to Minnesota and take another butt-whipping there. Even midway through the first period this game had the grinding, unhappy feel of a Game 6 against Carolina in 2002 to me.
While you can’t attribute the team’s losing last year to a lack of effort, it’s cropping up this year in spades. A total no-show last night and in Winnipeg a couple of weeks ago. An almost total no-show in Columbus, and other blown leads and lapses of concentration doesn’t exactly bode well for coach Pete DeBoer. DeBoer seemed a bit more relaxed and upbeat after the two game winning streak but make no mistake about it, last night’s loss put him right back on the hot seat. Especially with the horrendous win-loss record since mid-February. We literally haven’t had as much as a three-game winning streak since then. Last night was our best chance for that but Brayden Schenn‘s redirect of a Andrei Meszaros shot at 14:29 of the first proved enough for Philly, who a year after crying about the 1-3-1 in Tampa bottled things up pretty well themselves last night. Pretty much the only good thing about last night is the fact for some reason we’re able to contain their animalistic tendencies, since they realize we’re not going to engage with them in their cheap shot for cheap shot game. About the only thing I saw that was dirty (besides a couple of well-timed dives to draw penalties) was Scott Hartnell attempting to rabbit punch Adam Henrique along the boards. I’m sure there was other stuff too but nothing major, and probably the NHL had the Flyers on probation anyway after Friday night. Although the fact nobody including Emery got suspended from that fracas makes you wonder about this league, and perhaps the influence Ed Snider has.
Since there was literally nothing to talk about from the game, let’s talk about another of my least-favorite subjects, attendance…which was frighteningly low (13,705) for a weekend night Flyers game. I guess in this case the Devils are reaping what they sow with outrageously high single-game prices in the tiered pricing system, and fewer of the discounts that at least got people in the building the last few years. Not to mention their draconian fan policies so far this season, and control over the Diablos (fans who stand and chant the whole game) in 122. I’m literally not a person that complains about anyone else making noise and I sit two sections away – last night was the first time the Diablos actually annoyed me, at least in terms of noise level. Sometimes their chants are corny but usually I just sarcastically snicker and let it go. Noise-wise it was different last night though, they literally rang the horn/bell or blew the vuvuzela at all times nonfreakingstop. I appreciate wanting to make noise especially since the rest of the arena’s dead but you know what, how about making your OWN freaking noise instead of relying on props? At least then it would be authentic and not as annoying as nonstop screaming on a quiet bus. The team’s fan ops is also guilty of jacking up the decibel level to an insane amount, when I was in the bathroom for the third period you’d have thought there was a boom box in there with how loud the music was. Of course with every goal song they’re jacking up the music now too, trying to prevent the crowd from getting an audible ‘you suck’ chant going. You wouldn’t have known it last night though since Seven Nation Army’s goal song didn’t get its official debut.
Amazingly the Devils are still in the mix for a playoff spot (four points out with a game in hand on the Caps) despite their horrendous start, but they just can’t keep losing like this and maintain that for very long, even in a bad division. Look at what’s coming up the next three weeks till Thanksgiving, even a Devils team healthy and playing well would be hard-pressed to get points never mind this ghost of a team we’ve been seeing for months. Last night we possibly turned the Flyer season around and tonight we’re most likely going to get another kick in the teeth playing Zach Parise in Minnesota. Wouldn’t shock me if Parise scored at least a couple of goals, wouldn’t shock me at all. Especially since we’re getting a rusty Cory Schnieder off IR playing tomorrow. With Marty playing well in his last two games it’ll be interesting to see how the rotation shapes up going forward even if Schnieder doesn’t throw in another dud like his point giveaway against the Canucks the last time he played. Probably a good thing I’ll be out to dinner instead of watching the game, god knows I saw enough of nothing last night to need a few more days off from the boys.
hasan4978
Derek
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