Flyers vs Rangers Postgame

There are three major things I want to talk about: Marty Biron, Arron Asham, and the Broadway Theater. But first, we'll talk about the game in general.

Today was a solid win for the Flyers. While the Rangers were able to control the play for periods of time, the Flyers were able to hold the fort in the third period with some solid defense and timely scoring. All three top lines were able to score at least one goal and the Flyers were pretty physical throughout the game, led by Braydon Coburn who had double digit hits this afternoon. Coburn's really found his physical edge recently and I think it's helped his overall game.

Marty Biron was spectular in net. Although I thought that he probably should have stopped Avery's goal, Antropov made a great play after a bad turnover by Matt Carle and there wasn't much Biron could do to stop that except hope that Nik would put the puck in a bad spot. But Biron robbed Zherdev on a few occasions and had good control of his rebounds. He's further solidifying his spot as the number one starter in Philly and giving the Flyers reason to resign him this summer.

Arron Asham played a whale of a game as well. He actually usually does play well every night, but unfortunately, we don't always see that unless his name winds up on the scoresheet. His first goal was a result of a just fantastic pass by Claude Giroux from behind the net and by the time Henrik Lundqvist reacted to it, the puck was in the net. On his second goal, Asham had one of the prettier shots you'll see in a game, picking the top corner over Lundqvist's glove. He filled into the third line spot very well as it was obvious that Stevens is still easing Briere back into the lineup.

I predicted that Mike Richards would have a big game, and although he did score a goal, I was hoping for a little more. But I can't complain about the way he played. He was involved in every shift and played very physically. Some other players who played well were Simon Gagne, Daniel Carcillo (too bad no one would drop the gloves with him....he was ready all game), Randy Jones, and Nik Antropov. I thought Derek Morris played an awful game. He looked absolutely lost on two of the Flyers goals.

Now onto the Broadway Theater. The Sean Avery and Brandon Dubinsky looked very foolish when they took their dives. Mike Richards attempted a hit on Dubinsky, and Richards' shoulder brushed Dubinsky's cheek and he immediately grabbed his face as if he had gotten elbowed. And then he took his hand away from his face to see if he drew a penalty. Avery managed to throw himself headfirst into the boards after Richards got him with a good check. Now, we can always expect Avery to dive. There's no surprise there. But I was disappointed in Dubinsky. I thought he was better than that, but I guess I was wrong. I can't even blame the refs for calling the penalties. This stuff happens so fast, its the players who have to take responsibility and quit it with this diving garbage. The league has to start instructing the refs to start calling these dives. Its ruining the game.

The Flyers penalty kill looked good today, and they only had to kill off four power plays, but two of those were from the calls against Richards that should not have been penalties, so the Flyers only took two real penalties in my book. That's very good.

The game was very chippy and looked like it was constantly ready to explode. Hopefully the intensity carries over into tomorrow afternoon when the Flyers play the Rangers in New York. They just have to do what they did today and they should be set to go. The Rangers are going to come out hard because they don't want the Flyers to do more damage to their playoff hopes.

I won't be able to watch the game tomorrow, but I'm going to try to tape the game. Hopefully it actually works this time.