Lack of Movement May Have Doomed Flyers posted by Jeff Ponder

Ray Emery was brought in to be the goaltending answer in Philadelphia.  How things change in just a few months.

Emery signed a deal on July 1 by the Flyers for one year, spelling the end for former Flyer goalies Martin Biron and Antero Niittymaki, whose contracts had let out on the same day.  The Flyers then signed Brian Boucher as a back-up, so it was apparent that the team was ready to commit to Emery as the starting goalie.

But things have not worked out as general manager Bobby Clarke has hoped.  It was announced just before the trade deadline that Emery has a degenerative bone disorder and may never play hockey again.  That leaves the Flyers with the tandem of Mike Leighton (claimed off re-entry waivers from Carolina in December) and Boucher.  While Leighton has played well enough the past few games to keep Philadelphia in the playoff picture, it keeps the Flyers goaltender depth very low compared to the rest of the league.

Rumors circled that there were certain goaltenders available on deadline day.  These included Cary Price of the Canadiens, Marty Turco of the Stars, Tomas Vokoun of the Panthers, and both Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron of the Islanders.  A deal could have been worked out for one of these goaltenders.  Panthers' GM Randy Sexton put price tags on almost all of his players, and Vokoun could have been had for some picks and some offensive help.  The Islanders were also in the market for a goaltending change too.  Recently activating oft-injured Rick DiPietro off injury-reserve, the team probably wanted to move one of their goalies due to their over-abundance in the position. 
Continue reading "Lack of Movement May Have Doomed Flyers"

Golden Effort Falls Just Short posted by Brad VanFossan

A Golden Effort Falls Just Short By Brad VanFossan I know it’s more than just a hockey game when my 63 year old father is looking forward to watching, and has been watching most of the hockey games during this Olympics. I know it’s more than just a game when patrons at bars ask to turn the hockey game on, both the men’s and women’s games, as I have seen happen over the last couple weeks. This is about reliving nostalgia for those who were around for the 1980 Gold Medal team‘s “Miracle“ run. And it’s about wanting to experience that same feeling for those of us who were too young or weren’t around then. This is the kind of thing the brings generations of sons and fathers together creating memories that become part of family lore. More importantly, this is a message to the world that hockey isn’t a secondary sport in the United States anymore, but one we can excel at, and even be the best.  It’s almost time for the opening face off, winning twice on enemy territory won’t be easy, but I think if anyone can, it’s this group of relentless young men. No matter what the outcome, they will put forth an effort to be proud of.My in game thoughts from the penalty box: -In the first U.S./Canada match up the U.S. was able to score first, taking the crowd out of things for a bit, today Canada scored first, it’s the first time the U.S. has trailed all Olympics. -Jonathan Toews goal was off of a rebound, not too much cause for concern yet. The U.S. is still playing pretty well, theyContinue reading "Golden Effort Falls Just Short"

Buffalo visited by ghost of hockey past posted by Goon Squad

There used to be a bumper sticker that said, "Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent."

The Hall of Famer goalie, who had two Stanley Cup winning seasons with the Flyers, was in Buffalo signing autographs at Benchwarmers Sports Bar.
Parent is best recognized here as a goalide during the infamous 'Fog' game at the Aud in May of 1975.



Somehow a bat had gotten into the old Memorial Auditorium and was flying around the ice for quite a while during the game.
Jim Lorentz decided to take matters into his own hands. He was about to take the faceoff when he saw the bat coming. He raised his stick and swatted the bat in mid-air, ending its tour of the Stanley Cup finals.
Rick MacLeish picked up the dead bat and dumped him into the penalty box.

Right after the bat met his untimely death, a fog settled on the ice.
It was as if the bat's spirit decided to haunt the game in revenge.

In 1975, arenas were not air conditioned.

Temperatures at ice level reached 90 degrees.
With the humidity, the heat and the presence of over 16,000 screaming fans, it produced the first ever fog game.
The refs had to delay the game several times because the fog had become so dense that the players could not see halfway down the ice.

Players skated around in a unsuccessful attempt to clear the fog.

Fight Night in Flyer City posted by Greg

The rivalry between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers got hot again last night. Last night there were a few fights and a scrum.

The game started out rough with a penalty to Philly in the first minute of the game. The Pens would capitalize on the power play very quickly. Only a minute and a half into the game, the first fight started between Adams and Laperriere. Adams would win pretty quickly.

However, the story of the night came at the end of the game when Hartnell bit Letang during an altercation. Hartnell actually started the fight when he crashed into Fleury, but he may have also bitten Letang.

I'm not sure if there is going to be a retaliation or not, it'll depend on how everything works out.

Anyway, I made a post on my website that talks more about it and has a couple of videos that show the game. Check it out if you'd like more information.

See the post at tipsforhockey.com

Philadelphia Sports Fans Are Scumbags, The Yankees Are Better Because Teixeira Doesn't Wear a Thong, With Marc Anthony as an Owner, the Fish Won't Win It Again Until 2073 & The Best Way to Get Joba Hurt Is To Limit His Innings posted by Colin Linneweber

Philadelphia Sports Fans Are Scumbags

A man was beaten to death in a savage and needless fracas that occurred outside of Citizen’s Bank Park in the final innings of the Philadelphia Phillies 14-6 home win versus the St. Louis Cardinals Saturday night.  

Police said brouhaha initially erupted between a group from a bachelor party and other shitfaced patrons inside McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon next to the Phillies ballpark.  

Bouncers employed at the watering hole were reportedly able to successfully eject the brawling degenerates from the establishment.   

However, the melee, which involved as many as 30 patrons, moved outside into parking lot “M.” 

When the vicious bloodbath that originated over a spilled cup of beer ended, 22-year-old Lansdale resident David Sale was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he was pronounced dead at approximately 8PM.  

“One of the individuals was holding him (Sale) in a headlock while the other two were beating him,” Captain James Clark explained. “He went down to the ground, on all fours, and then they started kicking him and stomping him until he went unconscious. And even after that, we have information they continued to kick and stomp him.”  

Authorities said Charles Bowers, 35, James Groves, 45, and Francis Kirchner, 28, have been charged with murder in the attack.  

Shockingly, all three “City of Brotherly Love” scumbags have prior criminal records.  

Philadelphia Sports Fans Are Scumbags posted by Colin Linneweber

A man was beaten to death in a savage and needless fracas that occurred outside of Citizen’s Bank Park in the final innings of the Philadelphia Phillies 14-6 home win versus the St. Louis Cardinals Saturday night. 

Police said a brouhaha initially erupted between a group from a bachelor party and other shitfaced patrons inside McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon next to the Phillies ballpark. 

Bouncers employed at the watering hole were reportedly able to successfully eject the brawling degenerates from the establishment.  

However, the melee, which involved as many as 30 patrons, moved outside into parking lot “M.” 

When the vicious bloodbath that originated over a spilled cup of beer ended, 22-year-old Lansdale resident David Sale was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he was pronounced dead at approximately 8PM. 

“One of the individuals was holding him (Sale) in a headlock while the other two were beating him,” Captain James Clark explained. “He went down to the ground, on all fours, and then they started kicking him and stomping him until he went unconscious. And even after that, we have information they continued to kick and stomp him.” 

Authorities said Charles Bowers, 35, James Groves, 45, and Francis Kirchner, 28, have been charged with murder in the attack. 

Shockingly, all three “City of Brotherly Love” scumbags have prior criminal records. 

Saturday’s fatal incident is the latest chapter in the notorious history of Philadelphia’s disgusting and subhuman sports fan base. 

Analyzing the Chris Pronger Trade posted by Kevin Christmann

As you probably already know, the Flyers acquired Chris Pronger and Ryan Dingle from Anaheim for Joffrey Lupul, Luca Sbisa, their 2009 1st round pick, their 2010 1st round pick, and a conditional 3rd round pick.  I’ve been seeing a lot of mixed reactions regarding the trade. The majority of them tend to be that it was way too much to give up. My thoughts…we clearly paid a VERY heavy price, however, I am absolutely thrilled with this trade. I will admit, the thought of Pronger leaving after his one year is up, makes me cringe a bit, but I do believe Holmgren has every intention of signing him to an extension. Ideally, we can sign him to a reasonable 2-3 year deal (sadly, I think that’s optimistic) and we can lose the salaries of one of, if not both of, Jones and Carle. If those things were to happy, my grade of this trade would go from a B to an A.

If you were to ask me what I believed my number one priority going into this offseason was (barring acquiring a goalie because we didn’t have one), I would have told you it was a big top 4 defenseman that hits. If you were to then ask me to choose any one player in the league to fill that role…I would have told you Zdeno Chara. However, he won the Norris Trophy and is probably impossible to acquire. My next option would have been Chris Pronger.

Chris Pronger is a former Hart Trophy winner, a 6’6” defenseman that no one in the league looks forward to playing against. He plays in all situations, including first line power play and penalty kill. He adds some desperately needed size to our blueline. Aside from Andrew Alberts, we had very little physical presence among our defenseman. Even though Braydon Coburn is 6’5”, he only seems to play physically when he gets angry, which, unfortunately, does not happen as often as I’d like. Let’s face it, Chris Pronger is a mean dude. In fact, he was voted as the dirtiest player in the league by NHL players. He will bring meanness to our blueline that we haven’t had since Hatcher admirably hobbled around the ice last season.

Hey NHL, We Don't Care! posted by Jeff Ponder

Well, you got what you wanted Gary Bettman; your top team is facing your boy in the spotlight.  Everything this season has led up to this great moment; the top plays on ESPN, the featured stories on NHL.com and most importantly, the reminiscing of the last Stanley Cup Final in 2008.  Players and coaches have already begun talks of how exciting the series will be.

"To have the opportunity against Pittsburgh should be a lot of fun," Detroit Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock said. "There will be a lot of hype."

Red Wings star winger Marian Hossa even had the chance to chat it up about a rematch from last year with the media, but how this time around he will be playing from the other side.

"It's a unique situation right now, definitely this doesn't happen often," Hossa said. "I try to make the best of the situation for myself and try to help the team win a Cup."

Just like last year, right Marian?  When you scored 3 goals in the 6-game final, and combined for just 11 shots in the first 4 games of the series?  Let's hope you can bring your game back up to that level of play in this year's final.

The truth is that outside of Detroit and Pittsburgh, hockey fans are getting quite tired of the coverage that the Red Wings and Penguins get.  At 7 pm EST on a Monday or Tuesday night, the average hockey fan would sit in front of their television set and watch some good 'ole fashioned hockey.  Little did that fan know that 26% of the televised games broadcasted, the Penguins or Red Wings would be entertaining us along with Versus analysts Keith Jones and Brian Engblom.  But it did not stop with regular season coverage.
Continue reading "Hey NHL, We Don't Care!"

Goaltender Options for the Flyers - Part 3 posted by Kevin Christmann

Part 3 of my “Goaltender Options for the Flyers” series will include a couple of “international” goaltenders, and additionally, I will give you my final opinion on what I’d like the Flyers to do.

Part 1 of the series covered Unrestricted Free Agent Options. Part 2 covered Restricted Free Agent Options as well as trade possibilities.

Before I begin, I’d just like to make an update to one of my previous entries. I read a rumor today from Eklund (love him or hate him…I personally hate him) that I thought I’d just throw out there. It said that Giguere is apparently Holmgren’s Plan A this offseason. Although Giguere has his no trade clause and was in the Anaheim area for his son’s eye condition, he doesn’t really want to be a backup goalie, and if the Ducks plan to stick with Hiller he may consider moving. If true, it is certainly interesting news. The Flyers would definitely need to shed some salary in order to get him. To me that means Briere, Lupul, Carle, Jones or maybe Gagne.

Ray Emery

It pains me to even make this entry, but I told a friend I would, and I’d also like to shed a bit of light on him. He has been playing in Russia this past season after nobody in the NHL wanted him (or at least wouldn’t pay him what he wanted). Recently, there was word that the Flyers had contacted his agent. I guess it’s good that the Flyers are considering every option, they should be; but Ray Emery is not a very good goaltender. Ray Emery had one decent season, the only one in which he was the full-time starter. In 2006-2007 he posted a 2.47 GAA and a save percentage of .918; both of which are pretty good numbers. However, I see no reason to believe that wasn’t a complete fluke. He was on a GREAT Ottawa Senators team; a team that had 105 points that season. For comparison, the Flyers had 99 pts this past season, and Biron’s numbers were arguably better (the SV% was, the GAA wasn’t).  In my opinion, Emery rode that awesome Senators team to the Stanley Cup Final, where they were promptly run over by Anaheim.  Somehow, Emery managed to convince people he was a good starting goalie. He managed to get himself a nice contract ($3.167 million cap hit), and was bought out shortly thereafter by the Senators when he showed his true colors. Those true colors being a GAA of 3.13 and a SV% of .890. Oh yea, did I mention that as part of being bought out, you then have to clear waivers? That means every single team in the league passed on him. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that no team wanted him at a hit of 3.167 million. However, that doesn’t then explain why nobody wanted him as a free agent, when they could sign him for whatever price they see fit. The explanation is one of two things. Either literally nobody wanted him, or he thinks way too highly of himself, and wouldn’t sign the contracts being offered to him. Both of those don’t speak well for Mr. Emery. Oh yea, I haven’t even gotten into the fact that he’s apparently a coke head (with former teammate Brian McGratton), was perpetually late for practice, and beat up his trainer.

Goaltender Options for the Flyers - Part 2 posted by Kevin Christmann

Part 2 of this series will include Restricted Free Agent options as well as possible acquisitions via trade.

In Part 1 of this series I covered some of the more realistic Unrestricted Free Agent options for the Flyers in their quest to acquire a starting goaltender. In addition to the Unrestricted Free Agent options, there are several viable Restricted Free Agent options. The benefit of restricted free agents is that they are all young…that is, after all, why they are restricted free agents. They are often times coming off their entry level contracts, and just haven’t played enough seasons to be eligible for unrestricted free agency. The bad part about restricted free agency is that, depending on how much the player is signed for, the team is required to pay some sort of draft pick compensation.

The compensation thresholds are dependent upon the salary cap ceiling for that respective season. Since we don’t know what the salary cap will be set at for next season, the compensation thresholds have not been set either.

Last year’s compensation was as follows:

-at or below $863,812 = no compensation

-$863,813 to $1,307,812 = One 3rd round pick

-$1,307,813 to $2,615,625 = One 2nd round pick

-$2,615,626 to $3,923,437 = One 1st round pick, one 3rd round pick

-$3,923,438 to $5,231,249 = One 1st round pick, one 2nd round pick, one 3rd round pick

-$5,231,250 to $6,539,062 = Two 1st round picks, one 2nd round pick, one 3rd round pick

-$6,539,063 or above = Four 1st round picks

GMs looking to deal with head injuries (AP)

NHL general managers are trying to find a way to deal with serious head injuries. "I think we all care about the safety of our players, first and foremost," Philadelphia Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said Tuesday. "I think there's been some hits this year that all of us feel uncomfortable with, so we're trying to do what's right, not only for the players but for... [read full article]

From Yahoo! Sports

Flyers score 2 quick goals to beat Leafs (AP)

[read full article]

From Yahoo! Sports

Flyers get first win since Olympic break (AP)

[read full article]

From Yahoo! Sports

Sabres win in OT, take Northeast lead (AP)

[read full article]

From Yahoo! Sports

Panthers end 7-game skid, top Flyers 7-4 (AP)

[read full article]

From Yahoo! Sports