The Flyers did what they had to do last night, getting a critical four-game homestand off on the right foot. It was good to see Simon Gagne continue his recent roll and even nicer to see Dan Carcillo get kudos for efforts.
Say what you will about Carcillo's periodic meltdowns. With a couple much publicized exceptions -- and I still maintain that his nine-minute penalty and subsequent suspension in December were a miscarriage of justice -- he has shown much improved discipline since being talked to about it early in the season. On a game-in and game-out basis, he's been one of the team's hardest workers and best forecheckers. He digs pucks off the walls, forces other teams into turnovers and has been clutch around the net.
Carcillo has come to be my pick for the Pelle Lindbergh Trophy as the team's most improved player over the course of the season. When he first came here from Phoenix last year, I didn't think he added much of anything except yapping at opposing players and refs. This season, he's been part of a very solid group of role players.
Guys like Carcillo, Arron Asham and Ian Laperriere have done their part all year. The club's up-and-down season has been primarily due to the core group's streakiness.
I will be out of town tomorrow, so following below are my thoughts heading into the Islanders game. The blog will also serve as the discussion board thread for tomorrow.
In conjunction with Versus.com's head-to-head game preview feature, my full preview for the game is available
here.
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The Islanders are a team that the Flyers have owned in recent years. That's a trend that the Flyers need to keep up tomorrow night. The Islanders have been exceptionally poor at coming back in games where they trail first (.191 winning percentage), ranking 27th in the league. The Flyers have done better in that area of late but still rank 26th.
In addition, the Islanders rank 26th in the NHL in the faceoff department, while the Flyers are right in the middle of the pack at an even 50%. That represents improvement over a year ago for Philly.
Michael Leighton had another solid game last night against Toronto. The debacle in Florida is now in the rear view mirror as the club heads into tomorrow night's game.
Highly touted Islanders rookie John Tavares was arguably the midseason favorite for the Calder Trophy but he has been utterly invisible for most of the last two months, while Colorado's Matt Duchene has outplayed him. Tavares hasn't scored a goal in his last 17 games and has one goal in his last 27 games. In that span, he has been held pointless 20 times.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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