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Game 3: Who Cheats Better? |
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All the talk at the morning skate today was the need for the Flyers to be better on faceoffs.
They were hideous in Game 2, losing nearly 60 percent of the draws to the Boston Bruins.
I can't remember the last time Mike Richards was in the mid-20s percentile on draws but he was in that game.
Richards got eaten alive by Patrice Bergeron, who won 9 of 13 draws.
Perhaps invoking Bob Clarke's famous line that unless your cheating on faceoff draws, you are not really working hard enough at the dots, Richards admitted that Bergeron was better at cheating than him in that game.
I can remember a few years ago, Richards saying that he wasn't getting any slack from the officials on faceoff draws. Then last season, he said he finally felt he had earned the respect of the officials throughout the league to cheat on draws like a lot of savvy veterans do.
The team that starts with the puck, controls the puck, controls the fate of the game, essentially, and in Game 2, that was Boston.
With home ice, the Flyers get last change and LAST stick down on draws which should greatly improve their faceoff chances tonight in Game 3.
Here's my story on CSNPhilly.com with Richards and Bergeron talking about faceoffs:
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