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Meltzer's Musings: Flyers-Leafs Wrapup & Phantoms-Hershey |
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The Flyers utterly dominated the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, winning a 5-2 game that easily could have been one of the most lopsided scores in recent club history had Jean-Sabastien Giguere not single-handedly kept his club in the game for two periods.
There are nights where shot totals can be deceptive. This wasn't one of them, although Toronto actually checked well for the first 6:30 of the game before the Flyers turned their energy up a notch and the Maple Leafs had no answers. The 40-14 final shot total tells you all you need to now about both the territorial play and the scoring chances.
Toronto came into the game hoping to get scoring from additional sources than Clarke MacArthur in support of Phil Kessel. It didn't happen. Kessel and MacArthur each tallied their 6th goal of the season, but that was it.
Notes and observations:
* The Flyers lineup switches on the first and third lines worked well for the most part. Getting Jeff Carter (0 points but a good game) and Mike Richards (1 G, 2 A, 1st star) away from each other seemed to help. Richards finally answered the bell to spark the club, aided by a bad giveaway by Francis Beauchemin. Darroll Powe had a strong game on the third line. With the exception of two shifts, however, Nikolay Zherdev remained largely invisible.
* A second straight dominant game for the Danny Briere line. Tonight, all three members tallied single goals. Before sustaining a charley horse at practice yesterday, Ville Leino indicated that he finally felt like he was regaining strength in his hip, and his skating and strength on the puck the last two games has been much, much improved. He's looked much more like the guy we saw in the playoffs last year. Meanwhile, Briere has been the Flyers' most consistently dangerous forward all season and Scott Hartnell had one of his good games where he played under control yet was always in the thick of things.
* Dion Phaneuf did nothing last night to combat the widespread belief that, despite his big-name status, he has major holes in his game in terms of his decision-making and positional play. He racked up his 4 hits, including a couple heavy ones. But he also directly contributed to a pair of Flyers goals, took too long winding up on shots and got blocked several times (in fact, none of his 4 shot attempts reached Brian Boucher).
* Kimmo Timonen (3rd star selection) blocked a season-high 8 shots, all via getting his stick in the shooting lane.
* The Flyers showed much improved puck movement on the powerplay tonight, although they only converted one of six (including a five-minute advantage late in the game after a foolish and gratuitous boarding by Colby Armstrong). The PK went 4-for-4.
* Ron Wilson heavily stressed the need this week to get more traffic at opposing nets. The message didn't register last night.
* Giguere, who actually made his NHL debut in Philadelphia, remains winless in his career in games in Philadelphia.
* Peter Laviolette elected not to cancel practice tomorrow despite the fact that tonight's game marked the start of a stretch of three games in four nights. However, it's likely to be a light and brief practice tomorrow, and the club will then travel to Columbus for Monday's tilt before returning home to play the Sabres on Tuesday.
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The Phantoms took another one on the chin last night, getting blown out in Hershey, 5-1.
Yet again, Greg Gilbert's Phantoms left goalie Johan Backlund high and dry. He stopped 32 of 37 in this game but, as with Giguere in Philly, he had virtually no help.
The club in front of him put itself shorthanded 8 times (the Bears cashed in twice) and generated a measly 18 shots on goal, half of which came in the third period. The Phantoms were outscored 2-0 in the first, 1-0 in the second, and 2-1 in the third and outshot 15-4 and 13-7 in the first two periods.
Andrew Rowe scored late in regulation for the only Phantoms goal. Oskars Bartulis, on loan from the Flyers for a conditioning assignment, was in the lineup for Adirondack.
The Phantoms (2-5-1) will try their luck again tomorrow in Hershey. The Bears are now 3-2-1. Adirondack has allowed the most goals (31) in the AHL, leads the league in PIM and ranks in the bottom third of the league with 17 goals scored.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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