So many things went right for the Flyers on Saturday night at the Island, you walk away from Nassau Coliseum thinking to yourself, 'hey, maybe they have finally turned a corner.'
Flyer fans hope so as does Comcast which has to be a little concerned right now about the number of empty seats at games.
Yes, the team sells out in advance most games, but when a couple thousand people are no-shows, you factor in the parking, food and alcohol and you're taking significant dollar losses per game.
Anaheim comes to town on Tuesday and the Flyers have won 2 straight for the first time, so you gotta figure maybe this brings some bodies back to the building.
Vinny Lecavalier continues to be productive player for the Flyers with 4 goals and 6 points through 7 games. His hat trick alone was more goals from one player on one night than the Flyers had scored as a team in any of its previous nine games.
I honestly believe the Flyers stopped squeezing their sticks sometime during the first period when they opened up a 2-0 lead on the Islanders. You hope this rolls over.
Even Steve Mason admitted how nice it was to have more than a goal or two to work with.
I can tell you from being in the room every day with these guys that there has not been a sense of fatalism with this group, even after the loss to Pittsburgh that set up a six-day layoff to contemplate what was coming next.
Optimism has reigned here under coach Craig Berube. I also not that more and more players throw accolades the direction of Ian Laperriere, who is really just a few years removed as a player and is considered by many players as 'one of them,' if you will, but from the coaching side.
Max Talbot told me that Lappy really has the penalty killers believing they're better than their mid-rank and in just one game, they went from 15th to 9th overall on the PK by shutting down the best power play in the NHL.
I asked one of the Islander writers about that. Like me, he said he could not remember the last time an Islander team led the NHL in power play (30%), outside of those golden Al Arbour years.
The challenge this week is for the Flyers to string together a strong back-to-back showing this coming weekend against Washington, then New Jersey. The Flyers have not looked competitive against the Devils in a very long time.
If they can do that this week and pick up points, then maybe we can finally say the proof is out there that this team has turned a corner.
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