We often kid ourselves in the Flyers press room about the "curse" that seemingly has hung over this franchise since last winning a Stanley Cup in 1975.
Which means, any of you reading this or scanning Hockeybuzz weren't even born back then.
The familiar refrain every year spring with the Flyers has been, "they got questions in goal."
This was the one season in I don't know how long where the Flyers had no questions whatsoever about how sound the goaltending was.
Steve Mason and Ray Emery were an excellent tandem. Going into the final week of the regular season the only questions any of us had were: 1) would the Flyers get home ice on the Rangers; and 2) regardless, would they score on Henrik Lundqvist.
No one thought the goalies would be an issue and suddenly, it's everything.
Sometime between last Saturday and Tuesday, things took a terrible turn for Mason. I spoke to numerous people attached to the club who felt whiplash was bothering Mason - not a concussion. But for his symptoms to get gradually worse, suggests to me, that he has latent post-concussion symptoms even though GM Paul Holmgren, arguing with me nicely but still arguing, did not deny that Mason has "muscular" issues in the neck which again, suggest whiplash.
Craig Berube doesn't see the news that Emery will start over Mason as "a blow" to his team. I can tell you some years ago, when Kimmo Timonen came down with blood clots in his legs the night before a playoff series opened in Pittsburgh, it was a devastating blow to the Flyers' players.
I don't see this as devastating but I see it as significant on two fronts: The Flyers have not won at MSG in 3 years and need a shot of confidence. Two, if they could grab Game 1, all the doubt turns to the Rangers.
Emery has played well against big opponents this season without the same kind of goal support that Mason has gotten. To me, if the Flyers could repeat what they did earlier this winter and score a couple goals quickly on Lundqvist in Game 1, it could make an enormous difference on the game and the series.
Just once, I'd like to see Emery play with a 2-goal lead on a quality opponent instead of being even or behind.
I like Emery's attitude going in. He played it coy today but he knew he was going to be the Game 1 starter:
"First and foremost, we start with a clean slate," he said. "We’re not worried about what happened up there – both teams don’t have a win in the series, and both teams want to win the first game.
"We’re aware that they come out hard, especially in their own building, but we come out hard too. We’ve got to be prepared for them, but at the same time, if we do the things that we need to do, we’re confident that we can win the series."
If Emery delivers tomorrow, the Flyers have a chance. For the record, I have Rangers in 7.
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