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Flyers Playoff Wrapup: Game 3 vs. Habs |
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WRAPUP
This is one of the strangest playoff wins -- and 2-1 series leads -- hat I ever remember. Montreal has yet to play with a lead for a single second of regulation time, yet the ice often seems tilted. Martin Biron is playing out of his mind right now, and R.J. Umberger is having an extraordinary series after a so-so first round.
The Flyers play panicky hockey when they have a lead. Rather than doing the things that got them the lead in the first place, they treat the puck like a hot potato and lose any semblance of a forecheck.
Tonight's officiating was flat out awful by any standard. The work Messrs. Watson and Joannette is a prime example of why the two-ref system often means twice the incompetence. These two shouldn't be playoff referees in the NHL.
NOTE: I will add postgame quotes later tonight.
*****
THIRD PERIOD COMMENTARY
Flyers barely -- barely -- kill off the clock. Pinned in their own end. Final shots were 34-14, as the Flyers only got two shots in the final period to 17 by Montreal. Unbelievable.
Interference penalty on Kukkonen at 14:01 after a hit along the boards on a Montreal dump in. Biron stops two bang-bang chances. Flyers survive. 3:36 left at the next stoppage. Montreal called for too many men on the ice. Thoresen, Kapanen and Kukkukon all get out on the latter part of the PP.
Scary, scary moments as Montreal pinned the Flyers in deep and the Flyers repeatedly turned the puck over. Still 7:09 to go, as Biron robs Koivu. Shots now 32-14 for Habs.
Montreal powerplay goal reviewed to see if net came off the peg before it went in. Goal stands at 7:29: Plekanec credited with the goal. Koivu then narrows it to a 3-2 deficit with a rebound goal at 8:41.
Hatcher given a boarding major and game, nothing on Bouillon felt for a retaliatory crosscheck. Horrendous call. It was an obvious boarding penalty but it was delivered close enough to the boards for it not to be a major. Also, Umberger hurt his leg or knee on the same sequence. He returned to the bench and then the on the next shift on the PK.
So far so good defensively through the first five minutes of of the period. Thoresen misses a point blank chance to extend the lead.
Price out, Halak in to start the third period.
******
SECOND PERIOD COMMENTARY
Shots in the middle stanza were 9-7 in favor of Montreal, but Philly was opportunistic club and Martin Biron continues to shine while Carey Price is flat out hurting his team by allowing soft goals.
A sloppy giveaway at 19:55 leads to Koivu chance in prime scoring range, but Biron made the stop to keep the three-goal lead.
Hartnell records the Philly hit of the series so far, crunching Tom Kostopoulos after an inital hit by Jason Smith.
Make it 3-0 Flyers. A Carter backhanded wraparound try bounced out to Umberger in the left circle and Umberger buried his 5th of the playoffs at 18:19.
More sustained Montreal pressure. Flyers only have one shot in the period (the Upshall goal) through 13:42 as Kukkonen goes off for a stick hold at 13:42. Second shot is an Umberger shorthanded chance from a Carter feed. Richards then breaks out on a shorthanded rush and scores on a long distance wrist shot to the glove side -- simply a horrible goal to give up -- at 15:12.
The Flyers survived three failed clears on a single shift at about the 9:00 mark. Montreal strung together consecutive strong shifts, and Philly needs to bear down again on breakouts.
Joffrey Lupul had his best rush of the series, carrying the mail all the way from his own zone and dishing to Upshall ibelow the right circle s he continued to go toward the net. Upshall shot through the moving screen and put the puck into the net at 7:04.
Prospal moved in front for a point blank range at 5:03 but couldn't quite finish the chance.
The Flyers got nothing going on a gift delay of game powerplay after Bouillon shot he puck over the net.
******
FIRST PERIOD COMMENTARY
Not a bad period for the Flyers, considering that they had to kill three penalties, including a full two minute 5-on-3. Martin Biron continued to make big saves and get help from his goal posts. Shots in the period were 8-5 in the Habs favor.
The teams split 20 faceoffs evenly but Montreal won four of six on the powerplay and Koivu won 6 of 10. Daniel Briere was 2-for-2. There was a modest three giveaways apiece in the first for each team, and the Flyers in particular did a better job of taking care of the puck.
Habs hit their third post of the period at one end (as Biron goes down in front from a bump), at the other end a major scrum was touched off as Downie went for the puck behind the net and Price went down, losing his mask. Downie ended up with an extra tripping minor from the scrum in a situation where the penalties should have evened out. There did not appear to be contact with Price behind the net. Time was 17:59. The Flyers survived the kill to keep the game scoreless.
Kovalev hit the post on a re-direction try at 16:06.
Yet another broken composite stick laying on the ice as Kapanen breaks his twig, costing the Flyers a potential outnumbered rush. Composite sticks are one of my pet peeves about modern hockey. They have zero durability.
Price continued to show some glove-side problems, as he dropped a routine side angle shot by
Prospal.
Flyers went down on a two minute 5-on-3 on a Kapanen hook and Downie slash. Huge kill, as Higgins misses an open net, Biron gloved a Streit point blast cleanly and the Habs caught a goal post. Also a nice clear by R.J. Umberger.
Carey Price denied Umberger from point blank range at 6:30 and then stopped Carter on a deflection at 9:23.
The Flyers had trouble getting organized on their first powerplay, and Biron had to come up with a pokecheck to deny Saku Koivu on a breakaway as he caught a long bank pass coming out of the penalty box.
******
By virtue of losing One the series in Montreal, the Flyers faced a situation of needing to win three of the next four games to gain the upper hand in the series. Philly got one of those wins under their belts with a hairy 4-2 victory in Game Two, but much work remains to be done for the underdog Flyers to prevail in a series where they've yet to trail in regulation.
Neither team has played its best hockey yet. While the Flyers have been opportunistic offensively, the team has spent too much time in its own end of the ice and has played horrid second periods in both games.
Over the course of the first two games, the Flyers have been guilty of too many turnovers and coverage breakdowns that have forced Martin Biron to come up with huge saves (and get some help from his goal posts). Faceoffs have been another problem spot. In addition, the most consistent line on a shift-in and shift-out basis has been Jim Dowd's unit. That's a testament to the hard work the fourth line has turned in, but the Flyers need other lines to generate sustained pressure.
The Canadiens, meanwhile, have also been guilty of killer giveaways and has had trouble finishing glorious scoring opportunities. Most of all, they need rookie goaltender Carey Price to elevate his level of play from the first two games.
For the Flyers to win, they will need to:
* continue their fast starts
* keep their feet moving
* reduce turnovers and cut the gap defensively
* continue getting men to the net and shooting from all angles on Price
* play disciplined hockey and avoid needless penalties (including coincidental minors), and
* avoid clean faceoff losses in the defensive zone.
Home ice doesn't really mean much nowadays in the playoffs, apart from crowd noise and the last line change. There's no intimidation factor anymore in going into another team's building, in part because rinks have fewer distinctive quirks. The fact that the Flyers now have "home ice advantage" (presuming they'd win all three games at home) doesn't really mean much. It's all about the math, not the venue.
Every playoff series eventually takes on a nasty edge to varying degrees and there has already been plenty of trash-talking going on.
Tom Kostopoulos poured a little more gasoline on the fire by suckering Kimmo Timonen after R.J. Umberger's put-away goal late in regulation of Game Two. While the punch wasn't exactly ferocious, it was unnecessary.
The Flyers can't worry about it tonight. There are more important matters at hand. As noted above, the Flyers needs to avoid the penalty box whenever possible in this series. Not only is Montreal's powerplay fearsome, but the Habs have dominated four-on-four play as well. The more five-on-five played, the better Philly's chance of winning.
One final comment on the Kostopoulos incident: It was hardly Dale Hunter/Pierre Turgeon revisted. This doesn't even remotely compare to the worst incident I've seen in recent Flyers playoff years.
In the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals, Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis took a deliberate chop (and barely missed) Alexei Zhamnov's bare hand after the Flyers' center lost his glove in a scrum along the boards. St. Louis clear intention was to injure Zhamnov but he got away with it because no harm was done. He still should have gotten a one-game suspension.
This latest one wasn't suspension worthy and in the grand scheme of things was unimportant to this series. However, if the most recent incident had it played out the other way around -- suppose Flyers agitator Scott Hartnell had popped Andrei Markov after a Habs goal-- I have no doubt there would have been a flood of national media commenting on the Flyers' goonery and self-righteous calls for Hartnell to be suspended for a game.
Imagine if John Stevens said "he deserved it," as Guy Carbonneau did in justifying what Kostopoulos himself admitted was simply an act of frustration. We'd be hearing about how the Flyers "encourage goonery."
There'd be retrospectives on each and every playoff incident involving a Flyer going back to the mid-1970s. In particular, there'd be endless replays of the Hextall-Chelios incident at the end of Game 6 of the 1989 Flyers-Havs series and Ed Hospodar throwing the first punches of the 1987 brawl before Game 6 of the Wales Conference Finals with the Habs.
Tonight's Officials: Marc Joannette and Brad Watson are the referees. The linesmen are Shane Heyer and Brad Lazarowich.
Flyers lines and scratches
Prospal - Briere - Hartnell
Umberger - Richards - Lupul
Upshall - Carter - Kapanen
Thoresen - Dowd - Downie
Coburn - Timonen
Hatcher - Jones
Smith - Kukkonen
Biron
[Niittymäki]
Scratches
Modry (bereavement leave, scheduled to return tomorrow)
Parent (healthy)
Cote (healthy)
Tolpeko (healthy)
Knuble (hamstring, could return by Game 5)
Gagne (concussion)
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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