"A big part of their (Buffalo's) success is Miller. You gotta get in front of him and bang at pucks around, then you have to get shots from all around him. Makes it tough for him
Lake Effect:
"Coming back here is fun, especially when the people are loud and all over you. Its big for me because I have a lot of family who come down (from The Hammer) to see me. They (Buffalo) have always had a team that mirrors the team that i'm playing on: They've got young guys around my age with young stars.
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Chris Pronger:
Bottomline:
"We knew that they were a rush team and a team that has a real good transition. That forced us to skate with them and we got them to play moe of a dump and chase game and it kind of got them out of their rhythm"
Sick Or not, Flyers Come To Play
"Buffalo had been playing very well. Their goalie is exceptional and he does not allow a lot of goals, so we had to be ready for them. At the end of the day, we have to come and play the full game. Our guys dug down and found the effort to give us the lead and then we held on".
James vanRiemsdyk:
Wingage:
" Best chicken wings in the country", JVR exhulted as he chowed down on a fistful of Ricotta's wings after the game.
Calder Trophy Talk
"Obviously with the salary cap now, the cheaper slary young guys get to play more. we're being given every opportunity to show we can play and I find it cool that i've met a lot of those guys (Tavares, Myers, Hedman, Duschene) at some trading card thing up in Toronto. They all seem like great guys, so, it will be fun to compete with the bunch of them"
On The Game winning Goal:
"The D actually made a great play on it as he took away my pass over to Carter. My backhand shot kind of handcuffed Miller, who's a world class goalie and a Hobey Baker winner. Any time you have a goalie like him and he sees the puck, he's gonna stop it thats why you we have to put a lot of traffic in front and kind of bang away"
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6:55pm: Ryan Miller just concluded his meditation. He's rocking the road white sweater at home. Why not the vintage blues?
Sitting here watching the Steve Shields/garth now fist fight on the JumboTron. Hate is good, eh?
Pregame Skate
Sabres are rocking the white road slugs sweater. Flyers wear their black on black ensemble.
Sekera looks to be in fine form.
Scott Hartnell looks like Hannah Montana with that mop on his cabeza.
Enroth wears #1 and will back up Millsie.
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1st Period:
Emery was booed roundly as he stepped into his crease for the anthems.
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Kennedy hacks Giroux 80 seconds into the game and the Philly PP hits the ice.... Buffalo PK is getting to the Philly entries with speed and they are sending the pucks to the lonely end of the rink.
Successful kill.
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4:58 of the period: Laliberte slashes Goose (no blood; Sabres man advantage for 2 or less.....
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Both teams are feeling one another out early. John Stevens does not want a track meet with the swift skating Sabres. he's keeping the third man high to deny the long bomb through the neutral zone.
Buffalo are content to get pucks deep and work the Philly D when their faces are to the glass.
**
Lindy rolls all four lines. short shifts to get everyone involved early.
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@ 8:29 of the period; shots on goal, 7-4 Buffalo.
Carcillo and Grier have words then shoves in front of the Buffalo bench.
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Kaleta finishes hard his hit on Coburn behind Emery, then, Butler smokes Laliberte off a puck on the halfwall.
*****
Way to go, Rook! Timmy Kennedy comes back with a vengeance on the backcheck to deny a Mike Richards breakaway attempt on Miller. Great play by TK to not trip Richards for the penalty shot. Textbook D.
***
@ 15:40, Asham hacks Kaleta....
52-57-41-26-9; Rivet misses the cross box feed and the open net!
34-29-28-19-21 second unit: bad entries and no zone time.
Successsful kill.
****
1-0 Philly:
@ 18:39, Tyler Myers gets caught on his belly in the shot lane.A no-no. Carcillo wins the corner wall battle and feeds Coburn at the point; Coburns shot is deflected by Carcillo as he screened Miller.
Carcillo gets credit as its deemed a good goal by the suits in Tronna.
Myers and Tallinder get the minus -1, along with Kennedy, Grier, and Vanek.
***
2nd Period:
Time for the Sabres to answer the bell with physicality. They were only outhit, 5-4 in the forst period, however, I feel like finishing checks and rattling the Flyers rafters with clean, hard checks will cause them to run around and chase like Asham did on his stupid penalty on Kaleta. Make them lose their cool and score on the PP.
*****
2-0 Philly
:38 second mark: Chris Pronger throws a harmeless wrister at Miller, it catches Rivet's stick shaft and finds the back of the net. Laperiere has assists on each Philly goal tonight. His first two points of the season.
***
The goal serves as a can of Red Bull for the Flyers as their forwards jump on the Buffalo d and create chaos in front of Miller.
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Kaleta smokes Tollefsen and Richards takes exception..... 4 on 4... until JVR holds the stick..
Buffalo PP
2-1 Philly
@ 4:28, tim Connolly registers carreer point #300 with a cross ice feed to Pommer, who misses the net only to have Roy tap in the rebound-- beats Emery clean.
***
John Stevens should have a word with his knucklehead, Dan Carcillo. #13 black just ran around for a minute looking to suck a Sabre into a fight. Rivet declined, then Butler. That guy should have 25 second shift lengths. He was on the ice for 60 seconds acting like a tool with his team up by only a goal.
***
@ 7:30 Myers and Coburn get off setting minors... 4 on 4 hockey...
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@ 10:32, Grier pastes Timonen in the neutral zone.
@ 11:04, Matt Ellis sits two. He goes from having the puck on his stick and creating a scoring chance in front of Emery to the box. Nice dive Bad call.
Successful kill
*****
Tallinder shows great speed and dexterity as he takes aloose puck from the right faceoff dot in his end, behind miller, and up the wall-- he was slasked with no call--- at centre ice, however, he kept moving at a high rate of speed. He drives the puck wide and in between Emery where he wisely fed the soft side forward with a tape to tape pass that almost results in a goal.
GREAT WORK HANK!
****
Montador sits two with Carcillo for square dancing. Then..
3-1 Philly
@ 14:55,JVR walks into the Buffalo zone, drops the Dman to his chest, skates around him and deposits the puck behind Miller with a soft back hander.
****
Buffalo need to score the next goal as the Flyers have gotten an adrenaline boost from their third goal.
Going into the third period down 3-2 is better than being down by 2 pucks.
**
Flyers outshoot Buffalo 14-8 in the scond period, and are rewarded with two goals-- one at the 28 second mark and another with 5:05 remaining in the period.
Philly leads shot counter, 25-17.
****
3rd Period:
Sabres need to stay out of the box and get to work on getting pucks deep on the Philly D.
Emery has been good early on. Good. Not great. Throw more rubber at the net and arrive there in ill-humour.
****
Butler and Rivet begin the period a combined -4 tonight.
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@ 17 second mark, Laperiere drops Pommer on his la derriere in the neutral zone.
***
4-1 Philly
@ 2:34 mark, Miller allows a softie by Powe. It had knucklepuck action from 37 feet out, however, that has to be kept out of the net.
****
Stafford bumped down to the 4th line. Grier takes his place with Roy and Vanek.
Staff draws penalty which results in Buffalo's second goal.
4-2 Buffalo
@ 10:34, Tyler Myers scores his third of the season on the backhand. Emery never saw the puck.
ANOTHER PPG for Buffalo. They wre winningthe special teams battle, however, they are losing this game 5 on 5.
Do you smell a comeback brewing?
****
***
You’ve heard the buzz about John Tavares and Tyler Myers, however, there’s another uber rookie who’s making a name for himself in the NHL Rookie Of The Year race.
James vanRiemsdyk, welcome to “The Show”. The second player chosen in the Patrick Kane (2007) draft, JVR spent two years at in NCAA Hockey at UNH. You’ll recall he made a significant contribution to Team USA at the World Junior Championships in Ottawa last January. Last Spring, GM Paul Holmgren handed JVR a seven game sampler platter with the Flyers team in the “A”. The kid acquitted himself rather well. JVR was the direct beneficiary of the exodus of two veteran forwards last Summer. Mike Knuble joined The Great 8 as a UFA, and, Lupul was the player going the other way to Anaheim in the Chris Pronger deal.
John Stevens wasted little time pushing JVR to the fore. The Flyers needed a scoring winger and the youngster was Jimmy On The Spot. He has scoring 13 points in his first 10 games with the Flyers.
Myers: in 12 games he has two goals, four assists and is a very respectable +8.
The Oil Rig is second only to Tampa’s Viktor Hedman’s 24 minutes per game. Myers is devouring the 20:45 minutes a night that he‘s earned from Lindy Ruff. Myers can also be credited with the sudden change in fortunes of his D partner, Hank Tallinder. Combined, Myers and Tallinder are +18.

Get the foil on, boys!
The Flyers have been beseiged by the flu bug lately. Carcillo and asham were held out of practice all week... until yesterday. I look for one of these two guys to shove Miller after a whistle and crowd #30 in his kitchen. Rivet, Monty, goose and the gamd best be ready.
I predict fisticuffs in the game's first five and a half minutes.
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Ryan Miller, 9-1-1, enters tonight’s game with the best save % and GAA in the NHL. Miller is .941 and a buck sixty nine, if you need him. Miller’s two shutouts don’t suck either. Miller has yielded only 18 goals against in his 11 starts.
Ray Emery is a formidable foe with a 7-3-1, .916 save % and a 2.42 GAA.
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