With their season on the line in the seventh game of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, the Flyers played their most complete game in several months. They did just about everything right in beating the game but undermanned Sabres, 5-2.
The game itself progressed a lot like the series itself, in that Ryan Miller stole the show early but eventually the Flyers' depth exposed a thin Sabres defense. It certainly did not help Buffalo's cause that the team was racked by injuries to its key forwards outside Thomas Vanek, and Derek Roy simply did not have the conditioning in his first game since December to keep up with the breakneck pace of a playoff Game 7.
Lots of good stuff to talk about from the Flyers' perspective. In coming back to win the series after trailing, 3 games to 2, Philadelphia showed:
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patience against an elite goaltender. Miller allowed very few outright "soft" goals in the series. Most everything came off point shots through traffic, screens, deflections and players where a Flyers shooter put the puck high under the crossbar. Philly simply kept attacking until they were rewarded, with Danny Briere, James van Riemsdyk and Claude Giroux leading the way throughout the series. With the exception of Tyler Myers, Miller really didn't have the caliber of blueline crew in front of him that one would generally associate with a playoff team, yet he fashioned a pair of 1-0 shutouts and kept the Sabres in the game as long as possible in the finale. He needed more help.
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signs of life on the power play. Funny what can happen when you win offensive zone faceoffs and get shots on net from the point with traffic in front. Although Chris Pronger is still less than 100 percent when it comes to shooting the puck, his return in Game 6 definitely gave the club a jolt of confidence. Also, speaking of faceoff wins, Briere won a pair of draws that led directly to goals last night.
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offensive and defensive depth. After being limited only to power play duty in Game 6, Pronger started to skate more regular shifts last night. Getting Game 6 under his belt helped him start to get his game-day conditioning back. Last night, he blocked five shots. Even without Pronger, the Flyers defense corps did an excellent job through most of the series. In particular, Braydon Coburn and Andrej Meszaros were absolutely tremendous throughout the series. While Kimmo Timonen and Matt Carle had some misadventures at the point on the power play, both were strong in their own end.
Philadelphia's forwards also deserve praise for their backchecking efforts in the series. Buffalo did a better job of forechecking as the series moved along after Game 1 but the Philadelphia forwards helped keep much of the play to the perimeter. The Flyers' goalies usually had a chance to make the saves (whether they made the routine saves or not was sometimes a different story).
Up front, it is a testament to the Flyers' depth that they could lose Jeff Carter for the last two-plus games, and barely skip a beat. To score 21 goals on Ryan Miller in a seven-game series when Carter and Mike Richards combining for one goal (Carter's Game 3 power play goal) after scoring a combined 59 goals in the regular season shows just how dangerous the Flyers' attack truly is when they keep their feet moving.
Danny Briere continued to cement his reputation as the Flyers' Mr. Clutch in the playoffs. JVR started to blossom into the type of the player the Flyers hoped he'd develop into after they made him the second overall pick of the 2007 draft. Giroux continued to show his uncanny ability to turn seemingly well-covered plays into sudden scoring chances (I do wish he would have shot the puck a little more in the series). Meanwhile, Ville Leino potted three goals in the series. Richards wasn't scoring but helped set up some key goals.
Want to find an unsung hero in the series for Philadelphia? I nominate Kris Versteeg. Maligned -- with justification -- for his spotty play after coming over from Toronto, Versteeg was a real asset to the Flyers' in this series. He hustled up scoring chances, killed penalties well and canceled out at least three would-be icings in the series.
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the mental toughness and grit of Brian Boucher. Except for a horrendous first period of Game 5, Boucher was absolutely tremendous in goal for the Flyers. He succeeded under the most difficult of situations, too, with Peter Laviolette's game of musical goalies making painfully obvious to the hockey world that the coach -- despite all his words to the contrary -- does not have true faith in any of them.
In the glow of last night's final score, it is easy to forget that Boucher faced some real testers when the Sabres were on the power play early in the second period with the score still just 1-0 in the Flyers' favor.
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pedal to metal forechecking. Too often in the second half of the season -- and several times in Games 2, 3, 5 and 6 of the Buffalo series -- the Flyers stopped skating and let their attention to detail slip once they either got a lead or battled back to even up the score. That was not the case last night, at least not until the score was 4-0 in the third period and the game was well in hand.
To his credit, Peter Laviolette kept right on coaching the team until the end of the game. He was not happy with the drop in energy in the third period and used his timeout. Thereafter, the club did a good job at closing out the game the right way, although the Sabres eventually got a second goal in the late stages. More on Laviolette later.
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During the third period of last night's game, I received a text message that there was a rumor swirling that Michael Leighton had gone AWOL after Game 6 and that was why Johan Backlund was moved up to number three in the goaltending rotation last night.
At the time, I thought it sounded too crazy to be true, although it did seem pretty odd that Leighton was demoted below Backlund after being elevated above Bobrovsky in Games 3-6 and starting the last game in Buffalo. Even though Leighton's play in Game 6 was all shades of hideous, he had played adequately in relief of Boucher the previous game. If Laviolette thought enough of Leighton to start him in an elimination game, it didn't compute that the goalie would not even have been an emergency option.
Even so, Leighton doesn't have the reputation as someone who would do something like disappearing from the team for a full day after a game, no matter how disappointed he was. So I was inclined not to believe it.
The Delaware County Times' Anthony SanFilippo
investigated the rumor. Both Paul Holmgren and Peter Luukko have vehemently denied the rumor. Although Homer (like all GMs) sometimes fudges the details of injury reports, he is usually very direct and honest.
If Leighton had been disciplined by the team, it would more like Holmgren to say, "There was an internal matter that we dealt with, and it's over and done, so I have nothing further to say" than to flatly deny anything happened. Luukko would likely also have stood behind a similar statement where nothing is denied yet no details are revealed, either.
To be honest, I'm still not sure what to make of the whole thing. But as long as Boucher and Bobrovsky are the viable goaltending options for the club over the remainder of the postseason, this situation has no real bearing on the team either which way.
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I could live just fine without Dan Carcillo taunting the beaten Sabres' bench as he skated by after scoring the Flyers' final goal of last night's game. I could also live just fine without Carcillo's embellishments of would-be penalties (which is part of the reason why referees give him nothing, yet he keeps doing it).
On the flip side, Carcillo's forechecking work throughout the series was excellent. He won a lot of battles and created turnovers with hits. He also scored a pair of goals in the series by getting himself into the traffic areas.
With Carcillo, you always know that you have to take the good with the bad. Sometimes he helps the cause, sometimes he is unable to keep his emotions in check and hurts the team. For the balance of the series, the Flyers got the Carcillo who helps them win.
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Laviolette sent a message of panic to his team by starting Leighton in Game 6. I'd have said the same thing even if Leighton had played well. I understand -- or think I understand -- why Bobrovsky was scratched in Games 3 to 6 (although I personally would have kept him as the backup if it were my decision to make). But there is no way in hell that anyone other than Boucher should have been the starter in Game 6.
The Flyers' coach got a huge reprieve when the team came back from 3-0 and 4-3 deficits to win Game 6 in OT. To his credit, he made the most of it. The team was very well prepared for last night's finale, and the coach did a good job of staying on his players to make sure they kept their energy level as high as possible.
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The Flyers won't know the identity of their second-round playoff opponent until after Game 7 of the Bruins-Canadiens and Penguins-Lightning series. If the Bruins win, they will be the Flyers' second round opponent. If the Habs win, Philly gets the winner of Pens-Bolts.
I will comment in much greater depth tomorrow. What I will say for now is that you have to beat whoever is placed in front of you, and there's so much parity in the NHL that anyone can beat anyone else in the playoffs under given scenarios.
For evidence, look at the Vancouver-Chicago series: the runaway President's Trophy winner takes on a team that had to back into the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference. The highly favored team builds a 3-0 lead in the series, loses the next three and has to go overtime to salvage the series -- and only after Roberto Luongo robbed Patrick Sharp in the OT.
If Boston wins Game 7 tonight, it will mark the first time since the NHL went to six divisions that all the division winners have made it through the first round. I doubt the NHL will be filming any "history will be made" commercials devoted to that particular playoff subject but, again, it just speaks to how narrow the gap really is between clubs nowadays. The Bruins, meanwhile, are attempting tonight to break a string of three consecutive Game 7 losses on home ice.
You can analyze a series matchup on paper all you want, but anything can happen on the ice. There is not a team remaining in the playoffs in either conference whom I feel the Flyers could not beat in a best-of-seven game series. Likewise, there's not a team that I could say are incapable of beating Philly four times in seven games.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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