So, "Crazy" Eddie Belfour played his 22nd consecutive game tonight. And beat the Flyers, 2-1 on a horrid goal that should go to Marty Biron but didn't.
I know Biron hasn't had much time to get things down with the defense on puck exchanges, but we all know he's not known for clearing passes and such, either.
All the talk after the game was how well Belfour looked at age 41 - and he did. And how awful Florida's game-winner was. Biron, looking up ice for a breakaway pass, cleared the puck off Randy Jones;' shin and back into his own net.
“Whenever you see an opportunity to get it up the ice, especially at 1-1, you try to do it,” Biron said. “I was looking straight up ice. Jones didn’t have much of an area to go. It was up to me to try and get it past him.”
On the puck exchanges, Flyers coach John Stevens added, "Something we work on every day. The chemistry for that interaction takes time. We work on it with resistance and without resistance. We put repetition in there every day. It’s gonna take time.”
Jones said he was trapped. Can't blame him. He's 6-2 and Biron shot it right at him.
“I knew he was trying to throw it up the ice and I was trying to make myself as small as possible,” Jones told me. "There was a guy next to me. It went off my shin pad. I really couldn’t move either way.”
As for Belfour, he had a great glove snare on Simon Gagne in the final 1:32 on a shot I thought had the upper right corner of the net from distance. Gagne was impressed.
“He was the player of the game,” Gagne said.
Your shot had eyes, I told Gagne.
“It was pretty quick, and he made that quick glove save,” Gagne replied. “The shot was coming fast and he made that save even with the traffic in front of him.
“You can still see how good a goaltender he is. We had a breakaway [Scottie Upshall] and he made the save. He still shows he has the ability to make the big saves.”
Panther forward Olli Jokinen said it best.
“Without Eddie, we probably would have lost the game,” Jokinen said. “Eddie was as outstanding as he’s been this year.”
BTW: Crazy Eddie hasn't spoken a word to the media since last October. I went looking for him after the game but he retreated to an area that is off-limits. I expected that. It didn't prevent me from giving him the No. 1 star of game about 20 minutes earlier.
BTW2: Flyers power play went 0-for-6 on the power play for the game which is becoming routine.
“It’s a very big issue right now,” Gagne said. “We doing stuff on the power play we don’t do five-on-five. It’s not acceptable. It’s a little embarrassing on the ice when we can’t get [the puck] in the zone.”
~ finito ~
Biron is not Marty Brodeur when it comes to handling the puck. Someone needs to remind of that because it is the only serious flaw in his game. He just cleared a puck off Flyer defenseman Randy Jones into his own net from 15 feet. baaaaad!
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Oh baby! Belfour tries to clear a puck to the side boards and puts it on Scottie Upshall's stick at the left circle way out of the net. All Upshall has to do is put a soft wrister on net and instead, he fires it off the left post!
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Dmitry Afanasenkov fools Ed Belfour behind the net and tucks in a backhander.
Then the Panthers come back with a bad goal as Chris Gratton's pass from behind the net hits the base and goes right to Ville Peltonen, who clangs it off the post. The puck was headed into the slot but when it redirected, it went right onto Peltonen's stick. Nothing Marty Biron could do.
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We have learned exclusively it is Fan Appreciation Night at the WAC. But this is certainly no way to treat the fans, given that first period. Brutal.
No score. Not much of anything.
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Great hit by Denis Gauthier, knocking Jay Bouwmeester completely into bench, skates up in the air and the Panthers' d-man disappeared. They had to open the door to let him get out after the whistle during a Panther PP.
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Hideous start to the game. Flyers are getting beat to loose pucks everywhere and they are giving up far too many (10) uncontested shots. D-men are backing off and not challenging, either.
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Scratches: Picard, Esche, Hamel
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Late news: I am told that the meeting with Gov. Ed Rendell and the Penguins, NHL officials and others, was moved OUT of Philadelphia tonight ... Not sure where it is being held.
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First off ... If the Flyers have to go the free agent route for a defenseman, instead of wheeling and dealing at the draft, my money is on Kimmo Timonen.
The Flyers have had him rated high priority all season.
Second ... I was blown away by that story in the Newark Star-Ledger about Devils' season ticket prices.
A ticket that cost $70 sky rockets to $150 at Prudential Center! See, who says insurance companies aren't lining their pockets. I wonder how many Devils' season ticket holders are pining for watching games at Continental Airlines Arena right about now?
BTW: The cheapest seat at the Wachovia Center on any given day of Flyers game is $20. The most expensive is $89.
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