Friday, October 31, 2008
A week ago, I threw myself onto the couch to watch the Flyers/Devils game with every expectation of seeing the Flyers lose. Can you blame me?
1) The Flyers had yet to win a game and nothing they had done to that point seemed to indicate to me that anything would magically have been fixed.
2) The Flyers so rarely beat New Jersey period, let alone in New Jersey (the last time being in March 2004, if I remember the stat correctly).
Thus, I was not prepared for the beat-down that I saw.
I am a scientist, so in spite of my adherence to such “rules” as not saying the s-h-u-t-0-u-t word, not saying things like “Jagr has never scored on Niittymaki!”, etc., I don’t actually believe in supernatural sorts of forces affecting my team. However, when I am presented with information such as the following, I am given a reason to reconsider.
1) Governor Sarah Palin dropped the puck at the Flyers home opener on October 11. The Flyers proceeded to not win six games in a row in spite of scoring outrageously in the process.
2) The Flyers immediately dropped behind the Devils in the game on October 24.
3) Governor Sarah Palin dropped the puck at a St. Louis Blues game on that same night, October 24, about an hour after the Flyers’ game in Newark, NJ began. The Blues' goalie tripped on the rug they put on the ice for Palin, got hurt, and the Blues went on to lose 4-0 to the Kings.
4) While the Blues were losing to the Kings, the Flyers came out of their defensive-zone nightmare and beat the Devils, 6-3. The Flyers won for the first time this season, beating the Devils badly in an away-game situation they had not won in more than 4 years.
5) The Flyers won again in an overtime decision the next day, at home, beating the Devils and Marty Brodeur again, 3-2.
6) The Blues managed to win their next game, but their next goalie was hurt too.
7) The Flyers won two more games following the home-and-home sweep of the Devils.
What am I trying to say? That Palin took her accursed puck-dropping to St. Louis and the hex was lifted from the Flyers almost the moment she did so. So powerful was this curse-lifting that not only have the Flyers won four in a row, but the only Philadelphia major-league team to have lost since last Friday was the Sixers (and in that time, the Phillies won the World Series!). How can you not think maybe there is something to the supernatural, after all?
Ok. Back to seriousness here, I was perfectly happy to come to work last Monday and humbly state to my co-workers that I had misjudged the Flyers’ chances against New Jersey. But, realistically, would you have honestly been able to do much but agree with me?
The Flyers headed to Atlanta on Tuesday. The Flyers have an astonishingly clean record against the Thrashers (since they lost to them, at home, in November 2005 – once again I will mention that that was my first-ever Flyers game) and no one seemed to disagree that they would win again Tuesday. Not after the way they played against the Devils – the defense sewed up so many holes that they looked respectable and perhaps not terrifying. But I don’t like to think that any game is a given, though I expect them to win (it’s not the same thing). And no one should have been surprised that Stevens played Niittymaki, in spite of how good Biron was over the weekend. Niitty’s got some kind of magic surrounding him when he plays against Atlanta / Kari Lehtonen. And that magic was out in full force again Tuesday, though to be honest, it’s not like the Thrashers gave him much trouble. I feel a little bad for Ilya Kovalchuk, to be such a good player and have to do everything himself. (I predict he plays for someone else before the end of the season.) I don’t feel bad for the Thrashers losing to the Flyers 7-0. The Thrashers have been the Flyers’ punching bag for years now, even when the Flyers were the punching-bag for the rest of the league.
It’s almost boring to see your team run up the score, because that means it’s not a good hockey game, but it is still satisfying. Three Flyers had two-goal nights (Knuble, both goals reviewed; Gagne; Carter) and Metropolit, getting a lot more ice-time with Briere sitting out injured, carried the balance. With those seven goals, the Flyers had taken the league lead in goals-for. Too bad that the goals-against was pretty crappy.
Last night, the Flyers played the Islanders. The Islanders are not a very good team, but somehow, when they play the Flyers, they look better than they are. It is possible the Flyers were not pressing as hard as they should have, coming off such an easy win, perhaps a little complacent at the idea they were playing the only team in the division with a worse record (the worst team in the NHL). I think the Islanders should not have been able to keep the game as close as it was. Biron played well, and to be fair, the tying goal came off of Vaananen’s shoulder and was not his fault. That the game had to go to overtime was uncalled for. But it did allow Jeff Carter to be the hero for the second OT in a row. Eight goals for Carter. Aren’t you glad he wasn’t traded?
So it’s been a good week as a Flyers fan. Sunday they play the Oilers and I’m thinking going into next week with a five-game streak would be a good way to start the end of DST.
--------------------------
The Phantoms have been away since I last saw them lose to the Senators a couple weeks ago. In that time, they’ve gone 2-2. They lost horribly to Bridgeport (5-1!), less horribly to Hartford (2-1), beat Albany 3-0, and Norfolk 5-4 in OT (Jared Ross scoring the game-winner, from Steve Downie, who had four assists). The Albany game sounds like a zoo; in addition to a couple fighting majors handed out between Szwez and Angelidis in the second period, the second closed with the following, uh, altercations:
PHI Downie, 19:29 - High-sticking , 2 min
PHI Downie, 19:29 - Fighting , 5 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Instigating , 2 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Unsportsmanlike conduct , 2 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Fighting , 5 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Misconduct - Instigating (47.10), 10 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Game misconduct - Persisting a fight (47.5), 10 min
“Persisting a fight” is something I don’t think I’ve seen before. Apparently, Tim “Are you going to grow up to be a Conman?” Conboy bit Downie’s hand, drawing blood. Um, berserk much? Conboy: almost half an hour of penalties at once. Not bad.
Wasn’t it against Albany that I witnessed the 5x fights happening at once, last season? I guess the no-love-lost between these teams hasn’t eased since the playoffs.
I’ll finally get to see the Phantoms again on Sunday, at 5 p.m., when they play the Bears. It’s been a bit of a live hockey drought for me, and so I am really looking forward to it.
-----------------------
Next weekend, I will be turning the very unexciting age of 32, and on that day, the Flyers play the Tampa Bay Lightning at home. For my birthday present, I’m getting tickets to the game. Last year, the Flyers were playing on my birthday in Newark, and K. and I made the trip. Flyers: is it too much to ask for you to win this year? Last year it was apparently far too much to ask, seeing as asking you to merely play would have been too much.
---------------------
Not going to the Phillies parade today. I am going to save calling in fake-sick for the day the Flyers have their Stanley Cup parade.
1) The Flyers had yet to win a game and nothing they had done to that point seemed to indicate to me that anything would magically have been fixed.
2) The Flyers so rarely beat New Jersey period, let alone in New Jersey (the last time being in March 2004, if I remember the stat correctly).
Thus, I was not prepared for the beat-down that I saw.
I am a scientist, so in spite of my adherence to such “rules” as not saying the s-h-u-t-0-u-t word, not saying things like “Jagr has never scored on Niittymaki!”, etc., I don’t actually believe in supernatural sorts of forces affecting my team. However, when I am presented with information such as the following, I am given a reason to reconsider.
1) Governor Sarah Palin dropped the puck at the Flyers home opener on October 11. The Flyers proceeded to not win six games in a row in spite of scoring outrageously in the process.
2) The Flyers immediately dropped behind the Devils in the game on October 24.
3) Governor Sarah Palin dropped the puck at a St. Louis Blues game on that same night, October 24, about an hour after the Flyers’ game in Newark, NJ began. The Blues' goalie tripped on the rug they put on the ice for Palin, got hurt, and the Blues went on to lose 4-0 to the Kings.
4) While the Blues were losing to the Kings, the Flyers came out of their defensive-zone nightmare and beat the Devils, 6-3. The Flyers won for the first time this season, beating the Devils badly in an away-game situation they had not won in more than 4 years.
5) The Flyers won again in an overtime decision the next day, at home, beating the Devils and Marty Brodeur again, 3-2.
6) The Blues managed to win their next game, but their next goalie was hurt too.
7) The Flyers won two more games following the home-and-home sweep of the Devils.
What am I trying to say? That Palin took her accursed puck-dropping to St. Louis and the hex was lifted from the Flyers almost the moment she did so. So powerful was this curse-lifting that not only have the Flyers won four in a row, but the only Philadelphia major-league team to have lost since last Friday was the Sixers (and in that time, the Phillies won the World Series!). How can you not think maybe there is something to the supernatural, after all?
Ok. Back to seriousness here, I was perfectly happy to come to work last Monday and humbly state to my co-workers that I had misjudged the Flyers’ chances against New Jersey. But, realistically, would you have honestly been able to do much but agree with me?
The Flyers headed to Atlanta on Tuesday. The Flyers have an astonishingly clean record against the Thrashers (since they lost to them, at home, in November 2005 – once again I will mention that that was my first-ever Flyers game) and no one seemed to disagree that they would win again Tuesday. Not after the way they played against the Devils – the defense sewed up so many holes that they looked respectable and perhaps not terrifying. But I don’t like to think that any game is a given, though I expect them to win (it’s not the same thing). And no one should have been surprised that Stevens played Niittymaki, in spite of how good Biron was over the weekend. Niitty’s got some kind of magic surrounding him when he plays against Atlanta / Kari Lehtonen. And that magic was out in full force again Tuesday, though to be honest, it’s not like the Thrashers gave him much trouble. I feel a little bad for Ilya Kovalchuk, to be such a good player and have to do everything himself. (I predict he plays for someone else before the end of the season.) I don’t feel bad for the Thrashers losing to the Flyers 7-0. The Thrashers have been the Flyers’ punching bag for years now, even when the Flyers were the punching-bag for the rest of the league.
It’s almost boring to see your team run up the score, because that means it’s not a good hockey game, but it is still satisfying. Three Flyers had two-goal nights (Knuble, both goals reviewed; Gagne; Carter) and Metropolit, getting a lot more ice-time with Briere sitting out injured, carried the balance. With those seven goals, the Flyers had taken the league lead in goals-for. Too bad that the goals-against was pretty crappy.
Last night, the Flyers played the Islanders. The Islanders are not a very good team, but somehow, when they play the Flyers, they look better than they are. It is possible the Flyers were not pressing as hard as they should have, coming off such an easy win, perhaps a little complacent at the idea they were playing the only team in the division with a worse record (the worst team in the NHL). I think the Islanders should not have been able to keep the game as close as it was. Biron played well, and to be fair, the tying goal came off of Vaananen’s shoulder and was not his fault. That the game had to go to overtime was uncalled for. But it did allow Jeff Carter to be the hero for the second OT in a row. Eight goals for Carter. Aren’t you glad he wasn’t traded?
So it’s been a good week as a Flyers fan. Sunday they play the Oilers and I’m thinking going into next week with a five-game streak would be a good way to start the end of DST.
--------------------------
The Phantoms have been away since I last saw them lose to the Senators a couple weeks ago. In that time, they’ve gone 2-2. They lost horribly to Bridgeport (5-1!), less horribly to Hartford (2-1), beat Albany 3-0, and Norfolk 5-4 in OT (Jared Ross scoring the game-winner, from Steve Downie, who had four assists). The Albany game sounds like a zoo; in addition to a couple fighting majors handed out between Szwez and Angelidis in the second period, the second closed with the following, uh, altercations:
PHI Downie, 19:29 - High-sticking , 2 min
PHI Downie, 19:29 - Fighting , 5 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Instigating , 2 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Unsportsmanlike conduct , 2 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Fighting , 5 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Misconduct - Instigating (47.10), 10 min
ALB Conboy, 19:29 - Game misconduct - Persisting a fight (47.5), 10 min
“Persisting a fight” is something I don’t think I’ve seen before. Apparently, Tim “Are you going to grow up to be a Conman?” Conboy bit Downie’s hand, drawing blood. Um, berserk much? Conboy: almost half an hour of penalties at once. Not bad.
Wasn’t it against Albany that I witnessed the 5x fights happening at once, last season? I guess the no-love-lost between these teams hasn’t eased since the playoffs.
I’ll finally get to see the Phantoms again on Sunday, at 5 p.m., when they play the Bears. It’s been a bit of a live hockey drought for me, and so I am really looking forward to it.
-----------------------
Next weekend, I will be turning the very unexciting age of 32, and on that day, the Flyers play the Tampa Bay Lightning at home. For my birthday present, I’m getting tickets to the game. Last year, the Flyers were playing on my birthday in Newark, and K. and I made the trip. Flyers: is it too much to ask for you to win this year? Last year it was apparently far too much to ask, seeing as asking you to merely play would have been too much.
---------------------
Not going to the Phillies parade today. I am going to save calling in fake-sick for the day the Flyers have their Stanley Cup parade.
# posted by crusher @ 3:27 PM 
