Another season, another opportunity at the Stanley Cup lost.
The Philadelphia Flyers, one of the few clubs that is almost perennially built through a “win now” mode, decided it wasn’t good enough. How else can anyone explain the reason the club lost in seven games to a good albeit not great New York Rangers team, and in the fashion that they did. Exiting the playoffs with a whimper after hard charging through most of the season wasn’t quite everyone’s money’s worth, was it?
Speaking of the rally to make it to the postseason in the first place, after starting the season 1-7, a record that cost the next last guy to lead the Flyers to the Cup finals in another losing effort, Claude Giroux guaranteed the team would make it to the postseason. He would make a couple more guarantees, breaking the one-guarantee-per-season fantasy rule, doling them out like prizes on an episode of Oprah. “And youuuuuuu get a guarantee, and youuuuuu get a guarantee, and youuuu…”
He may as well have pulled a Messier (too soon?) and guaranteed a Game 7 win, I mean why not? It may have made the rest of his team play harder than a Paul Holmgren contract is to figure out. Have no fear though, we still do get to watch the Flyers play in the second round. The only problem? They’re in different jerseys.
As I type this I’m watching Andrej Meszaros playing something other than hockey, becoming a full blown liability for the Boston Bruins with bad penalties, lazy skating, and generally not knowing what the hell is going on in the game. No worries though, because as bad as he is, Daniel Briere, he of buyout fame for Philly, is sitting pretty on the other bench for the Montreal Canadiens, and already have taken Game 1. I wonder how much he misses Philadelphia now? I honestly doubt he’d trade in his Bauer for a Callaway.
I decided to write this because of the misfortune I had of reading the horrid drek written by a lazy L.A. writer over at Puck Daddy, where he proceeded to ramble on about how crappy Philly is, and how great L.A. is, and Richie/Carter, Carter/Richie etc etc. If you wish to ruin your eyes, feel free to do so here.
Make no mistake, a city that keeps its NHL team in the top 5 in attendance annually would never be confused with a town whose fanbases vanish the moment their “favorite” team dips even one game below .500, so trying to eulogize a fallacy is about as valuable as trading your home for a pet rock. The Flyers are one of the best franchises to play for, and the fact that the fair-weather club on the other coast needed half of the Flyers organization in the first place to achieve victory, not to mention the endless supply of former Flyers hand me downs speaks volumes in and of itself. It’s cool Rudy, when you need to win again, we’ll help you out once more, I’m sure.
No, I’d rather have had the gang over at Pensblog deliver a delicious roast, or even New York’s finest drive the dagger in. It means so much more when an actual rival fan site speaks of your club posthum(or)ously. I felt that having to read about Dan Carcillo basically scoring as often as Claude Giroux did in seven games while taunting his former fans in the process would have been more appreciative, as well as relevant to the matter at hand.
That matter was about this year’s Flyers bowing out thanks to a bloated salaried yet under talented blue line group, a guy with the hips of Bea Arthur trying to stop a speedy Rangers East/West passing game, and the virtual disappearance of the top six, despite the fact that if there’s one thing the Flyers do right, it’s overload on so many forwards that they’re coming out of Ed Snider’s ears. We were treated to watching two guys who used to play for the Islanders playing as badly for us they did for them, especially the latest Powerball, er, I mean Paul Holmgren contract winner, Andy MacDonald. Exactly how many 5 plus million dollar a year shot blocking to the max meets little offensive skills defensemen does this club need anyhow? Streit wasn’t as bad, but he definitely wasn’t some All-World power play QB collecting his own 5 million dollar salary, either.
The one guy that drove me nuts the most had to have been forward Brayden Schenn, who looked about as confused as Meszaros did in the game I just watched, only he did that impression for seven games. The one -time best player not in the NHL still seems like he hasn’t completely figured it out, and when Holmgren ran out and spent Monopoly money on big Free Agent Vincent Lecavalier, it only seemed to stunt Schenn’s growth. That’s the Flyers philosophy however, The Al Davis of hockey hasn’t met a high priced 34+ year old former All Star he hasn’t liked. I don’t know of any other reason to not turn the reins over to your 20 something stud center in favor of a guy who scored 50 goals…several years ago.
Win now, baby, only not this year!
The one thing the Flyers did do right this year was to buy out former Megamillions, er another bad Paul Holmgren humangous big contract winner, Ilya Bryzgalov. But in keeping with the context, even that guy figured out a way to wind up in the playoffs this year, too. Bright side? If Ilya keeps playing the way he has been, the Blackhawks will send the Wild to the links soon enough. Silver linings, right? And yes, we cannot forget a guy he has to face in another former Flyer, Patrick Sharp, but that’s beating a dead horse, isn’t that right, Rudy?
Steve Mason gave the club what’s been lacking since Ron Hextall decided to try upper management, and that’s provide quality goaltending, and he was their best player on the ice, if only for four of the seven games. In an ironic turn of events, it was the guys in front of Mason who let him down, instead of the usual soft goal tendencies Flyers goalies have been known for in the playoffs. Can’t win for losing, it seems.
So what did the Flyers learn in their passing? Hopefully to steal a page from the recent Cup winners instead of allowing Cup winners to steal from them. Perhaps a good start is by NOT doling out a 5 year 40 million dollar contract to every Free Agent that comes along and says “this club has a great history”. Of course it does! Oh, and stop giving out massive contracts to everyone else’s bad defenders while they’re at it, too.
That’s all it has though, history(1975! Sorry, had to do it -shrug-), and until the Flyers realize that those recent Cup winner built(mostly) from within, and maybe, justttt maybe let their own youth come up and develop their NHL game, there will be plenty more eulogies to be had.
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