The Flyers have been riding the inconsistency roller coaster all season. After a bad start to the season the Flyers turned things around in the month of December and have been above .500 ever since, however they haven’t made it easy on themselves. A winning streak leads to a losing streak, which leads to another winning streak and so on. Some nights the team is so dominate you feel certain that they are going to make a playoff push, then other nights they show that they just may not be ready, as they give up leads or just get outplayed all together. The issue is, they have pieces of the puzzle for a Stanley Cup caliber team, however, the rest of those pieces are the young defensemen in Lehigh Valley with the Phantoms, that are preparing to finally make the leap to the NHL next season.
As for last nights game, after a quiet first period, the Flyers came out firing on the cylinders for the remainder of the game. The team showed us they were ready to make a statement after Tuesday nights embarrassing 4-1 loss to the Ducks. The special teams were phenomenal as they killed all six Buffalo penalties, Steve Mason was stellar in net, and the offense came to life in a big way.
The Flyers would go on to blowout the Sabres 5-1 and collected goals from the red hot Wayne Simonnds, Nick Cousins, R.J Umberger, Michael Raffl, and Braydon Schenn. There was alot of significance behind each goal as Simmonds scored his team high 20th goal, Cousins scored his 1st NHL goal in his 19th game, Raffl ended his scoreless drought, and Umberger snapped his long 50 game scoreless drought as well. On top of that Steve Mason made a career high 41 saves to help the Flyers collect two crucial points.
Shayne Gostisbehere made Flyers history, as he tied the franchise’s point streak, with ten games. He has been an unbelievable story for this organization and will clearly be a vital part of the team’s future.
Radko Gudas sparked the team and the crowd as he engaged in two fights. He was also sent to the box late in the third for a questionable hit to the head of Sabres rookie foward David Catenacci. Shockingly enough Gudas will not serve a suspension, despite reports of Cantenacci suffering a concussion. According to the NHL’s department of player safety, if a player is in an awkward/vulnerable position and is injured due to contact, the player delivering the hit does not receive a suspension. Some could argue there’s a bit of grey area there, as Cantenacci was already tangled up with Chris Vandevelde and didn’t have full possession of the puck when Gudas decided to go forth with the dangerous hit.
The Flyers are preparing for a busy weekend as they host the rival Devils tomorrow at 1pm, then travel to New York on Sunday to take on the Rangers at 7:30pm. These are must win games as the Flyers are now 5 points behind their arch rival Pittsburgh Penguins for the final wild card spot.
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