The Flyers finally found the offense that they have been in search of for months now. An immediate outburst against Ryan Miller send a volt through this bench and led the Flyers to their first win of the second half of the 2011 season. However this was almost washed out by their major flaw, the off and on goaltending.
Sergei Bobrovsky lasted only half a period after giving up 3 goals on 7 shots. This was after giving up two early powerplay goals to Thomas Vanek and one to Sereka on an odd man rush, and seeing an early lead turned into a deficit.
The spotlight then turned to Brian Boucher to play a role he has been quite familiar with over his career. Boucher went onto allow just one goal and quietly steal the game and take the W.
The bigger story has to be the Flyers offense though. The boys finally broke out of their slump scoring five goals including a powerplay goal. Don;t get too excited, the powerplay only turned out 1 goal on 9 opportunities including two 5-on-3's.
James van Riemsdyk has been amazing these past few games. He scored the Flyers second goal last night using his blessed wrist shot and beating a sloppy Ryan Miller. JVR has undoubtedly been the Flyers best player through the first two games. Playing along side long time linemate Claude Giroux and sniper Jeff Carter is only helping the second year winger. If Carts breaks out and starts burying his chances this line will become last year's "Briere-Leino-Hartnell".
To go out on a bigger guess JVR could be this year's Leino as he starts to break out and become a huge threat from the blueline to the doorstep.
Now to game three ans who the Flyers will play in net. Well it has been said that Pronger may be back at the earliest, game four. But against the Sabres gritty offense, the Flyers current defensive corps can do the job. Now to the goalies, Boucher played very well in relief and help the Flyers take game two. Knowing how Laviolette loves to ride the hot goalie I would assume Bouch gets the start on the road.
How does Leighton sound? Well if Boucher gets the start on Monday expect Leighton to be his backup. Bobrovsky has never played the role of backup consistently and if Bouch gets the start then Leights would be his backup. Leighton knows how to be a backup and has plenty of playoff experience.
A few games in the pressbox may do Bobrovsky some good. The young goaltender has seen every Flyers game from either the bench or the net, a couple games of watching the game from a new perspective may help Bob see the game better. Lavi would just say "this is because we are playing until June, so relax regroup and you will be our man down the stretch."
Until next time,
Cody Gray
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