Photo: bridgetds/Flickr

Thursday night’s win over the New York Rangers was a step in the right direction for the struggling Flyers. There was life on power-play, the penalty-kill came up huge and Ilya Bryzgalov was nearly perfect.

Brayden Schenn missed the game serving his one-game suspension and the Flyers had to do without Scott Hartnell for the first of many games but they still pulled out a tough win. Just when you thought the Flyers luck was finally changing, Andrej Meszaros left the game with an upper-body injury.

Paul Holmgren announced Friday Meszaros will be out at least for four weeks with a left shoulder injury.

With Hartnell out for eight weeks, Danny Briere questionable for this weekend and Zac Rinaldo still healing, the Flyers can’t afford to lose somebody else. The defense has been more than troubled and losing Meszaros just creates more problems.

The question is how the Flyers going to address those problems. Will they make a trade with Montreal for PK Subban? Will they let the injuries run their course and hope to make do with what they got?

Mike Knuble has joined the team and will be ready to go for Saturday’s game against the Florida Panthers. He will wear number 9 in his first game with the Flyers since he signed with Washington in 2009.

@MattParenti via Crossing Broad

The NHLPA’s vote on the ratification of the CBA hasn’t come to a close yet but it appears there is a Flyers schedule floating around the interweb.

There is no surprise that the Flyers open up at home on January 19 against the Pittsburgh Penguins to kick off the 2013 season on NBC. They then travel to Buffalo on Sunday January 20 to take on the Sabres.

By February 1, the Flyers will already have seven games under their belt including two against the New York Rangers.

It seems as if the toughest stretch of the season comes mid-February where they are on the road for six straight games, traveling from Toronto to Winnipeg and ending against Pittsburgh.

Some notable dates include a home-and-home series against the Eastern Conference Champions New Jersey Devils March 13 and 15. The Flyers close the season on April 27 in Ottawa.

There will be four matchups versus Pittsburgh and the New York Islanders and five versus New York Rangers (yikes) and Devils for a total of 18 games. The remaining 30 will come against the remaining Eastern Conference, three games per team.

Flyers will travel to Winnipeg twice along with Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo and Tampa Bay. Boston, Florida, Ottawa, Carolina and Washington will all visit Philly twice with the Flyers traveling there once.

Again, this schedule hasn’t been confirmed by the Flyers or the NHL but it looks like Flyers fans can start penciling it in their planners.

Sean Couturier, Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds used with permission © Bob Fina/InsideHockey.com

Now that the Stanley Cup Champs have been named and the awards given out, the 2011-12 season is officially in the past and we can look ahead to next year.

The NHL released the 2012-13 schedule Thursday, which has the Flyers opening up at home against the Boston Bruins on October 11.

The Flyers will play their Atlantic Division rivals six times, three on the road and three at home. The rivalry between the Flyers and Penguins will waste no time getting started with Pittsburgh invading Philly on October 18.

Like every season, the Flyers will face the remaining Eastern Conference teams four times each, two on the road and two at home. That leaves the remaining 18 games to be played against Western Conference teams.

The Chicago Blackhawks, the Minnesota Wild and the San Jose Sharks will play home-and-home with the Flyers and Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Dallas, Detroit and Edmonton will pay a visit to Philly.

The Flyers will visit the west coast during Christmas week where they will face the newly crowned Los Angeles Kings, the Coyotes, the Sharks and the Canucks. They will also play the Nashville Predators, a popular trip among Flyers faithful.

Other notable matchups include the annual Black Friday matinee against the Winnipeg Jets and home-and-home series with the Hurricanes on November 8-10, the Islanders on December 8-9, the Devils December 19-21, the Penguins on March 24-26 and the Bruins on March 30-31.

The Flyers will close out the season at the Wells Fargo Center against the New York Rangers on April 13…think they can beat the Rags just once?

Credit: Insidehockey

It was the talk of the NHL for the last few weeks and it was finally set in stone Thursday night when the Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 at the Wells Fargo Center. The Flyers will be heading to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins for the first round of the playoffs.

The Penguins beat the New York Rangers 5-2 to solidify the fourth seed which means the Flyers will not have home-ice advantage. Not that it makes a difference. The Flyers are 5-0 at the CONSOL Energy Center since it opened last October.

After giving up five goals against the Rangers on Tuesday, Ilya Bryzgalov rebounded and stopped all but one of the 35 shots he faced. The injury that kept him sidelined over the weekend didn’t seem to bother him as he looked to be the goalie that earned him the NHL’s first star of the month for March.

It took the Flyers over 45 minutes to get on the board. Marc-Andre Bourdon blasted a slapper past Ryan Miller from the right circle to tie the game at one. Former Flyer Ville Leino scored just his eighth goal of the season late in the second period on a rebound in the crease.
» Continue reading “Flyers Win, Will Meet Penguins in Playoffs”

Used with Permission from Bob Fina/InsideHockey

With a playoff berth already clinched, the Flyers are spending their final games trying to gain the division lead and home-ice advantage. It seemed that would be an easy task with the lowly Tampa Lightning coming into town but things are never as easy as they look in the NHL, are they?

The Lightning came into the Wells Fargo Center Monday night and shocked the Flyers and their fans by beating them 5-3, despite the Flyers dominating the entire game.

We saw it during last year’s playoffs. We saw it just last week against the Florida Panthers. The Flyers have a bad habit in giving up early leads and despite outshooting and outworking their opponents, eventually failing to climb over deficits.
» Continue reading “Flyers’ Mistakes Cost Them in Loss to Lightning”

Scott Hartnell Photo Courtesy of SportsNet

With the temperature in the 60s, a jam-packed Wells Fargo Center and a matinee national TV matchup, the Flyers thrilling overtime win over the Pittsburgh Penguins had a playoff-type feel.

Danny Briere has only scored one goal since January 7 but with his sweet pass to Scott Hartnell with .9 seconds left in overtime for the game-winner, all has been forgiven.

The game was all Penguins for the first 40 minutes. Craig Adams broke the scoreless tie 13 minutes into the first period with a re-direction that trickled past Ilya Bryzgalov’s right pad. The Flyers went 17:09 seconds without registering a shot and was outshot 27-10 in the first two periods which included an MVP-type play from Evgeni Malkin.
» Continue reading “Flyers Win in Dramatic Fashion Over Penguins”

Credit: bridgetds/flickr

The thermometer has risen, spring is just a week away and now the Flyers are just 14 games away from playoff hockey. After Sunday night’s loss against the New Jersey Devils, both teams have 85 points in the Eastern Conference Standings. They battle it out one more time Tuesday night in Philadelphia for their last match-up of the season. Here are some things you might have missed over the last 48 hours:

• Ilya Bryzgalov was named the NHL’s First Star of the past week. Before Sunday’s game in Newark, Bryzgalov started 11 straight games where he recorded three shutouts and went 8-3-0. Expect him to be in net Tuesday night against the Devils. Devils’ Ilya Kovalchuck received the Second Star, scoring five goals and nine goals in the past four games.
• With Bryzgalov sitting out for Sunday’s game, Sergei Bobrovsky got his first start in nearly a month. Despite what the score sheet says, Bobrovsky was solid in net, making big saves to keep the Flyers in the game on a night where the offense just wasn’t there. He stopped 27 of the 31 shots he faced while the offense couldn’t even muster up 20 shots against Marty Brodeur, finishing the night with 19.

» Continue reading “Bryzgalov Named First Star, Injury Updates”

Ilya Bryzgalov © Bill Stahl/InsideHockey.com

The Flyers finished their 10-day road trip Tuesday night with a shutout loss to the San Jose Sharks. Ilya Bryzgalov played like the goalie the Flyers need him to be but the Flyers offense couldn’t get anything past Antti Niemi.

Now the Flyers head back east to start the final stretch of the season. With the loss against the Sharks, the Flyers fell to sixth in the Eastern Conference with the seventh-place New Jersey Devils just one point behind them.

Of the remaining 20 games, 13 games come against playoff-bound teams (at the moment)  including a home-and-home series with the Devils the weekend of March 10, three games with the Pittsburgh Penguins and one final matchup against the New York Rangers.
» Continue reading “Flyers Face Tough Road Ahead”

Photo: Yahoo! Sports

In front of their home crowd donning their Winter Classic Jerseys, the Flyers were hoping that this would finally be the game where they would put one in the win column against their Blueshirt rivals.

Hope couldn’t lead them past the New York Rangers and for the fifth time this season, and seven straight, the Flyers fell to the Rangers in a 5-2 loss.

With Ilya Bryzgalov still under the weather, Sergei Bobrovsky got the start in net to try and stop the pounding that the Rangers have put on the Flyers this season.

It seems as if the Rangers have found almost every way to beat the Flyers and in Saturday’s matinee matchup they beat them with their special teams.

Coming into the game the Rangers ranked 27th in the league in power-plays (13.4%) but you wouldn’t know it based on the score sheet.

The Rangers first three goals came on the power-play, the first one coming off an angle shot by Rangers’ captain Ryan Callahan. New York is now 25-1-2 when they score the first goal.
» Continue reading “Flyers Defensive Mishaps Lead To Another Loss To Rangers”

Ilya Bryzgalov © Bill Stahl/InsideHockey.com

On the day of the NFL’s biggest game, the Flyers had one of their own today with a chance to get within one point of the Eastern Conference leaders.

In an intense, physical game, the New York Rangers yet again showed the Flyers why they lead the conference in the 5-2 loss. In four games between the division rivals this season, the Rangers have come away with the win, outscoring the Flyers fourteen to six.

From the puck drop, the Rangers outplayed the Flyers. Just 64 seconds into the game, Artem Anisimov tipped in a slap shot from Dan Girardi to give the Rangers the early lead.

Like yesterday’s loss against the New Jersey Devils, the Flyers failed to get a shot on goal in the first ten minutes, including a power-play.
» Continue reading “Flyers Fall To Rangers To Complete Lost Weekend”