Back to 2-2

Flyers played a great game last night to tie the series up before heading back to Chicago. Offense is just shredding the Blackhawks for tons of goals. Helps to have the power play clicking like it does. Defense is playing great and Leighton had an OK game. The goal tending is what has me frightened though as I keep expecting Leighton to give up another soft goal.

Well, it's all house money at this point. Just fun to be along for the ride.

The Happy Apologist is a Bandwagon Fan

You heard it here first. I will be the first to admit to jumping on the Flyers bandwagon. I used to really follow hockey, but haven't given it much time over the past 7 or 8 years. Basically, I wait around for the playoffs to start before I even watch a full game.

I think I watched about most of the first series against the Devils, but not every game. I mean come on. This is a team that was coasting to a 4th or 5th seed with 3 weeks left and then . . . BAM! Couldn't win a period let alone a full game. You want to talk about backing into the playoffs? It took them a shootout in their final game in order to make the 7th seed. So I wasn't going to start rooting heavily until they got into the second round.

Which they did. And then promptly lost 3 straight games to the Bruins. Talk about killing your buzz. But I stuck with them and watched the 4th game. Nice. Then I watched them claw back to 3-2. And then the talk started about no one (well, hardly anyone) ever coming back from being down 0-3. So what did they do? Won the third game at home sending things back to Boston.

At this point I'm extremely wary. This is Philadelphia after all. So of course they go down 0-3 in the first. But I'm really not thinking the game's done yet. I think, heck - all they gotta do is get one back before the first intermission. And they do! Then tie it up in the second. And then the win.

THIS TEAM CAME BACK FROM BEING DOWN 0-3 TWICE!!!

You have to admit that is exceptionally cool. So they cruise into the current series with the Habs, go up 2-0, and now lead 3-1. I don't know if they'll be able to finish things off and win the cup, but this (bandwagon) fan can't wait to watch and find out.

Go Flyers!

Clarkie Jr. Must Go!

had to sneak this in despite my sabbatical:

- flyers trade calder for something or other. important quote here is:

Holmgren was at a loss to explain why Calder did not work out for the Flyers, who traded Michal Handzus to Chicago to get him last summer.

"From a positional standpoint, we thought [Calder] was a better fit, he was a little younger and we thought he would be a younger guy who could grow with our group of young guys that we had," Holmgren said.

translation - "we have no idea why he didn't turn into a superstar like we expected. when you trade a hard-working middling kind of player like handzus for an enigmatic but talented middling kind of player like calder and the talented guy doesn't take that as the impetus to achieve the entirety of his unrealized potential, it's quite baffling."

- flyers trade for an old goalie who is no better than the goalies already on the roster. what, john vanbiesbrouck wasn't available in trade?!

it's like clarkie never left. bunch of drunk yahoos.

Open Flyers Thread

per request, an open thread for any flyers talk

ESPN Top 50 Hockey Forwards

so according to ESPN, sidney crosby and alex ovechkin make the cut for the top 50 forwards of all-time despite only having played just over one friggin' season apiece. egad.

meanwhile, guys like: joe sakic, joe mullen, joe nieuwendyk, and teemu selanne (all 500 goal scorers, mind you) are no shows.

who made this list? obviously not someone who watches the damn game.

Trying to Keep Things Positive

there's always a silver lining, no matter how bad things get, right? as we enter the holiday season, we should try to stay positive and look for some good things despite yesterday's abomination. what are the silver linings are there? here's what i see:

- i'm thankful we still have allen iverson. he's not perfect and the team around him stinks, but a big part of the reason i love watching and rooting for him is evidenced in this small blurb from today's inquirer:

"I loved our effort," Cheeks said after the game.

But when asked whether he liked the Sixers' effort as well, Allen Iverson spit out a "no" as if he had just found something strange in his cheeseburger.

"Look, I'm not trying to be an ass, I promise you," Iverson said in the visiting locker room at Staples Center before getting three stitches in his chin courtesy of an accidental elbow by Corey Maggette on Maggette's drive to the hoop. "But I don't care nothing about that.

"I don't care who you're playing against, if you're playing a little rec-league team. The effort is supposed to be there every night. So it's not a big thing for me. To say, 'Yeah, we gave effort' or whatever, you're supposed to give effort. But when you go out and play basketball, you're supposed to win the basketball game.

"If you're satisfied the effort that you give, then some positive things are supposed to happen, and the most positive thing that can happen is to win... . You don't pay nobody a million dollars, a whole bunch of money, then not give effort."

- i'm thankful that we have confirmation that the drops are not a result of mcnabb throwing the ball too hard. our receivers are really just that bad.

- i'm thankful that the flyers went back to sucking after winning two games straight to remind people to keep their expectations low.

- i'm thankful that bobby clarke is gone. now maybe i can let go of some of the bitterness of having to watch john vanbiesbrouck that season that cujo wanted to play here and might have pushed the flyers over the top.

- i'm thankful that the phillies didn't sign soriano to that ludicrous contract and then subject me to months of hype and buildup, but i'm more thankful that the phillies appear to have a nice core of likeable and talented young players to build around.

- i'm thankful that i no longer have to look at head wade's misshapen noggin' as he's lecturing me about the potential of the team. just remember, no matter how bad things may look with gillick, this is how bad things were.

- i'm thankful that brian dawkins signed a new contract. although it's becoming clear to me that he's not the same difference making player he once was, i am glad that he'll retire as an eagle.

- i'm thankful that reno mahe is winning me over. honestly. i like him more and more each week and especially because he's not being forced into the 3rd down back role.

- i'm thankful that heather mitts is back in town.

- i'm thankful that chris webber only has two more years left on his contract.

- i'm thankful that i don't root for teams from cleveland, seattle, kansas city, or new orleans. i'm also thankful that i got to experience the golden age of philadelphia sports -- 1974 to 1989 by my estimation.

happy holidays all

Sixers/Flyers

i know the sixers started out 3-0, but does anyone seriously believe this team will be competitive? while i continue to be impressed with AI's ability to play at a high level with no practice and no interest in conditioning, there is precious little to prompt optimism from the rest of the squad. the team cannot rebound and will struggle to score unless they're shooting lights out from the outside. everyone keeps talking about igoudala, but his upside isn't that high. he'll be a good defender on the wing and an athletic guy on the break, but i doubt he'll ever score consistently.

the flyers are screwed for a while, with no bright side in the visible horizon. good thing clarke waited until he ensured the team will suck for the next 5 years before he quit. what's the use in doing a half-ass job at ruining the franchise? at least now there's no danger that fans will hold out some hope of being competitive. that recaptured time and energy must be his gift to us.

John Stevens

i didn't see any of the newspapers talking about this, but isn't new flyers coach, john stevens, also bobby clarke's son-in-law? or am i confusing him with someone else.

i know one of the long-term phantoms was clarkie's son-in-law.... maybe it was someone else.

Clarke Finally Gone

lost in the pain of the garbage eagles game today is the fact that after years of ineptitude, bobby clarke is finally gone. i wish they'd have kept hitchcock, but if he had to go with clarke, so be it. just wish it had been snider instead of hitch. any chance comcast will sell the flyers too?

with snider still in place, i'm betting we're still going to see the bill dineens, wayne cashmans, and craig ramseys of the hockey world coaching this team. hope he puts a real gm in place, but i'm expecting it will probably be holmgren or terry murray.

Flyers Looking to Sign Brian Leetch

always looking to make the big splash, the flyers have contacted brian leetch's agent about his interest in joining the team.

yes! the 1998 stanley cup is ours!

any chance that vanbiesbrouck is still available?

CLARKE MUST GO!

Next Steps for Bobby Clarke

i think it's clear that clarkie's next step is to figure out a way to pin this on eric lindros. it's the logical move.

Flyers Need GM Badly

from matt tyson:

U-G-L-Y...

The Flyers don't deserve no alibi...

That game was ugly...

uh-uh...

That game was ugly...

anyone out there need more evidence that the flyers need a new GM? yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, YUCK! no speed, no skill, no entertainment.

CLARKE MUST GO!

flyers trades

you can always count on clarkie to make moves to solidify the flyers heading into the playoffs. come on, how can you argue with a history that includes winners like:

- alexandre daigle
- sean burke
- chris gratton
- kent manderville
- daymond langkow
- sean burke
- jiri dopita
- john vanbiesbrouck
- sean burke (was it actually 3 or 4 times or did it just feel like it?)
- claude lapointe
- mike comrie
- tony amonte

he's like a machine. the cal ripken of bad and/or purposeless trades.

CLARKE MUST GO!

another convert

The Flyers will not iwn unless they get rid of Clarke (OK Peter, you've convinced me, see my note in the previous blog), and stop playing dump and chase hockey...

CLARKE MUST GO!

Sports Malaise

i'm sure some of it is carryover from the poor eagles season and some of it is because i'm swamped with work right now, but man, am i feeling a whole lot of... i don't know... indifference toward sports right now.

and it's not just that the sixers suck and the flyers are going nowhere... it's not that the winter olympics is the oddest collection of contrived contests around... it's not that winners of both the superbowl and the nba dunk contest were seemingly predetermined... it's not that pitchers and catchers just reported and already brett myers is yapping about something or other... well maybe it is all those things.

yucky, yucky, yuck, yuck. nfl draft is the only thing on the near horizon.

rick tocchet

the big news in town is that the rocket was nabbed in a sting operation and is being accused of financing a gambling ring run by a NJ state trooper. i'm not sure if tocchet is actually guilty or not and if he is whether he'll be facing jail time, but i do know that this will have no impact on how i remember tocchet as a player.

rocket played for a lot of teams in his career, but in my mind he'll always be a flyer. tocchet personifies the ideal of a what a flyer should be -- skilled and tough with a lot of heart. if he isn't my favorite flyer of all time, he certainly is in the top 3.

good luck with your legal battle rick!

Forsberg Feedback

from ben schuchardt:

I get your point with Forsberg. You want the “best player in the world” to be the Great One, or the Great One you don’t remember, Bobby Orr. Guess what? He isn’t that good. Neither are other countless “best players in the world” who occupy the slot because somebody has to. Larry Holmes wasn’t one of the best fighters of all time, in my opinion, but he was clearly the “best fighter in the world” when he held the championship. Tom Watson was never Tiger Woods, even though he damn sure was the “best player in the world” for a time. Peter Forsberg has been the best player in the world for several years now. He isn’t heads and tails above everyone else. He has a peer group. Tough break.

What angers me about your post is the gratuitous comparison to Brett Favre, who was arguably the most overrated player of all time, but was never “the best in the world” by a long shot. You could have been fairer by choosing any number of players that were in fact the best for a period of time, but not of all time.

If not for the herd-think of NFL watchers who are overly influenced by John Madden, Brett Favre would be just some guy with a strong arm who caught lightning in a bottle from time to time. Think Kerry Collins with a little more consistency.

i certainly didn't mean to anger anyone and i'm sorry if my off the cuff comments offended, however, i don't think comparing forsberg to favre is unreasonable. while favre has been unjustifyably given god status by the media, IMO he was for a time the "best QB in the world". i'd say for the period between 1994 and 1998, there wasn't a better QB on the planet. favre wasn't head and shoulders above his peers during those years (aikman, young, elway), but neither has forsberg been head and shoulders above his peers during his period of dominance (as you mention above). i'm as sick of the brett favre worship as the next guy, but he was 10x the player kerry collins was.

i think it is more unfair to categorize forsberg with tom watson and larry holmes than favre. while watson and holmes don't compare favorably to the greatest players ever in their respective professions, both of them were head and shoulders ahead of their competition during their careers. you cannot say the same thing about forsberg. those guys were clearly the best, while forsberg was/is arguably the best.

you're right that expecting to see someone as impactful as 99 is unreasonable, but i do expect someone being billed as the best player in the world to be obviously impactful every game. i don't see that with forsberg right now. i don't say that with any sort of malice or agenda, i'm just talking about what i am seeing. as a flyers fan, i'll be glad to be wrong. maybe my expectations for the "best player in the world" are too high? i don't think they are, but that's a possiblity as well.

bottom line, i still root for him, i still like having him on the team, and i still wish we hadn't traded him away in the first place. i'm a peter forsberg fan. i'm just questioning this notion that he's the best player in the world (with the caveat that i admit i didn't get to see enough of him in his prime).

Peter Forsberg Follow Up

after watching peter forsberg closely for most of the game against the avalanche (a game that he should have been pumped to play), i still think he's a great player and i'm still happy he's on the flyers... but i continue to think that he is *not* the "best player in the world."

for each spectacular play he makes, he makes 2-3 bad ones. i'm not talking about plays where he tries something and it didn't work, i'm talking about plays where it would have been better had he not tried something at all. one play in particular i thought was pretty bad, he carried the puck into the zone 1 on 4. he stopped just past the blue line and waited for help... and waited for help. when two defenders went after him and started pressuring him, he blindly passed the puck into the slot and it was easily intercepted by a defender who started the rush the other way. without any help from his teammates, the right play would have been to dump the puck in the zone and allow the flyers to regroup. instead, he made a wild pass to no one that had no chance of resulting in a positive outcome. he did have a goal and an assist, so on the scoreboard that will go down as a good game but i don't think he had a very good game.

i know i shouldn't judge him based on what i've been seeing over 2-3 weeks and maybe his groin is still bothering him, but the comparison that jumps into my head right now is brett favre from 2 seasons ago. still puts up great numbers, but is no longer able to do some of the things he used to do, takes too many chances, and can no longer carry a team.

i hope i am wrong.

Is Peter Forsberg Really "The Best"?

in his column today, sam donnellon uses the notion that the flyers have the "world's best player" on their roster as a plus for bobby clarke. i certainly think signing forsberg was a good move on clarke's part (albeit one that fell into his lap rather than one he conceived), but after watching him for a while now, i'm not so sure he is actually the "best player in the world."

forsberg is wonderfully talented for sure, and he is without a doubt the best passer, puck handler, and playmaker that i've seen on the flyers... but the best player in the world? eh. i'm a little underwhelmed at that notion. if he's the best player in the world, then the best player in the world has lost some of it's luster imo.

forsberg is great, but he's certainly not on the level of gretzky or lemieux... or even jagr when jagr wants to play. he just doesn't dominate the game the way the best player in the world should. he's terrific at what he does, but i haven't seen him, for instance, will his team to victory. does he have that in him? maybe, but i've never seen it. i only got to see him play 3-4 times a year when he was with colorado, but i never saw it then either.

love having him on the team. great, great, player. best is the world? not sold yet.

Analogy Time

the new jersey devils are to the philadelphia flyers as:

a) jerry is to tom
b) road runner is to coyote
c) bill belichick is to peyton manning
d) lou lamoriello is to bobby clarke
e) all of the above

the answer, sadly and obviously is e) all of the above.

a) the devils are jerry to the flyers tom because they seem to always play a smarter game. is it because they have a better gameplan? i doubt it. they've had what, 5 coaches during this stretch of dominance over the flyers? is it because they have smarter players? maybe, though they've had a huge roster turnover during this stretch of dominance. not sure why, but whenever they meet, the devils usually make more smart decisions than the flyers do.

b) the devils are road runner to the flyers coyote because they always have a faster team than the flyers do. always. the flyers usually have one or two guys with speed on their team, but i bet if you match up the historic rosters man for man in order of speed the devils would be slightly faster up and down the lineup. they get to lose pucks, they recover when they are out of position, and they get more "odd-man" rushes than the flyers.

c) the devils are bill belichick to the flyers peyton manning because the devils are in the flyers' heads. the flyers start to sweat and panic as soon as they fall 1 goal behind the devils. just like the way belichick frustrates manning by forcing him into a slow down game, the devils are able to impose their will on the flow of the game.

d) the real reason for the devils dominance over the flyers (and the difference in their overall success over the last decade) is lou lamoriello. he just flat out knows talent better than bobby clarke and understands how to build a team better than bobby clarke. there isn't a single comparison i can think of that goes in clarkie's favor. team results favors lamoriello. head to head results favors lamoriello. olympic results favors lamoriello -- clarke put rob zamuner on his olympic team for cripes sake. team payroll goes in lamoriello's favor. drafting goes in lamoriello's favor. coach selection goes in lamoriello's favor -- think lou would have hired winners like bill dineen, terry simpson, wayne cashman, and craig ramsay? clarke has too many personal biases -- hates russians, hates small players (which is funny because he was a small player!) -- and is too insecure (as evidenced by his history of hiring weak and inexperienced coaches) to be a winning GM. no matter what happens this season, i still feel comfortable saying CLARKE MUST GO!