Flyers overcome penalties; cancer-video controversy
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - Flyers Report: Broad Street Bull
Flyers overcome penalties; cancer-video controversy
Sam Carchidi, Inquirer Staff Writer
For the Flyers, their home opener Wednesday was a game of survival.
They held off a furious Vancouver rally and scored a draining 5-4 win at the sold-out Wells Fargo Center.
The new-look Flyers are 3-0 for just the 11th time in franchise history.
Though happy to knock off the talented Canucks, coach Peter Laviolette knows his team needs to be more disciplined. The Flyers gave Vancouver five third-period power plays.
The Flyers stopped the last four, with Max Talbot and rookie Sean Couturier keying the penalty kill.
“It’s always easier when you win a game to go back and look at it and make corrections,” Laviolette said. “There’s still things we can do better, but certainly we don’t want to go _ or need to go _ to the box that much.”
Coutuirer played 7:28 of his 17:45 on the penalty kill, while Talbot played 9:02 of his 16:12 on the PK.
The Flyers have beaten the Stanley Cup finalists _ Boston and Vancouver _ and New Jersey.
“It’s a good start, but because we’re a young team, we’re going to have moments where we get a little lax and get away from what works,” said defenseman Chris Pronger, who had a goal and an assist. “We need to continue to work on the consistency part of our game _ and make sure night in and night out it’s wave after wave. Get on the forecheck and skate, use the young bodies we’ve got up front to skate teams into the ground.
"We did a great job of that in New Jersey,” said Pronger, referring to Saturday’s defensive-minded 3-0 win, “and tonight we let off the gas a little bit.”
The Flyers blew leads of 3-1 and 4-2, but regrouped and won it on Andrej Meszaros’ goal with 15:20 left, which snapped a 4-4 tie.
One of the Flyers’ five third-period penalties was called against James van Riemsdyk for apparently arguing with the official. He was given two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.
"There was a little bit of a misunderstanding. I shouldn’t have put myself in that kind of situation,” van Riemsdyk said. “It was stupid. I am glad we were able to win the game because that was a dumb, dumb penalty and that will come back to haunt you later in the year. I am going to keep my mouth shut from here on out.”
Van Riemsdyk said his comments to the referee were “misinterpreted. He thought I was talking to him and that wasn’t what I was doing.”
While JVR was in the penalty box, Vancouver’s Daniel Sedin scored to briefly tie the score at 4-4.
Sixty-one seconds later, Meszaros scored what proved to be the game-winner. It was the third time the Flyers had scored less than two minutes after a Vancouver goal.
The Flyers blocked 27 shots, including seven by Kimmo Timonen, five by Talbot and four by Claude Giroux (three points).
“Well, at the end of the day we won the game, but one of the biggest things we can take out of it is we learned a lot from it,” Pronger said. “We kind of gave them some momentum in the second period, when we should have been putting the foot on their throat.”
Breakaways. Rookie Matt Read was used on the PP and PK, and contributed an assist, four hits and two blocked shots….Vancouver outshot the Flyers, 40-27, and held a 31-13 advantage in the last two periods….Pronger on Vancouver’s potent power play: “It’s scary good. They’ve all been together, some of them since birth.” He was referring, of course, to the Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik…..Danny Briere, Braydon Coburn and Jakub Voracek were each plus-2.
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During an intermision, a cancer-fighting video was shown and many fans booed when Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby, Chicago's Jonathan Toews and Buffalo's Ryan Miller were on the scoreboard in the Hockey Fights Cancer campaign. Most of the boos were directed at Crosby.
Some tweeters called it disgraceful.
"Booing an anti-cancer video should replace booing Santa Claus as the go-to explanation of Philadelphia fans," tweeted @jessespector, who covers hockey for the Sporting News.
News flash: The booing wasn't directed at the cancer video. Duh.
It'll be sad if the national media tries to give Philadelphia fans a black eye because some tweeters/writers misinterpreted the events.
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Follow Sam Carchidi on Twitter @BroadStBull.
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I boo cancer all the time. Eff the Sporting News guy!— Jeffritoe- Give me a break. Are you kidding me? Wasn't at the game, but people reflexively boo when they see Cindy Crosby. I do. Too say people were booing cancer or a campaign against cancer is an absolute joke. This idiot writer who tweets for the Sporting News needs to get a life. (The Sporting News still exists?)
And I'm not callous about Cancer. Lost my father at 59. Cancer has taken most all of my other relatives also, many at a relatively young age.— bleedmidnightgreensection236 - Jesse Spector is a Rangers fan - What did you expect?— sklandog
- But seriously, the Santa Claus story is so cliche.— sklandog
- I only boo Santa's who fight cancer— Inchon
- It's funny that the same fans who critique the Flyers themselves for taking stupid penalties, that are really just a reaction to being hit, can boo a Fight Cancer video. These same fans cannot exercise self control when seeing a video on fighting cancer and "impulsively" boo upon seeing Crosby. Self control is for everyone, not just the players. So, don't throw stones when you live in that glass house.— NYluvsPhylers
- I dig what you're saying, but here's the difference. Players are paid to have discipline during the game, fans pay money to watch a game and have fun doing so.
Now if the fans you're referring to are undisciplined at their jobs or the NHL starts paying fans to show up and behave a certain way, then you'd have a point.— jasvic - Philly fans never booed Santa Claus. They booed the unadulterated gall of an Eagles' team publicist who sent a "Santa" dressed in a raggedy outfit out to distract the fans from the fact that we were planning to hang the coach--not in effigy--hang the idiot from the flagpole! Fans today have no idea how bad those Eagles were. Philly probably stands out as a town with a heart when it comes to contributing to worthy causes but we do not cheer just because someone posts the word CHEER on an electronic board or do a wave just because it is something to do. We are passionate about our sports and knowledgeable; Sidney Crosby, in his early years, was a cry-baby whose tantrums outweighted his considerable hockey skills. This is a town who would boo a lout like Scott Rolen despite his considerable skills but would cheer a Ted Williams even though he beat our brains out. That man gave up the best years of his life to fight for his country while Scott Rolen would take a day off to nurse a hangnail.— gotedge
- Another national media guy going to booing of Santa Claus story. This is just irresponsible and lethargic journalism. "Gotedge" got it right. These alleged journalists should find out the real story before they make reference to it. Sidney Crosby was a punk in his early days and, he deserves to get booed in Philadelphia.
- Already starting, if you look at yahoo's website its a story there. Didnt expect anything less, media people love to find sh*t to complain about. They booed Crosby during a cancer commercial waaaaaaaaaaa. People always need to cry about something— Bob Sacamano
- Booing (that drunk that posed as) Santa Claus happened 50 years ago, before most of us were alive. Any "journalist" that brings that up is a moron...— Phront_Runner
- There is no Santa Claus.— bloome
- Imagine if they'd have booed him AND launched a homophobic slur. What does Roenick think?— HatchetJack
- And here is the length and breadth of the entire article from Jesse Spector from the Sporting News after attending last nights game: "Flyers are good. Flyers offense is good. Flyers defense is bad. Philly fan bad for booing cancer video. Philly fan should be good and should have cheered cancer video". Do you know anyone that subscribes to the Sporting News? I don't either.— Voytas
- I think booing cancer is good. Booing a cancer fighting video is probably not good. Booing an individual who appears in a cancer fighting video is probably okay.— Penfold18
