Ed Moran | Biron won't complain about playing too many games

Philadelphia Daily News

WITH THREE HOME starts in front of him and three road and one home start behind him, the question to Marty Biron after practice last Monday was how many games in a row could he play without taking a break?

Biron, who was busy unwrapping the

2 pounds of clear tape he uses on his ancient skates, didn't miss a beat.

"I love playing a lot of games," he said. "When I was in the AHL back in [Rochester] we played three games in a row on weekends and I loved it. We'd play Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night, and then we would have Monday and Tuesday off.

"I remember the coach would come in after the second period and say, 'Boys, that was a lot of good work this weekend, now just one more period and you get the next 2 days off.' I'd be out there flying in the third period knowing there were

2 days off coming. I loved it."

Biron played 58 games in 1998-99, six in the NHL, and the next season played 47, 41 in the NHL.

In 2001-02, he played 72 games for Buffalo, and the following two seasons played 54 and 52. The point is, Biron is capable of playing a lot of games, and I can see him playing more than 60 regular-season games this season.

Considering the way he is playing, the Flyers could go a long way with him in net. But wouldn't it be better if the Flyers could avoid having questionable starts and periods where they give up a ton of shots, like in the second period of a 3-2 overtime win against Carolina on Saturday night?

Biron faced 44 total shots - 19 in the second period. The Flyers are playing good hockey right now, and Biron is leading the charge. But if you have to pick an area where they need improvement it's the shots they let in on Biron.

Fun stats

The Flyers want to be a team that is known for being defensive. Well, here's a stat that hasn't happened in a while: Six players were ranked in the league's top 17 in plus-minus going into yesterday's games. Randy Jones is tied for fourth with a plus-eight, followed by Jeff Carter, Braydon Coburn, Derian Hatcher, Sami Kapanen and Lasse Kukkonen, who are all a plus-six.

Other fun stats, as of yesterday.

* Mike Richards and Simon Gagne are tied for first (with nine other players) with two game-winning goals each.

* Jones is tied for sixth in scoring among defensemen with a goal and five assists.

* Danny Briere is tied for eighth in overall scoring with four goals and seven assists

* Marty Biron is ranked fourth overall among goalies with a 1.57 goals-against average, third in save percentage with a .952, tied for first in wins (six) and tied for second in losses (one).

* The Flyers' power play is fifth overall with a 23.3 success percent and the penalty kill is 13th with an 84.4 average success rate.

Faster, faster, faster

I'm all for a fast-paced hockey game, but isn't it getting a little silly when the league starts talking about experimenting with skates that have heated blades that supposedly make players go faster?

According to published reports, Kris King, the NHL's senior director of hockey operations, is waiting for six to 10 players who will agree to test out the new Therma Blade, a skate blade with a battery-powered, microprocessor that warms the skate blade to 41 degrees.

The company claims tests and research show that players wearing the blades reduce friction by 50 to 55 percent, cut vibration by 50 percent and reduce effort by 10 percent.

Hockey great and Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky is invested in the company, and claims the blades will revolutionize the game.

I wonder what the blades will do to the ice, considering that most arenas in the NHL now are multipurpose facilities that switch between sports and entertainment venues and already have a hard time keeping quality ice available for games.

Another new idea?

This isn't true, but suppose . . .

A group of engineering students are claiming to have invented a hockey net that grows or shrinks in size depending on the scoring average of the player with the puck.

A microchip that has the scoring averages of all the league's players reads a player-identifying chip inserted in skate blades and activates a telescoping system in the nets that increases or reduces the size of the net, depending on the number of goals scored going into each game.

Good goal scorers get normal-sized nets, while lower-scoring players get extra room.

Indoor soccer

While many teams with a contingent of European players like to kick a soccer ball around before a game to get loose, the Flyers were not one of them - until this season.

Before the first home game, I saw Kimmo Timonen herding a group into a corner of the Wachovia Center for a little kickaround. It was the first time I had seen the Flyers do this.

Maybe coach John Stevens should tell them to use the bicycles. The Hurricanes' Erik Cole suffered a foot injury before Saturday night's game in the kickaround and missed the game. He is out for tonight's game against Vancouver and is being listed as doubtful for the Hurricanes' three other games this week. *

Stick Sense with Ed Moran appears Mondays in the Daily News during the NHL season.

Send email to morane@phillynews.com.

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