The City of Brotherly... Bullies! - A Phildelphia Flyers dynasty (NHL 14)

[vinaa23]

MASON-RY
Behind Steve Mason's great play, Flyers crush Bruins in Boston

Flyers and Bruins met on ice today with both teams trying to forget their game-seven elimination on last year's playoffs. The game started at a slow pace, with the puck staying mainly on the neutral zone, but, after a fight between Lecavalier and Chara, the Flyers saw the perfect opportunity to score as the Bruins' best defender would sit for five minutes. And they raised it, scoring twice on the first period and never looking back.

"I don't know what happened" - said Lecavalier - "I hit one of their guys and the next thing I know there's this huge human being throwing punches at me. Well, in this sport you're supposed to hit players aren't you? I really don't know why he lost his cool and to be honest I don't care. The only thing that matters is that we won the game"

The Bruins didn't look too focused on the game as they had 4 minor penalties to go with Chara's major for fighting. One of these turned into Simmonds' goal, a beautiful backhand shot after Voracek went behind the net.

After opening a huge 3-0 advantage still in the first period, all the Flyers had to do was protect their lead. And they did behind Steve Mason's awesome play. The Bruins had some clear looks in the second frame, but Mason thwarted all of them but one to earn the First Star honor.

Now, Philly will try to build something good on this win as they host the division rivals New Jersey Devils tomorrow night

Philadelphia Flyers at Boston Bruins
Oct 3, 2014 1 2 3 F PHI (1-0-0) 3 0 2 5 BOS (0-1-0) 0 1 0 1 Three Stars S. Mason (PHI) 1.00 GAA, 23 SV, 95% SV% J. Voracek (PHI) 1 G, 1 A, 0 H M. Del Zotto (PHI) 1 G, 0 A, 3 H	Team Stats Comparison PHI BOS Shots on Goal 27 24 Hits 15 17 Faceoffs Won-Lost 11 21 Penalty Minutes 05:00 13:00 Power Plays Converted 1 0 Power Play Opportunities 4 0 Time on Attack 06:08 06:26
Scoring Summary FIRST PERIOD PHI 06:21 M. Raffl (1), (B. Schenn, K. Timonen) PHI 07:54 W. Simmonds (1) PPG, (J. Voracek) PHI 14:55 M. Del Zotto (1), (A. MacDonald) SECOND PERIOD BOS 14:36 J. Caron (1), (D. Paille) THIRD PERIOD PHI 06:30 J. Voracek (1), (C. Giroux, M. Streit) PHI 16:34 V. Lecavalier (1), (S. Couturier)

[vinaa23]

MONTHLY RECAP - October







The first month of the new season was a tale of two halves for the Philadelphia Flyers. The team opened the season on a high note, blowing the defending President Trophy winner Boston Bruins at TD Garden, their home. Things didn't look so well on the next night, though, as the New Jersey Devils won in heartbreaking fashion, with Martin Havlat scoring the game winner with less than a minute on the clock. However, the team managed to put it behind them as a nice win streak of five games ensued and marked the first half of October, including a huge comeback win over the intrastate struggling rivals from Pittsburgh. After facing a 4-1 deficit, the Flyers came back riding on a huge game by Vinny Lecavalier to make it 5-4. Marcel Goc shattered some hearts by scoring a shorthanded goal to send the game to overtime, but a deflection by Simmonds completed the comeback for the Flyers.
This one was the last good thing to happen to the team in this month, as the team enters November riding a 3 game loss streak including two losses by a large margin to Detroit and Tampa Bay. Facing the lowly Florida Panthers on the first day should help, though.
Currently, the Flyers are the 7th team (tied in points with the Hurricanes, Leafs and Bruins) in the Eastern Conference with 12 points in 10 games. In the Metropolitan Division, they are currently at 3rd place, behind only the Carolina Hurricanes (tied in points) and the overachieving Columbus Blue Jackets, who has 16 points in 9 games.

TEAM:
LEADING SCORER (goals): W. Simmonds/V. Lecavalier - 5
LEADING SCORER (points): C. Giroux - 11


GOALIE STATS: S. Mason - 5W, 3L, 0 OTL, .892 SV%, 3.180 GAA
R. Emery - 1W, 1L, 0 OTL, .911 SV%, 2.49 GAA


LEAGUE:
LEADING SCORER (goals): M. Pacioretty (MTL) - 13
LEADING SCORER (points): M. Duchene (COL) - 18


Around the League:
Ottawa sends D Chris Phillips to Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay sends C Brayden Point and C Danick Gauthier to Ottawa

Blue Jackets and Stars with a great start to the season as they lead their respective conferences.
Blues and Rangers struggle

[vinaa23]

Images of the month:

Mason stretches to make a huge save in the second period. - @ BOS



MacDonald knocks the hell out of the Devil - vs NJD



Simmonds deflects MacDonald's shot to win the game in the OT. - @ PIT

[vinaa23]

PREVIEW - November 2014

The Flyers enter November with a 6-4-0 record and a streak of 3 very "winnable" games as they face Florida (3-4-1) twice and Edmonton (2-6-2) once. After that, competition gets harder as we face the two top scorers of the league, Matt Duchene from Colorado (5-3-3) and Max Pacioretty from Montreal (7-3-1), the league's top team Columbus (8-1-0) twice and the first bout against our hated rivals, the New York Rangers (3-5-1). The game against Minny (2-6-1) should be, on paper, an easy win. But you can't take anything for granted in this league, so we'll have to keep our eyes open to that deadly trio of Pominville, Parise and Vanek.
On the last week of the month, we resume another heated rivalry against another New York team, the Islanders (5-5-0). Detroit (4-4-1) isn't doing that well but they already handed our asses to us in our own home earlier this season, so they can't be taken lightly. At last, to finish November, a home-and-home series against the Rangers should bring more emotion to a busy month.

Predicted wins: 6

Games I'll play: vs. CBJ, @ NYR, vs. CBJ, @ NYI, vs. NYR, @ NYR

Busy month this one

[vinaa23]

MONTHLY RECAP - November 2014







We're sucking right now. Losing Voracek for a week in the game vs. the Red Wings didn't help much. Our offense was held scoreless two times in a 13-day span, while our defense allowed 22 goals in the same period. Three heartbreaking losses against Columbus and the two New York teams as we erased a 2 goal deficit in the third period in all of the three games (against the Blue Jackets, the game was 2-0 until the last minute. We scored twice in less than 60 seconds to tie the game, with the tying goal by MacDonald coming with less than 10 seconds on the game clock) just to finish with another Overtime Loss on our record. Maybe the lone bright spot of this month was the 5-0 blowout over the then-first-placed Columbus, but it didn't matter much as it all went downhill from there.

TEAM:
LEADING SCORER (goals): W. Simmonds - 10
LEADING SCORER (points): C. Giroux - 19

GOALIE STATS: S. Mason - 21 GP, 9 W, 9 L, 0 SOL, 2.91 GAA, .891 SV%
R. Emery - 3 GP, 1 W, 1 L, 0 SOL, 2.49 GAA, .911 SV%

LEAGUE:

LEADING SCORER (goals): E. Malkin (PIT) - 18
LEADING SCORER (points): M. Duchene (COL) - 33


Around the League:
Hurricanes with an impressive start, lead the weak Metropolitan Division with 27 points
Islanders starting to get on the right tracks, also have 27 points
7th placed Penguins still struggling despite everyone being healthy
Montreal leads the East with 33 points
Anaheim, St Louis falling on early holes. Will they bounce back later?
Kings picking up where they left off, has league-best 34 points
Last-placed Stars crash back to Earth

[vinaa23]

Images of the month:

With his stick on the floor, Johnson tries to kick the puck past MacDonald. - vs. CBJ




The Flyers team celebrates as MacDonald's slap shot goes past Bobrovsky to tie the game with less than 10 seconds on the clock. - vs. CBJ




Talbot gets on position to stop Umberger on the breakaway. - vs. NYR

[Nickflyers]

Man tough month.

[vinaa23]

PREVIEW - DECEMBER 2014

Things don't seem to get better for us as a California road trip awaits right on the corner. With the Sharks (15-7-2) and Kings (16-5-2) playing good hockey, our hope to end this skid is against the struggling Ducks (10-12-2). A trip back to the east will end our road trip in Columbus, where the Blue Jackets (11-11-0) awaits for our third bout of the season. A four-game home stand ensues, with two very winnable games against New Jersey (10-12-1) and Florida (9-11-1), even if both already beated us this season, and two hard games against the Lightning (13-9-1) and the surprising Hurricanes (13-8-1). After that, we'll get on the road again for a trip that we'll spread itself all the way to the new year. On this trip, we'll face teams with a combined record of 75-48-14*
This will be a hard month, but don't expect us to fall without putting up a fight.

*not counting Carolina and New Jersey records because the games versus them are already in January

Predicted wins: 5 in 14 games

Games I'll play: @ CBJ, Vs. NJD, Vs. CAR