Bryzgalov Stands Tall as Flyers Fall

Peter Laviolette must feel he has tried everything. Mike Richards at the point, JVR at the point, Nikolay Zherdev (remember him) even got some power play time. Nothing seems to work. An 0-5 showing on the man advantage led to the Flyers doom in a 3-2 loss to the streaking and underrated Coyotes tonight.

Commenting from afar (Fairfax, Va.) it seems that the Flyers power play woes come from the fact that they are not generating enough shots. It is easier said than done. While the Flyers have tried being too fancy looking for the backdoor pass every time, it doesn't mean I want them to start firing through shooting lanes that don't exist. The effort is there, but the results are not. Having played in it, I know the umbrella system works and is effective. It does require patience to an extent, but lanes need to be created and screens set. Chris Pronger has said the Flyers haven't had enough traffic in front of the net lately. They need to find that hunger again to go to the net consistently.

The question is how far can the Flyers get in the playoffs with a nonexistant power play? It has been maddeningly inconsistent all year for a team that has a ton of firepower. Special teams become even more critical in the playoffs as penalities usually tend to lower, hence so do power play opportunities. This is a glaring weakness the Flyers need to start addressing on the ice rather than in their words.

I correctly yesterday that if the Flyers let the Coyotes hang around, they would force mistakes and cash them in . Well they certainly did that. A lot of people are going to point at the second goal. I haven't seen it yet and it sounds like Bob should have had it, but as I said, a 1-0 lead is not good enough against this team especially for a team that does not have a shutout through 60 games.

Now to give credit where credit is due, Ilya Bryzgalov was brilliant in net tonight for the Coyotes. He stopped 37 of 39 shots using his advantgous size to its utmost ability. While Sergei Bobrovsky gave up an atrocious second goal, he stopped 26 of 29 shots and stood on his head a majority of the overtime session.

The Flyers need to take advantage of their next three games against Eastern Conference bottom feeders (NY Islanders, Ottawa, and Toronto) especially with two of the three games being at home. With Oskars Bartulis being injured tonight, Sean O'Donnell maybe healed enough to come back Thursday, but I wouldn't be surprised if Danny Syvret is called up. The puck drops at 7 p.m. Thursday against the Islanders. Photo courtesy of prohockeynews/google.