Only Bernie Parent saves more than Brad Lidge.

That's tremendous!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Tags: parade, phillies, world champions
Current Location: 40.114700, -75.392349

Tags: chase utley, phillies, world champions

Great article and even better pictures in this month's Philly magazine.






http://www.phillymag.com/articles/the_couple_that_loves_us_back/ 

 

Tags: chase utley
Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: Shimmer - Fuel

SO it's now the end of July and I guess I'm over the Flyers loss. They did more than I ever thought they would and that's all you can ask, but GOD, did I wanna see them beat the Penguins. At least I didn't have to see Sid raise the cup in the finals.

They traded Umberger for a first round pick. I liked the deal. They weren't gonna resign him anyway. Carter resigned before July 1st, thank god. And Randy Jones also resigned, even if it was for a bit more than I would have liked. And in an unexpected, but very welcome move, Lupul signed a four year extension. BEAUTIFUL!



See!

I've been trying to get behind the Phils, but sometimes they just make it so hard.

But I came across this beauty of a video, that just makes me love them, despite the strikeouts and the lateness. Ryan Howard and J Roll remixed Take Me Out To The Ballgame. Enjoy!

Tags: jeff carter, jimmy rollins, joffrey lupul, randy jones, ryan howard
Current Mood: good
Current Music: Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5

I just...

I just feel so bad for them.

Ok so our best defenseman and arguably our best player is out. Ok, while that is definitely a big disadvantage, there was still some hope. Well, what do you call it when our second best defenseman (by a lot I might add) goes down 2 minutes into the game? A shot was deflected and got Braydon Coburn right in the face. He immediately went down and there was blood trickling on the way down and staring to fill his gloves. Later we find out he has over 50 stitches and his eye completely swelled up.

Great. So now not only are we down our best 2 defensemen, we have to play pretty much the whole game with only 5 D. And most of them are old and slow. Yikes.

We held on admirably but you can't say much else. When Richards scored at the end of the second period on a shorthanded breakaway I thought we had a chance. But as the third period progressed you could see our D just running out of gas. Of course Talbot scored to make it 3-2 and you could see there wasn't much left in the tank for the Flyers.

As expected the officiating in this game was atrocious. Hatcher got called for 2 penalties for playing defense, Malkin elbowed Briere in the back of the head away from the play, and Briere was literally hugged behind the net, drug around to the front of the net, shoved into Fleury and then Briere was called for the goalie interference. Unbelievable. And it was nice to see Stevens show some emotion out of it. In his post game press conference I was afraid he was gonna blow but somehow he held it in. Lupes? Not so much. "Just what I expected right from the start. I mean we know they're going to get the calls all series. We talked about it before the series. I mean every time Hatch touches one of those guys he gets a penalty but they're doing the same thing to Richie and Danny. I don't know, I guess maybe our star players should start whining and crying."

The best story of the night though was that our 5 defenseman really manned up. They played better than we could have hoped for. Unfortunately we just couldn't do it without Kimmo and Coburn. The defense ended up with these ice times:
Hatcher 28:31 (Woah)
R. Jones 26:14
Smith 21:33
Modry 20:28
Kukkonen 18:24
Coburn 1:07

And that's why I feel bad. If we have those 2 D-men I really think this series would be close. They just need those guys. I can't say much else.

Game highlights

Tags: braydon coburn, danny briere, derian hatcher, flyers, joffrey lupul, mike richards, playoffs

from Philly.com

PITTSBURGH - Sometimes, you forget what this stuff can mean to people. It is just sports, after all - right? But then you hear the story of Matt Liczbinski getting up at the funeral of his father, the slain Philadelphia police officer, and leading a chant of "Let's go Flyers . . . " It was to honor a man, and to remember the place that a hockey team held in his life.

It goes without saying that the Flyers were touched by the story.

About 90 minutes before last night's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Flyers coach John Stevens addressed his team, as usual. It was the start of the Eastern Conference finals, and there were hockey things to talk about. But Stevens wanted to make sure that the players knew what Matt Liczbinski had done at the funeral, about how they had touched a man and his family and maybe given them just a few seconds of comfort in their tragedy.

"As you would expect, it was a pretty emotional thing," a person who was in the Flyers' dressing room said.

The Flyers plan a public tribute to Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski at Game 3 of the series on Tuesday night at the Wachovia Center.



From nbc10.com

Liczbinski's open casket was lined with framed photos of his family. His love of the Philadelphia Flyers was also on display: his casket's lining bore the hockey team's emblem, and a jersey and flower arrangement in the shape of the logo were on display nearby.

Even the hearse included Flyers memorabilia.

Liczbinski's son, Matt, made clear his father was a dedicated fan, and he lightened the mood by asking the mourners to chant and clap loud enough so his father could hear them cheering for his favorite team.

"Let's go Flyers, let's go," the crowd yelled, followed by clapping.

"Thank you everyone," Matt Liczbinski said.

Tags: flyers, playoffs

Well first off this white out thing is so idiotic. Hey morons - the Flyers are wearing white!

Right from the start of the game Pittsburgh skill is very evident. It's pretty clear our defense is gonna be tested and without Kimmo, it's gonna be rough.

Richie's first goal? Seriously? You questioned that? The refs should be embarrassed that they waved that off initially. Richie's expression was the best. He was so confused. lol. Luckily it didn't take long for the replay officials to decide the ref had brain lock.

On Pittsburgh second goal, Crosby's goal, Marty B has to know better. It's gonna be hard enough to beat Pittsburgh but we can't give them goals.

My biggest concern for this series, prior to the Kimmo thing of course, was the officials. We are all aware of the preference to Crosby and their hatred of the Flyers. It's the perfect storm for the officials. But in this game, I will be the first to say I was pleased with the officiating and to be honest, thought we got the better end of the calls. Specifically that Orpik hit that they called holding was an absolute joke. Holding implies their is something in your hand, but if you use it as leverage to make a big hit what exactly are you holding? And Orpik made a great comment on his way to the box when the ref's mic was on. He said "Smith does that every shift." LOL

Now to the biggest play in the game in my opinion. The Flyers are on the PP and Richards absolutely lays out Malkin behind the Flyers net. That leaves him behind and they start to break out towards the offensive zone. At this point it would be a 5 on 3 since Malkin was so far behind the play. Well once we cross the blue line little Danny fans on a pass and the Pens pick it off and fire back to Malkin who is just now getting back to the Flyers blue. Then he's in alone on Marty B. Well that's a recipe for disaster and of course it turned out like you'd think. He took a slapshot from in close and scored. Unreal. I'm sure Marty B was freaking out but I see that as he has to challenge him more and come out the crease. I think little Danny said it best the next day that he was cheating not getting back and then was rewarded for it.

That was it as far as I was concerned. It was a very deflating goal for the Flyers and they looked defeated for the rest of the second period. They did have something in the third but not much. The way I see it we have to possess the puck more. If we allow them to control the puck bad things are gonna happen so we just need to find a way to make passes to each other and not just chip it to them. Our strength is a strong forecheck but maybe we need to also try to hold onto it more.

Finally Brian Englom, you're a moron. That shorthanded Malkin goal wasn't Richie's fault. He's trying to create a scoring chance on the PP. Once you leave Malkin in the dust, it's now a 5 on 3. You have to push the puck up and to even suggest that's Richie's fault is asinine.

Game highlights:

Tags: flyers, marty biron, mike richards, playoffs

So Kimmo Timonen is out. Things were going so well and then this news. It's just awful for the team, for Kimmo, and let's be honest, for me and all other Flyer fans.

JJ on Comcast the night before was asked who can the Flyers least afford to lose. And he said other than Biron (which is a given), the answer has to be Kimmo Timonen. And I couldn't agree more. Yeah Danny Briere is our most talented forwards but we have other talented forwards. And yeah Mike Richards is the heart of the team but there are plenty of leaders on the team. But there is only one Kimmo. He is the guy who marks the best forward on the other team. He's on the ice for 25 minutes out of a 60 minute game. He is the quarterback on the NHL's 2nd best powerplay and the only defenseman on the ice for our #1 PP unit. He's one of those guys that you really miss when he's not there. And now - he's not gonna be there.

And it's not one of those injuries where he rehabs well and he's back earlier than usual. He has a blood clot in his foot which is pretty serious. There's no pushing this injury. It doesn't really seem like there's a time table. You just have to wait and see. Realistically I guess if they get to the finals maybe he can play then but I doubt he's back in this series. It just too serious of an injury to rush.

But the worst part is how it is affecting Kimmo:

"It's the most disappointing thing in my hockey life, for sure. . . . It's an awful feeling. I was expecting to play. How many times in your lifetime do you get to play in a conference final?"

He apparently played through it in Game 5 and went through a week of practice, and to get the news the day before game 1, it's shocking and disappointing. Hopefully the boys can find a way and do it for Kimmo.

Tags: flyers, kimmo timonen, playoffs
Current Mood: crushed

Well there's a optimistic side and there's the other side.

Positives - It was our third game in four nights in three different cities, but we still played with a lot of jump and looked like we could keep up with Montreal. We sealed them off pretty well. I didn't feel like Montreal wasn't able to get into a rhythm. We also had some earlier luck (although that stuff evens out - see below). Montreal hit 2 posts in the first period and also had a guy in the slot who broke his stick on the shot. Marty played pretty well as well considering. We got 2 lucky goals - off Patrice Brisebois' stick and Joffrey Lupul's shin pad. Jim Dowd (yes that Jim Dowd) also scored! OH and Marty B saved a penalty shot! I was clearly not expecting that!

And then the negatives:



There's no way that's a penalty. I guess from the ref's angle maybe it looked like a knee but on the replay you can clearly see the first thing to make contact is the shoulder. That means it's a body check. Yeah he hit him on the hip but that is still a good body check.

And of course our best penalty killer and face off guy is in the box. Jeff Carter's stick breaks on the face-off (are you kidding me?) and Kovalev makes a tremendous shot to tie. At this point the result in ot is inevitable.

I can even live with the Canadiens second goal which you would have thought had to be a high stick. But the ruling on the ice was a goal and unless the video is conclusive it has to stand. I didn't see any angle that clearly showed it wasn't a goal so that was that.

I know Danny Briere (much to the delight of the crowd) and Vinny Prospal were pretty invisible and if we have any chance at this they are gonna have to show up. Yeah the result is disappointing but I think we have to be encouraged that we had a chance to sneak out a victory.

And to that crowd, you should be embarrassed that one of your own threw a beer/water/liquid at Mike Richards in the penalty box. If this was Philadelphia that would be the story - how neanderthal our fans are. This makes 2 games in a row where our team has been pelted. First Joffrey Lupul and the pizza box and Jeff Carter with the beer bottle in game 7 and now this. Boo all you want but that's ridiculous.

and now game highlights:

Tags: flyers, jim dowd, joffrey lupul, marty biron, mike richards, playoffs

Did you just say that?



See this is why other teams' fans don't like you.

Tags: danny briere, flyers, playoffs