Boston Reign Of Terror Comes To Philadelphia

Flyers shut-down blueliner Ryan Parent joined the lineup for the first time since his injury in the preseason. Still, it was not enough to thwart the great Boston Bruins. Tonight became more about who the Flyers were missing with Mike Richards and Braydon Coburn both out with the flu. While the Boston commentators discussed how the teams compared injury wise all season there is no way that the Flyers countless injuries aren’t effecting them. The Bruins have stayed relatively healthy all season while the Flyers, based on each injured player’s respective cap hit, have been far and away the most hurt by injuries in the NHL. Add another night where the penalties are balanced away from their favor against a team like the Boston Bruins, and there seems almost no way for the Flyers to come out with a win even at home where they have excelled all season.

The good news is that the Flyers skated with them. They kept it close for two periods of hockey going into the 3rd in a 1-1 tie. The Bruins though had a deeper lineup hardly being effected by injuries at all. It also doesn’t help that their defense is smothering while Tim Thomas plays outside of his mind.

The Flyers will rebound. They always do. It’s been hard enough having Danny Briere out of the lineup for the majority of this season, but these night to night minor injuries are the real killers. Still, you can’t help but thinking that for every game the Flyers lose it would have been one more game that the star center would have stepped up to keep them in it. Soon Briere will be back fueling the Flyers into what they hope will become a late push for the Atlantic Division. They aren’t out of it of course. They’re still right there with the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils playing a number of games less than both so far, but this team needs to pull together in order to get a win in Boston Saturday. It is a big game for the Flyers, and they have until then to think about how to get the puck past Thomas.

Posted by Chris Shafer on Feb 4 2009. Filed under Atlantic, Boston Bruins, Eastern Conference, Northeast, Philadelphia Flyers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.