FLYERS NEWS

Tonight, after a thrilling game 7 victory to close out their first round series with the Caps, the Flyers turned right around and began their 2nd round series with the# 1 seed Montreal Canadiens in Montreal. Surprisingly despite obvious stats, that would suggest the Flyers were going to be over matched, they made a game of it and nearly pulled a game 1 miracle. The Flyers played their best defense of the year, allowing the Habs just 34 shots on goal. Sadly, questionable officiating, particularly on late calls that didn't go the Flyer's way, erased all that hard work. Late in the first period of play R.J Umberger and Jim Dowd each scored within a few minutes of each other for a quick 2-0 Flyer's lead. Late in the 2nd period of play, Andrei Kostitsyn scored to cut the lead to 2-1. Then about 6 minutes later Alexei Kovalev scored an apparent shorthanded goal, but with an illegal high stick, that a blind referee missed and just like that it was all tied up at 2. Early in the 3rd period of play game 7 hero, Joffrey Lupul, was it again scoring on the power play for a 3-2 Flyer's lead. Then late in the period with just under 30 seconds to play, Mike Richards got penalized on a questionable tripping call, that appeared to be a flop by Alexie Kovalev. At any rate though , Kovalev made it count as Jeff Carter's stick broke off a faceoff and Kovalev fired the puck in the net pass the broken stick, to tie it up at 3 and send the game into overtime. There, just 48 seconds into the overtime Tom Kostopoulous slapped in a rebound to cap off 4-3 highway robbery, er win by the Habs. So now the Habs lead 1 game to 0 and the Flyers will have to rebound quickly and win game 2.