The Flyers continued their current road trip as well tonight as they looked to string together back to back wins for the first time in a while. Considering they were in Carolina tonight, against the Hurricances, the Eastern conference's worst team thus far, that should have been no problem. It looked like, for 2nd and half periods, that for all intensive purposes it wouldn't be any problem. Micheal Leighton, in his 2nd start, took a shutout into the 3rd period, mostly on the strength of superb Flyer's defense. Meanwhile, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter each scored midway through the 1st period, and Danny Briere, yes Danny Briere scored on the power play, in his first goal in 10 games, to put the Flyers up 3-0 mdway though the 3rd period. Then wheels came loose. The Flyers suddenly simply started trying to keep Carolina out of their zone and run out the clock after that, which is fine for a team relies on its defense. Unfortunately, they did poor job of keeping the Canes out of the zone and a couple power plays and bad bounces later, Carolina had come all the way back to tie it up at 3 and send the game into overtime. You would think at that point the Flyers would have been deflated, instead they actually picked up their energy in the overtime period, but neither they nor the Canes could score in overtime, so it came down to a shootout which usually bad news for the Flyers, but not on this night. Leighton opened the shootout with a spectacular glove save of Tuomo Ruutu. Then Danny Briere opened the shooting for the Flyers with a score. Next Leighton got just enough of a Jussi Jokinen's attempt to knock it off the post out of harm's way. So Mike Richard's took the ice with a chance to seal the victory and he did beating Cam Ward right through the five hole for the 4-3 win. Thus, in the end ex-Cane Leighton and for Canes' coach Peter Lavoliette got revenge on the team that had given up on them and the Flyers got their 2nd win in a row in dramatic fashion. The Flyers are now 17-18-2 overall, for 36 points, just 4 out of 8th in the Eastern conference.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
SIXERS NEWS
The Sixers continued their road trip in Utah tonight with a matchup against the Jazz. After a close loss to the Wizards to begin this trip and with AI still missing in action the Sixers didn't bring much confidence into this one and it showed. They got off to a good start in the 1st quarter and actually held the lead for most of the period, but once Utah pushed ahead with 1:33 remaining in the period that was literally all she wrote. The Sixer's never led again. They rallied back a couple times at the end of the 2nd quarter and in the 3rd quarter, but still trailed by 8 heading into the 4th quarter. In the 4th the Sixers just went cold as the Jazz turrned it on defensively, outscoring the Sixers 25-12 en route to a runaway 97-76 victory. For the night the Sixers only shot 33% from the field with Mo Speights going 0 for 8 and failing to score a single point. They rely on him to score off the bench so much, that when Mo plays this poorly the Sixers really have no chance to win. With Mo struggling Thad Young led the way offensively with 20, while Andre Iguodala had a nice night with 16 and 8 rebounds, and Elton Brand and Jrue Holiday each chipped in 10 off the bench. The Sixer's defense was simply awful on the night as they allowed Utah to shoot over 50% from the field and from beyond the arc. They were also outrebounded 49-39, which considering their bad shooting on the night didn't help things either. Ultimately, this was just a pathetic effort by the Sixers, really the first one they had put forth in some time, and I don't like it. I hope this doesn't mean they are throwing away the season now in hopes of a high draft pick because it is still a little early for that.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
FLYERS NEWS
The Flyers started on what could be a make or break road trip tonight with a visit to Tampa Bay for a matchup with the Lightning. Coming in the Flyers had not won in over a week and were desperate for points. Darroll Powe returned from his injury at last and seemed to energize his teammates early on as they scored two quick goals by Blair Betts, and by Mike Richards on the power play, and jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period. The Orange and Black reverted back to their slumping ways in the 2nd period, allowing Tampa to come back and tie it up at 2 on 2 goals that were far too easy. Somehow after that abysmal 2nd period they were able to pick themselves up and come out with renewed energy in the 3rd period, I mean they really took it to Tampa early on in the period. Still, it took them 10 minutes to finally get another one in the net With Betts deflecting in a shot from the point by Oskars Bartulis for a 3-2 lead. 7 minutes later Richards scored his 2nd goal of the night for a 4-2 lea, before Simon Gagne scored in the final seconds on Tampa's empty net to salt away a 5-2 victory. There are a lot of positives to take away from this one. Mike Richards was everywhere with 2 goals and an assist. Blair Betts 2 scores were the result if him getting in front of the net and creating traffic in front of goalie Mike Smith, something the Flyer's had not been doing very well. Simon Gagne had a goal and an assist in his best performance in a while. Ian Laperriere, Oskars Bartulis and Claude Giroux each had 2 assists, which is impressive for a team that was really struggling with passing the puck. Finally, Micheal Leighton was actually okay in goal with 31 saves out of the 33 shots he faced, but he struggled at times to handle rebounds and got very good defense in front of him most of the night and obviously that will have to continue for him to have success.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
SIXERS NEWS
The Sixers traveled to Washington tonight to begin a long road trip with a matchup against the Wizards. Once again the Sixers were without AI, who is supposed to return for their next game, and Lou Williams did not start. Thus, not surprisingly they got off to a slow start in this one with Washington up by 6 after a quarter of play. Then Elton Brand came off the bench in the 2nd quarter to spark the Sixers to pull within 3 at the half and then take a 7 point lead into the 4th quarter. Unfortunately they cooled off in the final period of play and couldn't make defensive stops down stretch as Washington rallied to win 105-98. If they could only figure out a way to consistently get stops at the end of games they might just have something here. Clearly they can score without any problem, with Elton's 18 and 12 rebounds leading the way tonight, and Willie Green's 16, Lou William's 12, and 10 each for Sammy Dalembert and Andre Iguodala rounding out a good night for the Sixers shooters. In fact they shot 50% from the field on the night. Unfortunately, they also let Washington shoot 47% from beyond the arc, with 7 threes and that's really what cost them tonight and what keeps killing them every night. They are in fact dead last in the NBA in 3 pointers allowed. If anyone on this team knew how to guard the perimeter they would probably be at least .500 right now. Instead they are languishing at 7-21 overall, 2nd worst in the Eastern conference. On the other hand they are incredibly, still only 4.5 games out of 8th in the Eastern conference so I guess we can't give up hope just yet.
Monday, December 21, 2009
FLYERS NEWS
Fresh off a disheartening loss to the Rangers,the Flyers looked to get back on track tonight as they welcomed the Florida Panthers to the Wachovia center. Coming in Florida was holding the 8th spot in the Eastern conference, 5 points ahead of the Flyers, so this was a big opportunity for the Orange and Black to pull closer and make up some ground, especially the Flyers were the winners the last time these two teams met. Unfortunately, the Orange and Black couldn't duplicate that same success this time around. Florida just took it to them from the get go and never let up. They were more physical than the Flyers, and played with far more spirit and energy and it showed. The Flyers also killed themselves by taking 8 penalties while the Panthers only took 7. The Panthers' however killed off all 7 orange and black power play opportunities, while the Flyers allowed Florida to score 3 times on the power play and that was really difference. Early on things were okay as the Flyers just trailed by 2, 2-0 after the 2 periods of play. Then Brian Boucher had to leave the game with an injury leaving recently acquired backup Micheal Leighton to finish the game for the Flyers. Ultimately, he couldn't as Florida scored 2 more early goals on the Flyers in the 3rd period for a 4-0 lead. Finally Braydon Coburn got the Flyers on the board with a little under 8 minutes to play, but it was too little too late as Florida rolled to the 4-1 win, dropping the Flyersto 15-18-2 overall and now 7 points out of 8th in the Eastern conference. What a team.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
EAGLES NEWS
The Eagles came into this early evening's game simply needing to win to clinch at least a playoff spot. With their opponents being the San Francisco Forty Niners, who desperately needed to win just avoid being eliminated from playoff contention, that didn't figure to be any easy task. Fortunately, unlike last week against the Giants, the Eagle's defense came to play. They forced the Niners to committ 4 turnovers, intercepting Alex Smith 3 times, and forcing a key fumble deep in Eagle's territory. They also sacked Alex Smith 3 times ,and held San Fran to just 261 yards of offense and zero 3rd down conversions. Where the pass rush had not been able to put any heat on Eli last week it did time and time again in the face of Alex Smith on this day. He just really never got comfortable in the pocket and the Niners were lucky he didn't throw more than those 3 picks. Offensively, the Birds simply continued their fine play with Donovan completing 21 of 36 passes for 306 yards and a TD. Desean Jackson, with 6 catches for 140 yards and a TD, and Brent Celek, with 4 for 73 yards, hauled in most of those completions. Meanwhile, Leonard Weaver and Lesan Mccoy formed a successful running tandem once again, as they combined for 100 ruhsing yards and a TD. The Birds started strong taking their opening drive 50 yards for a TD, on a pass from Mcnabb to Jackson. After kicking a field goal to cut it 7-3, Smith and Niners started turning it over and the Birds took advantage of those turnovers to put a further 13 answered points before the half, with Mcnabb scrambling 8 yards for a TD, and David Akers booting a pair field goals, for a 20-3 halftime lead. San Fran really turned things around in the 3rd quarter shutting down the Eagles and scoring 10 unanswered points to pull within one score of the Birds at 20-13. Finally in ther 4th quarter the Eagles put together an 89 yard drive, capped off by a 2yd Mccoy TD run to push ahead for good 27-13. In fact thanks to the defense that's how it ended. So at 10-4 overall the Eagles have clinched an NFC playoff spot. They'll still probably have to win out to claim the division and at least 3rd in the NFC. Also the Minnesota Vikings lost tonight, so the Eagles are now just one game behind them in the NFC standings, which means they just need to win out and hope the Vikes one of their 2 remaining games, to steal a first round bye.
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