FLYERS NEWS

The Flyers continued their road trip in Edmonton tonight against the lowly Oilers, who didn't have a single win in the month of Januay and had lost 11 in a row at one point before winningin their last game against the Hurricanes. Thus, for all intensive purposes this should have another Flyer's victory and 2 important points. In fact on the night the Orange and Black did out play the Oilers, even with Micheal Leighton starting in goal to give Ray Emery the night off. Just like in their last game the Flyer's were fairly dominant defensively, holding Edmonton to just 27 shots on goal, with Leighton saving 26 of them. Meanwhile, in about the 1st 2 and 1/2 periods all the scoring chances belonged to the Flyers as they got off 33 shots on goal. Unfortunately none of the 33 ever managed to get into the net. So despite the solid defense and goaltending, the Flyers just couldn't figure out a way to score and it cost them. Instead they found ways to waste one scoring chance after another, hitting the post, mishandling passes, skating right out of scoring chances and failing to put anything together on the power play.

It still looked like for the most part that the lack of scoring would not cost the Flyers a chance to at least get into overtime and earn a point. However, with a little under 2 minutes Darroll Powe was flagged for high sticking, to give Edmonton a power play for the remainder of regulation. The Flyer's did a pretty good killing off the penalty but on their last rush of the penalty Edmonton was just able to slip by the Flyers, particularly Mike Richards and feed ex-Flyer Ryan Potulny a perfect pass to slip the winning goal past a sprawling Leigthon. And so it happened with just 16 seconds left to put the Flyers behind 1 -0. The Flyers had time for one last rush into the Edmonton but it was too late and the Oilers were able to hang on for the improbable 1-0 win. So the up and down season continues for the Flyers. With the bottom of the Eastern conference playoff picture so tight, they really couldn't afford to lose this one against an inferior opponent, but they did and now they really can't afford to lose anymore. For now though they're still 6th in the East, but only 1 point up on 7th place Montreal at this point.