FLYERS NEWS

The Flyers traveled to Madison Square Garden tonight for huge game with the New York Rangers. A win in this one would clinch a playoff spot for the Orange and Black, and overtime loss would all but clinch a spot, but a loss would keep the Rangers alive in playoff hunt. As they have lately, the Flyers put up a strong effort, but made too many mistakes right in front Brian Boucher and couldn't score in the 3rd period when they had to. New York was better defensively with a better goalie and they didn't make any dumb mistakes. If nothing else the Flyers should have been able to take this game into overtime, but Henrik Lundqvist proved to tough in the 3rd period and on most of their scoring chances in the period the Orange and Black couldn't really keep it together long enough to even challenge Lundqvist anyway.


They actually had the lead early with Mike Richards beating Lundqvist 1 on 1 just 40 seconds into the game. Two turnovers in front Boucher later and they were down 2-1 heading into the 2nd period. About 7 minutes into the 2nd, Boucher let up his only soft goal of the day and it was 3-1 Rangers and all hope of victory seemed lost. The Orange and Black battled back though. A couple minutes after that Danny Briere scored to cut it to 3-2. Then without about 5 minutes left in the period Richards racked up his 2nd score of the day to knot it up at 3. Unfortunately, the tie lasted just 2 minutes Marian Gaborik beat Boucher on a breakaway for a 4-3 lead. The thing this Chris Pronger was right there in front of Gaborik the whole time, but he had rare senior moment, whiffing on an attempt to poke the puck away. Then as mentioned the Flyers could not come up with the equalizer in the 3rd period. So now the Flyers and Rangers are tied for 8th in the East, but with 40 wins to the Rangers 38 the Flyers at least have the tiebreaker over them.