FLYERS NEWS

The Flyers and Devils squared off in New Jersey tonight in game 2 of their conference quarterfinal series. Having taken game 1, the Flyers came in looking to go up 2-0 and take full control of the series. New Jersey on the other hand, came in desperate to avoid that fate and they played like it. They were more aggressive, often stupidly with 7 penalties, and played with much more urgency than the Orange and Black. Still, the Flyers fought hard as usual and managed to stay with New Jersey all night long. Unfortunately, they only managed to score on 2 of the 7 power plays and that cost them in the end. Against a team like the Devils that rarely commits that many penalties you have to take advantage of your opportunities when they do or more often than not you'll fall short like the Flyer's did tonight. On their first power play opportunity the Flyers coughed it up entering the New Jersey zone and Zach Parisse broke away and scored on a helpless Brian Boucher.

Thanks to an assist and a power play goal late in period by Claude Giroux the Flyers briefly recovered from that embarrassment to take a 2-1 lead into the 2nd period. 3 scoreless power plays to open the period and Flyers were behind again 3-2. Finally on their 6th power play they cashed in again with Chris Pronger deflecting one in and knotting it back up at 3 , with a little over a minute to play in the period. It stayed 3-3 until with a little over 4 minutes to play, ex Flyer Dainius Zubrus muscled his way in front of the net and somehow slapped one through Ryan Parent and over the glove of Boucher who clearly not saw it coming. After that the Flyers had a couple good chances to tie it up, but Marty Brodeur made lucky save on Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell loss the handle on a rebound that should have been an easy put back. Not long after that Jeff Carter's stick broke, and he was powerless to stop Ilya Kovalchuck from shooting into the Flyer's empty net to cap a 5-3 Devil's win. So the series is all tied up at 1 now, but that's all right because the series now shifts to Philly where the Flyers will have to take advantage of the home ice.