FLYERS NEWS

The Flyers and Bruins began their conference semifinal series this afternoon with game 1 in Boston and what a game it was. It start so well with the Flyers appearing a little sluggish, and maybe affected the 8 game layoff they rode into today. Whatever the reason they just didn't play a good 1st period and found themselves down 2-0. They picked it up in the 2nd period with the scores by Ryan Parent on an odd man rush and Chris Pronger on the power play. Unfortunately, Boston, perhaps benefiting from an illegal pick, managed a power play goal of their own to stay ahead 3-2 heading into the 3rd. Early a questionable penalty call on Brian Boucher and Danny Briere's failure to stay with his man led to another Boston power play goal and 4-2 lead.

All hope seemed lost but the Orange and Black did not give up. Five minutes Mike Richards scored on the power play to cut it to 4-3. Then with just over 4 minutes to play Danny Briere broke away on his own and made a spectacular through 2 defenders, was stopped initially by Boston's Tuuka Rask and then slapped in the rebound to tie it up at 4. Both teams had opportunities for the win in regulation after that, particularly Darrell Powe who was all alone crashing net but somehow Rask knocked puck the away from him at the last second. So the game went into overtime where Boston was dominant but somehow thanks 14 saves, many incredible, the Flyers hung in there for about 7 minutes and actually had a couple chances of their own for the win. Finally about 7 minutes into the period Marc Savard got hold of the puck thanks to a lucky bounce and let one fly, that Ville Leino was too lazy to block away and Boucher too stunned to stop as it caught the net for 5-4 win.

So the Flyers fall 1 game down to start series and but I still feel they can win this series. In my mind they really were the better team in this one they just made too many mistakes. You could even make the argument that everything Boston got in this one the Flyers gave them. I mean just one less mistake by the Orange and Black and they would have won 4-3 in regulation. Boucher had 41 saves and it appears he's still on his game. The defense still looked pretty good also, well other than Briere's mistakes and laziness by Leino and Scott Hartnell, but that's something the Flyers can correct. Also they really had no problem scoring even without Carter and Gagne, plus Boston lost Marco Sturm for the rest of the playoffs early in the game. So there are still plenty of reasons to believe the Flyers can pull this one out, it's just probably going to be a longer series than round 1 against New Jersey.