FLYERS NEWS

The night all Flyers' fans have been waiting for finally came tonight as the Puck was dropped for game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals and what a game it was. Thanks to a complete lack of goaltending and defense on both sides the two teams combined for a near record 11 goals. Neither team was ever really able to find their footing defensively. At the same time neither team was ever really able to string enough positive plays together to truly take control of the game. Sure it made for an exciting night with a goal seemingly every 5 minutes but it's probably not the way either team envisioned the night going and not the way either team woud like the series to continue. If nothing else though the game did prove one thing. The Flyers can play with these Chicago Blackhawks.

Anyway early on the Flyers struck first blood with Ville Leino scoring off an assist from Danny Briere 6 minutes into the contest. Just a minute later Troy Brouwer tied it at 1. 4 minutes after that Dave Bolland broke away shorthanded, after Braydon Coburn lost it at the blueline, and scored on a helpless Micheal Leighton for a 2-1 lead. 5 minutes later Scott Hartnell scored the Flyers only power play tally of the night to knot it up at 2, off another Briere assist. A few minutes later in the final seconds of the period Briere finally scored himself to put the Orange and Black up 3-2. A little over a minute into the 3rd ex-Flyer Patrick Sharp tied it up again at 3. About 6 minutes later after Chicago lost the puck in their own zone, Blair Betts rumbled in and fired one by Anti Niemi for a 4-3 lead. Unfortunately it would be the Flyer's last lead of the night. A couple minutes later Kris Versteeg tied it up at 4.

6 minutes after that Brouwer scored again for a 5-4 Hawks' lead. A few minutes later Aaron Asham grabbed another Blackhawk turnover and scored to knot it up at 5. Incredibly it was 8 minutes into the 3rd period before anyone scored again. By then Brian Boucher had replaced Leighton in net and he was totally fooled by Thomas Kopecky for a 6-5 Blackhawk lead. From there the Flyers had a couple of good chances to tie it up again but they could not as Chicago finally tightened up a bit defensively, just enough to hang on for the 6-5 win. So the Flyers trail in the finals 1-0 but it's only 1 game and now that it is clear we can score against the Hawks, we simply have to tighten up defensively and the cup is ours.