The Flyers welcomed the St.Louis Blues to the Wachovia center tonight as they looked for their 4th straight win. Thanks to another inspiring night of defense and 30 more saves by Ray Emery out of the 31 shots he faced, they were able hold off St.Louis and extend the winning streak to 4. It wasn't easy though. Scott Hartnell scored the only Flyer's goal in regulation with a power play tally late in the 2nd period. For a while it looked like that would hold up, but just under 6 minutes into the 3rd period T.J Oshie finally got one by Emery to knot it at 1 for St. Louis. It stayed that way through the rest of regulation and all the way through overtime as went into a shootout, which usually means bad things for the Flyers, but not tonight. In the 2nd round of the shootout Brad Boyes beat Emery to give St. Louis the edge, but Claude Giroux, the hero the last time the Flyerr's played a shootout, came through again to even things at 1. After 2 more rounds and 2 more Emery saves, Mika Pyrola, who had not previously scored a goal on the season, finally ended it by beating Chris Mason to start the 5th round of the shootout. So the Flyer's got the 2-1 victory for their 10th win of the season, and at 9-4-1 with 19 points they're still only 6th in the Eastern conference.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
SIXERS NEWS
The Sixers welcomed a beat up New Jersey Nets team to the wachovia center tonight. New Jersey came in with only 9 healthy players and half the starting lineup on the injured list, except center Brook Lopez and shooting guard Courtney Lee. In fact New Jersey came in winless on the season, so this stood to be an easy Sixer victory. In the end was a Sixer victory, barely, but a win is a win. The Sixers actually trailed most of the night, despite shooting 50% from the field and beyond the arc. It wasn't because New Jersey played all that well, the Sixers just simply let them stick around, committing 15 turnovers, almost getting out-rebounded and allowing a shorthanded team shoot 47% from the field. Ultimately though, the Sixers were able to take care of business thanks to hot shooting down the stretch from the likes of Andre Iguodala with 16 points, Lou Williams, with a game high 18, and Jason Kapono who came off the bench to drill 4 threes and score 14. The Sixers trailed by 2 after 1, clung to a 3 point lead at the half, and were down again by 5 after 3. Finally in the 4th the Sixer's shooting heated up again, as Iggy nailed a 3 with 2 minutes to play to put the Sixers ahead for good, and then swiped the ball from Terence Williams as time expired, to preserve a 97-94 win. So the Sixers are now 3-2 and have beaten everyone they were supposed to, if only they could learn how to do it a little more easily.
FLYERS NEWS
The Flyers traveled to Buffalo tonight for a matchup with the Sabres. who came in having allowed the fewest goals in the NHL thus far, while the Flyer's came in with the NHL's best power play thus far. Of course the Flyers also came having the last 4 meetings between these two teams and having won their last 2 in a row, this season, while Buffalo came in having lost 2 of their last 3. Ultimately the Flyer's picked up right where they left off, destroying the Sabres 5-2. The Flyer's were just better than the Sabres tonight in all facets of the game, except oddly enough the power play, the source of both Buffalo goals. Otherwise Ray Emery outshined Ryan Miller with 28 saves out of the 30 shots he faced to 32 out of 36 for Miller. The Flyers limited Buffalo to only 30 shots on goal, while getting 37 themselves. Sometimes good defense is all you need to win, even in today's wide open NHL. The Flyer's led 1-0 after the first period with Dan Carcillo of all people scoring late in the period. After 2 periods they were up 3-1 with goals from Chris Pronger and the rookie James Van Reimsdyk, who continues to impress. Finally in the 3rd period goals from Daroll Powe and Dan Carcillo again, this into the Sabres empty net put away the win. So the Flyers now have 17 points with an 8-4-1 record, good enough only for 6th in the Eastern conference, because everyone ahead of them has played more games than the Flyers have.
PHILLIES NEWS
The Phils have already started to making offseason moves. Today they picked up the $9 million option to keep ace Cliff Lee here for another year. They also decided not to negotiate a new contract with former ace Brett Myers, meaning his tenure here is effectively over. So it will be interesting to see what the Phils rotation looks like next season. Obviously, the top 4 will or should remain intact, with Lee, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, and J.A Happ, but will be interesting to see who the number 5 starter. If Pedro Martinez comes back then it would probably be him, otherwise they can go with the ageless one, Jamie Moyer, who will be back for one more season, or Kyle Kendrick who looked very good late last season, and was the Phils no.5 starter in 07 and much of 08, or there's even a 3rd option, the young phenom Kyle Drabek, the 1st round pick from a couple years back who's been tearing up the Phil's farm system, but he's probably not ready yet. Aside from that the Phils also want to bolster their bullpen and bench, which were really the only weaknesses for this year's team. Finally the Phils also have to decide whether or not to resign 3B Pedro Feliz for another season. There are a few free agent 3B who might be an upgrade over Feliz, offensively, but defensively he is about as good as it gets, so it will be a tough decision. I think we should stick with the Feliz though , as his numbers this year, contrary to popular belief, were up from 08, with 154 hits, 30 doubles, 82 RBIs, and a .266 batting average. As far as I am concerned if you can get that kind of production from your #7 hitter in the National League, you're lucky and you'd be crazy to give it up.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
PHILLIES NEWS
The Yankees won their 27th world series tonight, defeating the Phils 7-3 in game 6 of the World Series. The Phils kept fighting until the bitter end, but they simply were not able to come up with the big hits when they needed them tonight. Actually for the most part the Yanks didn't come up with any big hits tonight either, that is except for one particular Yankee, Hideki Matsui. Matsui put forth a performance for the ages, smashing a 2 run homer and a 2 out 2 run single off Pedro Martinez, and launching a 2 run double off J.A Happ for a total of 3 hits and 6 RBIs. The Yankees as a team meanwhile, had just 8 hits, and 7 RBIs. So Hideki really carried them through the night. In fact if you take what he did away, the Phils would have won tonight 3-1 and pushed the series to game 7 on the strength of 2 run homer by Ryan Howard in the 6th inning. Instead that homer only served to cut the Yankee lead to 7-3. The Phils then had a couple chances after that with Chase Utley at the plate, to start a serious rally but they could not capitalize and eventually they succumbed in the top of the 9th, as Shane Victorino lined a slow roller to 2nd for the final out. Oh and to answer my question from the other night, obviously Pedro Martinez did not have another masterpiece left in him, Hideki made sure of that. So the Phils bid to repeat as world champions fell short but ultimately they have no reason to hang their heads. They should still be proud of their accomplishments. I am still proud of them for forcing a game 6 against these powerful Yankees and for repeating at least as National League champions for the first time in their history. They will still always be the 2008 world champions and nothing the Yankees do will ever take that away. I feel privileged to have had the honor to have witnessed first hand the greatness this team has displayed on and off the field these last few years and I look forward to witnessing their continued greatness in the years to come. Not long ago I could never have imagined I would get to see my beloved Phils win a World Series and then return next year with the chance to repeat and even if they never make it back to world series and they're never this great again I'll always have the memories from these last 2 years to have and to cherish. Finally to those of you who believed we needed to win this one for Harry, you're wrong. Yes the title last year was for the long suffering city of the Philadelphia as much as anything, but just that chance at last to call the final out of the world series for the team he loved, was likely the greatest gift Harry could ever have received. He didn't need to see it again this year. This team and this magical repeat season was his lasting gift to us. So now you'll know the next time things suddenly start to go right for the Phils, against all odds, it's just Harry pulling some strings for us. Oh and don't worry boys we'll get them next year. You can count on it.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
SIXERS NEWS
The Sixers welcomed the Boston Celtics to the Wachovia center tonight in a showdown for top billing in the Atlantic division. There wasn't much belief coming into tonight, despite their 2 game winning streak, that the Sixers would be able to seriously challenge Boston, but for a time early in the 1st quarter, an upset victory for the Sixers seemed a real possibility. The Sixers just came out hot, while Boston started slow and before you knew it they were up by 8. Then Boston finally started to wakeup defensively and Rasheed Wallace and Eddie House hit a barage of threes, and after Rajon Rondo drilled a jumper over the backboard at the buzzer, Boston led after 1, 19-17. The Celtics never looked back from there. The Sixers really cooled off offensively the rest of the way, shooting just 36% from the field and .06% from beyon the arc. They jut couldn't get anything to fall, and they couldn't get the ball inside or get out on the break for easy baskets. The Boston defense was just too smothering the rest of the way, and eventually the Celts got to be in full control of this one, rolling to a convincing 107-54 win. So ultimately the Sixers just weren't ready to challenge Boston quite yet, but give them some time to perfect that princeton offense and figure it out on defense a little more and we'll be right on their heels. For now the Sixers drop to 2-2 overall and remain 2nd in the Atlantic division behind Boston.
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