I'm still getting used to this whole "not having baseball on every night" idea, but I'm getting there. Luckily, there's still hockey to watch at least a couple of nights a week, and right now, the Flyers are putting on a pretty good show. Tonight, they went into Buffalo to play the Sabres, who have been one of the best teams at the start of the NHL season. On this night, the Flyers looked like the much better team, dropping the Sabres 5-2 and handing Buffalo just their third loss of the season.
It took a little while for the Flyers to get started tonight, but once they did, they didn't stop. Daniel Carcillo got things started late in the first period with his first goal of the year, and Chris Pronger started the second period with a goal of his own. James vanRiemsdyk put in his third goal of the season later in the second, and the Flyers closed out the scoring in the third period with goals from Darroll Powe and Carcillo, giving him two goals on the night, and leaving him one short of his total from all of last season. Ever since their back to back losses to San Jose and Washington, the Flyers have been on fire on offense, scoring 16 goals in their last three games, and looking pretty impressive in all three.
Ray Emery also looked good tonight, stopping 28 of 30 shots on net by the Sabres. The only thing that the Flyers did wrong tonight was allow Buffalo to score two goals on the power play, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't look that bad, especially since those were the only goals that the Flyers allowed. Emery has been solid for most of the season, and has won five out of his last six starts, which is exactly what the Flyers want out of him, considering Brian Boucher is not that good of an option off the bench. As long as he keeps playing the way he has, there shouldn't be much of a worry there.
The best part about tonight has to be the continued success of James vanRiemsdyk. So far this year, the kid has three goals and 11 assists in just 11 games. Not only that, but he's also at plus-seven for the season, and has looked excellent out there on the ice. It took him a year or two to get up to the big club, but now that he's here, I know I couldn't be any happier. His play so far has been an nice little surprise, and the Flyers look like they made the right pick when they took him in the NHL draft a few years back.
This may have been the most impressive win of the season so far for the Flyers. After getting fat on two weaker teams, they took it to Buffalo on the road, while sick with the flu. The Sabres had only allowed four or more goals twice coming into this game, and the Flyers ran them up for five on the night, including two from Daniel Carcillo, probably the least likely guy on the team to score more than one goal in a game, and I'm including Ray Emery in that discussion. It was a very good night tonight, and now that the Phillies are done playing, it's time for hockey season to officially get into full gear. I'll need something to watch in between Eagles games, and this will do the job nicely, especially if the Flyers keep playing like this.
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