If you had said before the start of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals that the Flyers would score five goals, and keep Chicago's top line from registering a single point, I would have told you that a victory was at hand. Instead, the Flyers allowed six goals, looked slow at times on defense and pulled Michael Leighton in the second period as they dropped the first game of the series against Chicago.
There's nothing bad that can be said about the way the offense played last night, save for the fact that Jeff Carter, Simon Gagne and Claude Giroux didn't notch a point between the three of them. Danny Briere continued his excellent play with a goal and three assists, Scott Hartnell had a goal and two assists and even Arron Asham picked up a goal and an assist. It was that kind of night for the Orange and Black in the Chicago end as they peppered Antti Niemi in the early going, hitting him with the type of pressure that he hadn't seen yet in the playoffs. It was the first time during the playoffs that Niemi had allowed more that four goals in a game, and he did that in the first two periods. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, he stopped the Flyers in the third and kept them from doing any more damage. Regardless, the offense did it's job.
Where the Flyers were sloppy last night was both on defense and in the net. For the first time in the playoffs, Michael Leighton looked like a backup goalie and was struggling on the ice. Maybe it was the nerves of playing in his first Stanley Cup Final game, but he didn't look like the same goalie that helped get the Flyers past Boston and Montreal in the Eastern Conference Finals. In those two series, Leighton was excellent at keeping rebounds controlled, but last night, he couldn't do that. Chicago played a physical game in front of the net, and Leighton couldn't pick up the trash when he needed to, which led to a few easy goals for the Blackhawks.
Of course, the defense needed to help out there as well, and they couldn't do much right at all last night. They couldn't pick up the trash in front of the net either, and there were a few times where any defender for the Flyers not named Chris Pronger just looked slow against the Chicago attack. Some bad puckhandling and slow pursuit on a power play in the first period ended up as a shorthanded goal for Chicago, and when the Flyers needed to make stops on defense to keep Leighton from getting in trouble, they couldn't do it. Eventually, Leighton was pulled after giving up five goals in 20 shots, and Brian Boucher made his first appearance since Game 5 against Boston.
Now, Boucher didn't necessarily look much better than Leighton did, but he also faced less pressure. In his 24 minutes in net, Boucher faced 12 shots, while Leighton faced 20 in 35 minutes. There shouldn't be a goalie controversy now, and there's not. Head coach Peter Laviolette stated today that Leighton is going to start in Game 2 for the Flyers, and that's the right move. Leighton got some bad breaks last night, and the goal that Boucher allowed was softer than any of the five that Leighton had go past him. It wasn't a good performance last night by either of the goalies, but that's why hockey has a best of seven format. One bad game isn't going to kill your chances, but two or three certainly don't help.
The Flyers did prove a lot last night. They showed that, for the most part, they can keep up with how the Blackhawks play. Though there were some lapses in defense for both teams, the Flyers hung tough with a team that a lot of people said would blow them out of the United Center in the first two games. They also played phsyical with Chicago, which is something that no Western Conference team was able to do in the first three rounds of the playoffs. By keeping Patrick Kane, Dustin Byfuglien and Jonathan Toews from scoring, the Flyers sent a message that the Blackhawks are going to need other people to score to win this series. That's what Chicago got last night, but over an entire seven game series, I don't know if they can keep that performance up. Scoring six goals doesn't happen every night, and while the Blackhawks looked great last night, the Flyers matched their speed and performance on the ice for most of the night. Being down in the Stanley Cup Finals is never fun, but the Flyers have already come back from an 0-3 hole in these playoffs, so being down one game isn't a big problem. Hopefully, they can take Game 2 and even the series as it heads back to Philadelphia.
Game 2 is tomorrow night, so get your BBQing and such out of the way early so you can watch the game.
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