Let's Go Flyers?

Washington Capitals 1, Philadelphia Flyers 5

"Let's Go Flyers!"

A chant that started after the first goal, got louder after the 2nd goal, and so on and so forth until it reached its peak after the Flyers scored their 5th goal.  At that time even the "Flyers Suck" chants  Caps fans added at the end of the Philly chant  were completely out-decibled (yes I made up that word).  By the time the final buzzer sounded the chants were much softer as even the Flyers fans had enough of the game and left early.

The Capitals were blown out by the EC's first place Flyers on Tuesday night at Verizon Center 5-1 giving the Flyers their 6th straight win..  Even without their best player Giroux (concussion) the Flyers looked quicker, more intense, and more focused than the lackadaisical Caps whose play seemed to get worse as the game went on and the lead grew.

The Caps only ended up with one less shot than Philadelphia but you couldn't tell from watching the game as the Flyers dominated.  Vokoun played poorly and two of the Flyers goals came on long shots with only 1 player in the O-Zone.  Ilya Bryzgalov was the anti-Vokoun, in position for just about every scoring attempt the Caps had saving 31 of 32.

With around 4 minutes left in the first period, Scott Hartnell for the Flyers came down the ice with nowhere to go and fired a shot from a poor angle right at Tomas Vokoun.  The puck hit Vokoun in the arm and went right into the goal, a shot that should have been saved by a professional goalie.  That was an energy killer for the Caps going into the first intermission.

The 2nd period was all Philadelphia.  Marc-Andre Bourdon scored seven minutes in for the Flyers on a deflection off of Matt Perreault's stick followed by a Wayne Simmonds tip-in seven minutes later.  Max Talbot finished the period off with another "nowhere to go I'll just shoot it" shot from close to the blue line that went right past a dejected Vokoun.

Dale Hunter benched Vokoun in favor of Neuvirth in the 3rd period but 5 minutes in Jakub Voracek scored on a nice deflection that really changed the direction of the puck and was impossible to stop by the goaltender.  In front of a half empty building Jeff Halpern ended the flyers shutout on a rebound goal in garbage time.  It was all too late as the Capitals fell to 15-14.

Winnipeg Thursday...far far far away...

Game Notes:

• The line with Ward on it always gets the puck in the offensive zone and keeps it there.  However, they don't have anyone who can score on that line.
• Alex Semin had 2 amazing stick moves.  The first one he decided not to shoot, it would have been an awesome goal.
• Almost 1 fight in the upper deck, but an old woman stopped it before it started
• I don't think half the fans at the game even know the rules of hockey (Another post to come)
• Who is Valery Vladislav.  This was written on the back of Bryzgalov's helmet.  From a Google search I saw that 2 Russian players from the 70's had those names.  Is it them, or the artist who designed the mask.
• Joe B with 2:41 left said "if you are just joining us".  Nobody was just joining, everyone had their TVs off already.