Last night saw the Flyers halt the Devils road game win streak at 9.
Some things I noticed. The Flyers were skating really well last night against the Lemaire trap. Up until the Devils scored on a 5-3 they were dominating play and it showed with a 2-0 lead. The end of the second period they needed to regroup. The third period saw a dominating performance again. Only a few tenths of a second remained when the Devils second goal touched the back of the net.
Emery has not shown any lapses in performance. One of the main (if not the main) questions coming into the season was about how Emery will fair. He has show over the past couple of weeks to be a truly dominate goalie. He is helped by having a great defensive corp in front of him.
The Pronger trade is looking really good right now but again this might not be truly realized until the spring. Here is an all world athlete that just makes plays. He looks to be going in slow motion most of the time on the ice when other players just grab the puck and go. His presence on the ice is intimidating. He doesn't get run or pressured while on the puck like the rest of our defensive corp. The perfect example is watch what happens to Pronger and Timo on plays in the corner.
Carcillo is listening to his mentor. Lappy has been a great calming influence on Carcillo and it has shown in his game. Here is a line that is really hard to play against and might be one of the best forechecking lines in the league. At the same time there is enough offensive threats on the ice to scare the opposition. The proof is in pudding when Stevens starts this line at the beginning of most periods and has them on the ice at other key times in the game.
Shorthanded goals - WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Sure Carter scored one on Saturday but we don't look to be nearly as threatening on the penalty kill as last year. Perhaps this has to do with the balancing of penalty killing units and Carter and Richards doesn't have to do the most work. However, this could be impacting their scoring and the opportunities that they see. Speaking of Carter I would like to see that laser beam get smoking again. He is due for a break out performance against a team where he nets a hat trick. He needs to get on a roll like last season.
Less penalties - sure the Flyers will always be targeted for penalties but they appear to be taking less this season. The poor hooking penalties that were drawn last season seem to be much less. Certainly we will be called for our fair share but it does appear to be less. (I am certainly too lazy right now to go back and research the numbers to compare this season with last).
Standings - it appears to be the same situation as last year. We were consistently sitting in 4 or 5 place with less games played but were never able to make it over the hump to take the first seed in the division or conference. Right now we sit in 5th place in the east. Tied with a few other teams for the fewest games played and only Buffalo has more points with the same number of games played. This will be changed over the next couple of weeks as we will see the Flyers pick up the game pace.