Up the Ladder

"You need good timin'.
It takes good timin'.
--the Beach Boys

Just ten short days ago, the Philadelphia Flyers were, well, meh. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it is exactly as it sounds. Meh. Just say it out loud. You'll understand. The Inquirer's Sam Carchidi explained their slightly deceptive record, how going into last Tuesday's battle in Detroit, the Black and Orange had won just 15 of 37 games against the teams that held playoff positions. (Thanks, Matt.) There was definitely a Jekyll-Hyde thing going on, occasionally brilliant, sometimes awful, where it seemed the team didn't know what it was. Not to mention that the last time the Flyers won in Detroit was in 1988. No exaggeration. 1988. I was in third grade.

I checked the score on my walk home from work and almost ran into someone. We're up 2-0 in the second? Sweet. Thought it would be over by now.

For those who don't follow hockey too closely, you need to understand just how good the Red Wings are. You may recall the late 90's teams that used to win the Stanley Cup every year because they had money and spent it wisely. You may remember the 2002 squad with approximately 300 future Hall of Famers. This team might just be better, and probably for a lot longer. The salary cap has changed nothing, at least not in the Motor City, where the Wings continue to always be among the top two or three teams in the NHL.

And so, when the Flyers blew the 2-0 lead and end up falling 3-2 at Joe Louis Arena, the text argument with Matt began. Matt was angry because we squandered a terrific opportunity to knock off the mighty Red Wings on their own home ice. I wrote something to the effect of, "It's a bummer, but I'm kinda proud of them." Sure, there's no spot in the standings for "moral victories," but I, the Eternal Optimist, was hopeful. This could be the spark, I thought, the clarifying moment where this team becomes aware of its potential.

And Matt was right. I should've been more upset at blowing 2-0. But--at least for the meantime--I'm righter.

Though it's only been three games since the game in Detroit, this is starting to look like a different team. Other than the overall Captain Obvious statistic of the team's health, the most specific reason is the return of one Daniel Briere. I think it was Phil Sheridan of the Inquirer who wrote during baseball season how great it would be if Brett Myers was like the "mid-season acquisition" that wasn't really acquired. That's what I was hoping Danny B would be to this Flyers team.

Two goals in a crazy (and I do mean crazy) 6-4 win in Buffalo, an assist in the crucial 3-1 grinder in Pittsburgh, and a goal and an assist in the homecoming 4-2 triumph over the hated New Jersey Devils later, the return of Briere has added some needed kerosene to the Flyers' fire. The result? The Flyers have finally begun to inflate a small cushion in the race for the playoffs. Going into tonight's action, Philly was holding steady at fourth in the East, three points ahead of and three games in hand on Carolina. But more importantly, we're nine points ahead of the Panthers at ninth, putting us a good bit ahead of the cutoff. Especially having gone up the ladder by beating Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Jersey right in a row. Only three of the Flyers' final ten opponents currently hold playoff spots.

The East is wide open. And this Flyers team is coming together at just the right time.

As my father used to say, "Timing..............................................is everything."
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Other Musings:

"Did you hear who the Eagles picked up?" "Who?" "No One." "Really? What team did he play for?"

On St. Patrick's Day, Martin Brodeur broke Patrick Roy's all-time wins record at 552. Two days later, a New Jersey court ruled that he must pay his ex-wife alimony of a half-million dollars per year until 2020. Sometimes the justice system does get it right.

Speaking of Martins, why is it that the Lightning's Martin St. Louis goes English in the pronunciation of "Saint," yet French in that of "Louis," (loo-EE)? Dude, make up your mind.

There are so many terrible broadcasters on television and radio. I can't stand the Yankees announcer whose only home run line is, "See ya!" "See ya"?!? That's it? Then, to restore my faith in humanity, along comes Florida Panthers announcer, Randy Moller. Seriously, you have to see this. The other night, I heard him scream, "Do you know the muffin man?" (Thanks, Mac.)

And, just for good measure, Jimmy Rollins once again.

Addition by...Inertia?

"It's been a long time since I hit you with freestyle,
High-tech selections from the rhymes of the Strom files."
(with apologies to Ice-T)

Everyone knew that Philadelphia was going to be a buyer in the craziness surrounding the yearly trade deadline. Everyone was fully aware that the Flyers were hot after stud defenseman Jay Bouwmeester. And as the talented Florida Panther was seen in attendance at a couple of Flyers' games during the stretch run before last Wednesday's deadline, everyone believed the trade to be a done deal, it was just a matter of how.

And everyone was wrong. Because the Flyers got no one.

Well, almost no one. Scottie Upshall was sent to Phoenix for a second-round draft pick and left-winger Daniel Carcillo, the league-leader in penalty minutes. (Have you seen this guy? He looks like a killer.) The only other deal brought defenseman Kyle McLaren from San Jose for a sixth-round pick...until a failed physical nullified the deal.

Carcillo, much to his credit, has actually looked like a hockey player, rather than a fighter on skates. He's also already been in a couple of scraps. So, you gotta love him. And who knows? Maybe this is the Matt Stairs pickup, the under-the-radar pickup who makes one huge play that changes history. I doubt it, but who knows.

So, in the eyes of most hockey analysts, the Flyers were BIG losers at the trade deadline. And maybe they're right.

But maybe they're not.

At the end of the day, the Flyers would have had to give up entirely too much to lure Bouwmeester away from Florida. The Panthers are playing good hockey, for the moment holding the 7th-seed in the Eastern Conference playoff chase. (Though the question must be asked: if a hockey team plays well in Miami, does it make a sound?) And even with Bouwmeester's expiring contract, Florida was now willing to give up its best chance at making the playoffs in a long time. Which meant that the offer would have to have been pretty sweet. Names being tossed around were Braydon Coburn, Matt Carle, and Joffrey Lupul. Coburn is already pretty darn good, and getting better every night. (By the way, everyone in the hockey world continues to talk about the sending of Alexei Zhitnik to Atlanta for Coburn as the steal of the last few years.) Carle continues to impress, and Lupul scored his 19th and 20th goals of the season Saturday against Nashville. So now the Flyers have six 20-goal scorers. Know who else does? That's right. No one.

GM Paul Holmgren looked at his team and decided he likes it just the way it is. He didn't want to mortgage part of the future of this squad to get a rental. As I've said many times before, a) I trust Holmgren, and 2) I really like this team. I don't know if they're quite good enough to win it all this year; I still think they're missing a stand-up shutdown defender. But the East is wide open, and all the more so as Boston has been playing terrible hockey. And as we know, all you've gotta do is make the tournament.

But that's where the nerves come in. We've got a couple of games in hand over almost everyone in the conference, including three over the Capitals, just ahead of us in the 3-spot. If we hold serve, we'll make the playoffs. If we get hot and can overtake the Devils, we can take 3rd or even 2nd seed. But if we go cold, we may not make it at all. That's how tight it is.

But I like what I see.
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Other Musings: Someone needs to explain to me what the Eagles plan to do with 700 draft picks and some $30 million. I'm hoping there's a master plan that somehow brings Anquan Boldin to us. But that would make sense. And we all know how Andy Reid works...

The phrase "mano y mano" should be permanently stricken from our lexicon. It does not mean "man to man." It never has. It never will. It means "hand and hand." Let it go.

ESPN's Mount Rushmore of sports was light years dumber than having a tournament to determine Who's Now. And that was dumb. (Remember when Sportscenter was about real news and highlights instead of But at least I got to hear Rick Reilly use the word "ridonculous."

True story: My good friend Jonah, an employee of ESPN, took me to the ESPN campus. I got to meet Linda Cohn, the Schwab (sp?) and some others. But the biggest thrill was when Jonah and I were walking down a hall, and he says, "Hello Mr. Allen." He turns to me and says, "That's Eric Allen." The words "starstruck" and "speechless" don't even begin to describe. I pulled it together and we had an awesome conversation about watching that incredible '91 Eagles D. He told us that Buddy Ryan was a little crazy, but a good coach. Jonah asked him about Rich Kotite, and Eric Allen was like, "Kotite...not so much." Classic.

Lastly, my new favorite commercial is funny in its own right, and all the cooler cause it's one of our boys. If you haven't seen the Jimmy Rollins commercial for Dick's, it's fantastic. The last one is the best.

Flyer Nation

If you're like me--and I know I am--you hate that every team now has a "nation." Red Sox Nation, for example, is based on the idea that there are Red Sox fans all over the country, and that's what makes them great. But long before Red Sox Nation and the predictable, adolescent response of "Yankee Planet," and without the fabricated marketing tool of labeling it as such, there really was, and still is, a Flyer Nation.

If you've ever watched Flyers games in places that don't deserve NHL teams, then you know what I'm talking about. At last week's game at Tampa Bay and Sunday's 3-2 win over Atlanta, at least half of the people in the seats were wearing Flyers jerseys. The slight roar of the crowd after each Philly goal was delightfully confusing, as you knew it sure wasn't a home game, but almost forgot it was a road game. In the games in real NHL cities (Boston, New York, Toronto, and of course on Broad Street), when the visiting team scores, the reaction, or lack thereof, is so muted, you almost think it didn't really happen or it's not going to count.

But somehow, there really are Flyers fans everywhere. Carolina, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, Florida, Nashville, Tampa, and Atlanta. You watch and you just get the feeling that the Flyers coming to town is a big thing for these franchises, cause the attendance shoots up.

At any rate, Flyer Nation got another treat Sunday at Philips Arena, continuing their dominance over the Atlanta Thrashers and their hideous third jerseys. It was their 14th consecutive victory over Atlanta, bringing Antero Niittymaki's all-time record vs. the Thrashers to 13-0. The Flyers' all-time record against Atlanta is an astounding 29-3-1. How on earth does that happen?

The win capped a four-point weekend on the road, after Saturday afternoon's 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins in overtime. This game was a very big deal for a number of reasons.

For one, the Bruins are AWESOME. I don't know exactly why, or where they came from, or who saw them coming. But they are the real deal. We put up a good fight Wednesday night at home, but fell 3-1 in the end. Saturday's game saw us come out with good energy, but Martin Biron was just awful. The first B's goal came inside of four minutes on a weak wraparound shot that somehow trickled under Biron's pads and in. The second goal wasn't so much his fault, but he had a chance to sweep it out of the way and reacted too slowly. But the third goal came literally eight seconds later, so that four minutes after Simon Gagne's goal tied it up at 1-1, it was 3-1 Boston.

But Coach Stevens pulled Biron at the intermission and went back to Niitty, who made some big saves and kept the Bruins off the scoreboard. Arron Asham forced a turnover deep behind the Boston cage, dished quickly to Glen Metropolit whose wrister made it 3-2. And then, Scott Hartnell (the new John Leclair?) got a lucky bounce and enough of the puck to tie it up at 3. In the overtime, Randy Jones, persona non grata in Boston after he ended Patrice Bergeron's season last year, floated a shot from the blue-line that went off the knee of Bruins' defenseman Andrew Ference and in for a 4-3 win. Over the best team in hockey. In their own backyard. Without some of our best players.

The best stat is that in the Claude Julien era as coach of the Bruins, the team is 57-1-4 when having a 2-goal lead at some point in a game. Meaning, only once in 62 games has Boston blown a two-goal lead in a game not resolved by a shootout. Make that twice.

The weekend wins put the Fly-guys into the fourth-seed in the conference, with the fewest games played of any of the current playoff teams. It's pretty unlikely we'll catch Boston for the top seed. But we're certainly making a run at #2.....
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Other Musings: The Flyers are one of just three teams in the whole league to be in the top 10 in both power play and penalty kill percentage. (San Jose and Buffalo are the other two...yes, they still have a team in Buffalo.)

Wanna see an absolute heavyweight bout? Check out Riley Cote versus Eric Boulton from Sunday's game. Cote looks good at the start, then fades. But this one is a classic.

A comment in response to the A-Roid fiasco. I love how all the "Yankee Faithful" are calling for his head, urging the team to buy him out and kick him to the curb. I have a lot of issues with a confession and apology that were half-hearted at best, but he still came further than Roger Clemens and Jason Giambi. And no one said boo then. Just in case you needed another reason to hate New York sports fans, now you can add hypocrisy. If they buy, ahem, win the World Series this year, we'll see what the "Faithful" say then.

Kudos to the NBA, for offering an array of awesome games between good teams with plenty of starpower in the week following the Super Bowl. LeBron and Kobe each at the Garden, then facing each other. I actually spent some time at the bar on Sunday watching a regular-season basketball game. Imagine that.

The Bud Light ad I saw for the first time the other day begins with the phrase, "Summer may be over, but don't close up the deck, or put away the grill." "Summer may be over"?!?!??? IT'S FEBRUARY. You're still airing this after Groundhog Day?? Honestly. Oh, and by the way, if you have to ad lime to a beer, then the beer sucks. Period.

Anyone see the Dunkin' Donuts ad where the women goes up on the roof to announce that their coffee is the best she's ever had? And she's talking to other people doing the same thing? And one of the women says it's her sixth cup of so far? So, let me get this straight. It's early morning, you've got six cups of coffee in you...and you head to the roof? Somebody hates their job. I don't think that's an ad for coffee. I think that's a cry for help.

Yesterday's Around the Horn with Lil Wayne was awesome. In his face time at the end of the show, he talked of how there's one guy he's always been afraid of, and that's the original LT, Lawrence Taylor. But now that he's agreed to be on Dancing With the Stars, Lil Wayne proclaimed he is officially no longer afraid. Then he said LT should now stand for "Lil Twinkletoes." Fantastic.

In Sunday's game in Atlanta, following the announcement that the Thrashers were headed to the power play, the song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" came over the PA. I know they're the second-worst team in hockey, but that just doesn't seem very fair.