Flyers Need to Improve
Today’s game could be a series changer. The Flyers could win and have a commanding 3-1 series lead heading back to Philadelphia, or Montreal could win, taking all the momentum and tying the series up at 2 games a piece.
In game three, the Flyers experienced what the Canadiens went through in games 1 and 2 and it wasn’t pretty. Mike Richard’s statements after Thursday’s game summed it up pretty well:
“I don’t know what it is, but maybe we got a little cocky and a little full of ourselves thinking we can go out there and play and this was a long time coming,” Richards said. “We haven’t played that well over the first couple of games and relied heavily on our power play to win those.”
Now that we can look back on the first three games, his statements are true. They didn’t play perfect hockey in games 1 and 2 even though they outscored Montreal 9-0. They were outshot by the Canadiens in both games and did most of their damage on the power play. They got help from each goalie in those games as well. Leighton was dominant and Halak was playing unusually bad.
Game three was different. Halak was back to the form he showed in rounds 1 and 2 and the Flyers got less power play chances. The power play opportunities for the Flyers have decreased steadily from game 1 to game 3 (6 to 4 to 3).
If the Flyers want to win game 4 and bring the series back to Philly with a shot at closing it out, they need to find a different way to score. The Canadiens are playing more disiplined hockey since game 1 and have been consistently outshooting them.
They also need Leighton to play like he did in the first 2 games. I know it’s asking a lot of him because those were spectacular performances, but it’s the truth. We can’t expect him to shut them out every night- that’s not fair. But he can only let in up to 3 goals if the Flyers want to win tonight. We can’t expect the Flyers to score much more than that because they haven’t been getting the chances and Halak has momentum.
No matter what happens tonight, the series isn’t over. Both teams have proved that they are never out of a series.
