MaineFlyFan Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Looks like Bill has even had enough.....hate to say it folks but hard to disagree. Tough to get behind this team making the playoffs.....http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?blogger_id=45#.UT77-Fe1vIV Bill Meltzer Philadelphia Flyers Blogger • NHL.com • RSS • Archive • CONTACT The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 last night, bring their season record to 12-14-1 and their record in the month of March to 2-3-0. With the team starved for wins and points -- and with the Flyers having played more games than any other club in the NHL -- they will gladly take the two points from last night.However, the Flyers did little last night to inspire confidence that they are anything more than pretenders in the Eastern Conference Playoff race. There's no way to sugarcoat this: the Sabres should have been blown out of the Wells Fargo Center last night.Buffalo played a half-hearted, undisciplined style that did not force the Flyers to work especially hard at either end of the ice. The Flyers let them hang around on the scoreboard and then nearly self-destructed.Ryan Miller made some outstanding saves but also let a leaky goal by Simon Gagne get through him for the first of two Flyers' power play goals. Philly won -- and then nearly lost -- the game on special teams, with Max Talbot finishing off a shorthanded 2-on-1 rush and Claude Giroux tallying a power play goal in the opening 17 seconds of the second period. That was just enough offensive output to hang on to win, but the Flyers had enough quality scoring chances in the game to have generated six or seven goals if they had done a better job at finishing.The first Buffalo goal came about at the end of an extended sequence in which the Flyers had too few players on the ice (Danny Briere went off on a line change, Claude Giroux didn't come on) and got to running around in the defensive zone. Compounding the problem, Bruno Gervais did an exceptionally poor job defending around the net, and Brian Flynn ultimately cashed in for the Sabres.In the third period, the Flyers gave up a shorthanded two-on-one rush, finished off by Jochen Hecht after a cross-ice feed from Steve Ott. To compound matters, the Sabres' would-be tying goal got through Ilya Bryzgalov only to be swept to safety at the last moment by a backchecking Brayden Schenn.Bryzgalov (18 saves) did come up with a couple of clutch saves in the game, but it was hardly a lights-out performance. He was good in the closing minutes when he had to be.The Flyers head to New Jersey on Wednesday to take on the Devils. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakanekimiwa Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 bill always tells it like it is ... and he's usually correct. this case seems to be no different and i completely agree with him. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishbulb Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 I noticed his blogs took a darker turn about a week ago... probably after the NYR or Pitts loss. He's not a "rah rah" homer, but he's usually a pretty decent mix of realism/optimism. Seems like he's just skipping some of the sugar coating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radoran Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 The team went in to the Rags/Pens/Broons trio of games saying it was as close to a make or break part of the season as you can have.Zero points.Coming back and squeaking by Buffalo isn't anything to write home about. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murraycraven Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 And we still have no defense... nothing really shocking here considering we were pinning our faith on mezz and gus coming back. We will never win with this but bunch of marginal defensemen. Simple.as.that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearOnIce Posted March 13, 2013 Share Posted March 13, 2013 Looks like Bill has even had enough.....hate to say it folks but hard to disagree. Tough to get behind this team making the playoffs.....http://www.hockeybuz...45#.UT77-Fe1vIV Bill Meltzer Philadelphia Flyers Blogger • NHL.com • RSS • Archive • CONTACT The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 last night, bring their season record to 12-14-1 and their record in the month of March to 2-3-0. With the team starved for wins and points -- and with the Flyers having played more games than any other club in the NHL -- they will gladly take the two points from last night.However, the Flyers did little last night to inspire confidence that they are anything more than pretenders in the Eastern Conference Playoff race. There's no way to sugarcoat this: the Sabres should have been blown out of the Wells Fargo Center last night.Buffalo played a half-hearted, undisciplined style that did not force the Flyers to work especially hard at either end of the ice. The Flyers let them hang around on the scoreboard and then nearly self-destructed.Ryan Miller made some outstanding saves but also let a leaky goal by Simon Gagne get through him for the first of two Flyers' power play goals. Philly won -- and then nearly lost -- the game on special teams, with Max Talbot finishing off a shorthanded 2-on-1 rush and Claude Giroux tallying a power play goal in the opening 17 seconds of the second period. That was just enough offensive output to hang on to win, but the Flyers had enough quality scoring chances in the game to have generated six or seven goals if they had done a better job at finishing.The first Buffalo goal came about at the end of an extended sequence in which the Flyers had too few players on the ice (Danny Briere went off on a line change, Claude Giroux didn't come on) and got to running around in the defensive zone. Compounding the problem, Bruno Gervais did an exceptionally poor job defending around the net, and Brian Flynn ultimately cashed in for the Sabres.In the third period, the Flyers gave up a shorthanded two-on-one rush, finished off by Jochen Hecht after a cross-ice feed from Steve Ott. To compound matters, the Sabres' would-be tying goal got through Ilya Bryzgalov only to be swept to safety at the last moment by a backchecking Brayden Schenn.Bryzgalov (18 saves) did come up with a couple of clutch saves in the game, but it was hardly a lights-out performance. He was good in the closing minutes when he had to be.The Flyers head to New Jersey on Wednesday to take on the Devils."Pretenders", I like that. Could not have said it any better... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
off_the_post Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 Reading Meltzer is a morning tradition for me. Grab a coffee and read what is really going on with the flyers. It sure is a treat to have somebody like him writing on the Flyers. Having this forum with most of the old philly.com posters is pretty nice too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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