Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Groundhog Day for the Flyers



I alluded to the 2001 series a few days ago when the Flyers were up three games to one on the Devils but blew the series. Following game four, I said this, "The goal gave Philadelphia game four and a 3-1 advantage that's nearly impossible to overcome. Teams trailing 3-1 in a series are just 18 of 59 in game fives. It gets better for the Flyers; in 90 years of playoffs, just 20 of 224 teams that fell behind 3-1 in a series went onto the next round. That's a winning percentage of 8.9%."

Washington at this point has all the momentum in the series and has home ice advantage for game seven. Plus the Flyers have to bounce back one day later from a really bad home loss (more on that in a minute). All the signs up towards Washington taking this game, but with how back and forth this series has been, I don't know if anyone can really predict what's going to happen.

The Flyers need to aggressively go after the Caps. Hit them until they can't skate. Get an early lead and don't let up. The Flyers have been great at blowing leads this year. Philly takes the lead and doesn't necessarily sit back, but lets the opposing team put the pressure on them. I don't know what school of hockey Coach John Stevens went to, but he's got to change his mentality when he's got a lead.

Tonight the Flyers have three keys: Contain Ovechkin, limit penalties, and fore check.

Onto last night now. I've been saying it all series. Alexander the Great makes every series almost a best of six series. He's going to single handily win the Caps a game. That game finally came last night. Tied at two, Ovechkin scored two goals to break the tie.

I didn't get to watch the game, Versus was carrying the Montreal-Boston game where I was. So I'm not going to comment on the game itself too much. I will say, after looking at the box score and the ridiculous number of shots, this game must have been really up and down. I don't think that plays into the Flyers' hands because of Ovechkin and really also Nicklas Backstrom's ability to score and create in the open ice.

CuseAdelphia Prediction: Game seven will go to the Capitals. They are going to do the improbable and comeback from 3-1. The Flyers too many opportunities to take this series in the first six games and it's going to comeback to haunt them. I think a late three period goal will decide this game.
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