Devils enjoy day off, as Flyers get back on ice

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To the victors go the spoils.

In this case, the New Jersey Devils will have a day off from skating on Wednesday in Newark, while the Flyers will go on the ice at noon.

Tuesdays 4-1 loss was one in which the Flyers started strong for five minutes, then wilted and never recovered.

Our skating was off and this game is all about skating and speed nowadays and if you dont have it youre going to be in trouble, Kimmo Timonen said.

Everything was off. When you're not skating, you lose battles and I think they were a better team in every sense of the game.

The Flyers spent far too much of the game defending in their own end. They spent little time in the offensive zone, not to mention how they didn't get a forecheck going, which is normally their obvious strength.

We were really bad the second period, Timonen said. I thought we were standing still, we werent skating and we were still up 1-0 and I thought we were going to crank it up in the third but they got a couple of quick goals to make it two on one. Ill be honest, the better team won.

Making it worse was that Ilya Bryzgalov played very well in the first and second periods to keep the Flyers in the game when they could have been blown out early.

He was our best player by far, Timonen said. He was solid out there, he played really well and he gave us a chance to win the game but we couldnt get that for him. Its one of those things you have to learn from it, its 1-1 now, were going to New Jersey.

Its a bad loss but its a playoff game; you take it, you learn from it, you watch the tape and you move on. Tomorrow is one of those days you have to learn from it and move on.

E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net

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