Flyers never adjusted to Devils preferred pace

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They saved their best for last in Game 5.

Even then, it still wasnt good enough to keep the Flyers playing through the spring.

The Flyers are generally a big, rugged group that skates, hits and prefers non-stop, north-south hockey at a fever pitch.

Thats not how the New Jersey Devils play. The style change was so drastic from the previous series against Pittsburgh, the Flyers stubbornly refused to adjust.

Maybe they couldnt adjust. Hard to say.

They were stingy; they were tight, Scott Hartnell said in a voice barely loud enough to be heard.

You had to fight for every inch of ice that you got. When you had some time and space in the offensive zone, it seemed like they closed pretty fast.

You had to make plays fast and it seemed like they were a step forward the whole series.

Funny, but Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen both said the Devils played more like the Rangers and yet, in the games against the Rangers, the intensity level was there for the Flyers despite losing all six regular season encounters.

And unlike the Devils, the Rangers initiated and retaliated off contact, and played the kind of chippy hockey that plays into the Flyers hands. Were it not for goalie Henrik Lundqvist, the Flyers would have won the season series against the Rangers convincingly.

You cant say that about the Devils, because while Marty Brodeur was good, he was not dominant. Outside of Game 1 and Game 5, the Flyers never got Brodeur moving, and rarely forced him to make consecutive saves like the Devils did repeatedly against Ilya Bryzgalov.

So the comparison to the Rangers does not seem to make sense. Except in one crucial area.

They played a lot like the Rangers, Hartnell insisted. We got the puck in the corner on a soft chip and it seemed like they had four guys on you in the corner. It is probably one of the biggest reasons why we couldn't beat the Rangers this year.

They just smothered you, three or four guys on you in the zone. It was tough to make plays when your back is against the wall or out in the ice. It is definitely frustrating, but we did have chances.

We had a post there and Danny Briere on a cough up by Brodeur and if that goes in that could have been a whole different story.

The four-man defense against the Flyers forecheck was the only tactic the Devils employed similar to the Rangers.

They played their system to the maximum, Timonen said. There really werent any breakdowns, you know. There werent any easy goals going in. We had to work on every puck and every battle. They really did a great job.

They played like the Rangers, I think, the same way. There is something to it, we didn't beat the Rangers this year at all, so we have to find a way to beat those guys the way they play and you know obviously the Pittsburgh series was up and down and that's good for us because we can score early and if there's any turnovers.

There were a lot of mistakes in that series and there were a lot of goals too, but teams who were playing really tight defense like these guys and the Rangers, we had a tough time this year.

While it was really very easy to work up a good hatred for the Rangers or Penguins, it was impossible to do so against the Devils, whose bland approach so mimics their organizational philosophy.

The Flyers have a recent history of altercations with the Penguins and Rangers. They have nothing with the Devils.

This isnt the 1990s, either, where the Flyers-Devils had serious gripes every year because one always stood in the others en route to the Cup. New Jersey won all three of its Cups between 1995 and 2003.

They didn't give us anything to be emotional about, Hartnell said of this Devils club. They weren't in scrums and it seemed like they really didn't hit us. So you can get into it that way and try to look at it or whatever.

It wasn't there and that was their mindset and game plan. I think we might have gotten off our game plan for a few games, but it is not like we weren't trying or gave up.

No, instead the Flyers never gave the Devils their due up front, when it mattered, before the series began. By the time they did, it was too late.

You look at the West, not that they are beatable teams or whatever, but it is anyone's game right now, Hartnell lamented.

Washington is going to give the Rangers a run for their money. It is frustrating that we are not moving on.

E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net

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