Punishment Skate

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

This morning, was supposed to be an scheduled  “OFF” day for the Flyers.

Instead, they will be at Skate Zone – a half-hour earlier than usual _ for a full practice. That’s because coach John Stevens wasn’t very happy with Tuesday night’s 4-2 loss in Washington.

Without even opening my emails this morning, I can predict what the general tone will be among, you, the fan base. Same old Flyers, same old problems.

And to an extent, you are all correct. This team continues to give away valuable points in an Atlantic Division where four of five clubs could make the playoffs.

The Flyers are blowing too many two-goal leads and taking their foot off the accelerator too soon before games run out.

Mike Richards made one point after the game that I felt was very relevant. How do you leave Alex Ovechkin open in the slot with five-on-five coverage? The other point, made by various players, was that the Flyers are not getting five-on-five goals this season. Their ratio is barely 1-to-1 vs. opposition.

You can’t win the NHL living night after night off your power play, no matter how good you are.

I feel badly for Kimmo Timonen, who let his guard down last night about himself _ something he has never done _ and openly admitted he has never felt such personal frustration with his play as he is going through right now (-10).

Something bad always seems to happen with him and Braydon Coburn on the ice together. Last night, it was a deflection off him for the game-winning goal, plus a deflection off someone else for an earlier goal. He and Coburn were both -3. Again.

My feeling is that Stevens needs to break up the pairing, if for no other reason, than to break up the string of bad luck for a while.

Mentally, something simple as that may go a long to helping Timonen’s confidence return.

Today, is also the day we find out what Simon Gagne’s plans are. I predict he will elect for surgery to repair two, small hernia.

And I predict a 6-8-week absence. This is one player the Flyers will allow extra time to recover. Gagne has always been a hesitant player coming back from injuries and given this will likely be a fourth surgery to the same, general area of his body, he’s going to be extra careful.