The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

OH BOY ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN WHEN THESE TWO TEAMS GET TOGETHER!

Yup, I remember when the League was like “Yeah Winter Classic at Fenway you guys pumped?” and everyone was all, “Yesssss do we get to see Ovie play outside because we love Ovie and the rest of the Caps are pretty cool too great job NHL!” And then they were like, “Capitals? Noooo, the Bruins aren’t playing them.”

A little confusing. But okay, maybe the Rangers. Boston/New York. Those towns hate each other. League wasn’t having that either. They said, “How would you guys like to see the Bruins play the FLYERS?” I mean, I guess I kinda do. Two pretty decent teams. Fun hockey can come from that. Oh and they fight a reasonable amount as well. Bonus points there. On paper it seemed like this harebrained scheme might not be the worst one the NHL ever cooked up.

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The Lead

So tonight the Flyers are beating the Caps by two late in the second period, right, And Philly’s a pretty good team with depth at pretty much every position and they’re not exactly wont to give up leads.

But the Caps had it figured out from the get-go: put your three best players, all three of which play different forward positions, on the same line and see what happens. What happens, of course, is that those three players combine for 4-5-9 and the Caps win 4-2. Nicklas Backstrom had the biggest night, scoring the tying goal and assisting on all three others. Alex Ovechkin ran his goal total to 11 in as many games with his brace tonight. Alex Semin went 1-2-3, and his goal was an absolute snipe.

So it stands to reason, then, that Bruce Boudreau would say this after the game, per Wyshynski’s Twitter: “Who knows where [they]‘ll be on Thursday.” YEAH BRUCE JEEZ WHO KNOWS?

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The Lead

Mike Richards really doesn’t get enough credit.

If I were to ask you to ballpark his production over the last two seasons, what would your guess be? Something like 100, 110 points maybe? Pretty respectable, eh? Yeah, try 155. One hundred and fifty-five points in 152 games. Goal totals: 28 and 30. Set your watch to that kinda production.

I understand he’s the Flyers captain, but can you think of a quieter point-a-game guy in the league? The guys ahead of him on the point totals list are routinely mentioned as being top-whatever in the world, and somehow Mike Richards has to sit there and have everyone act like he doesn’t put up huge numbers? You hear Eric Staal’s name brought up a lot more than you do Mike Richards’, and for what? One extraordinary season three years ago? Richards is every bit the player Staal and unlike Staal, who is overrated, he’s critically underappreciated.

Look at the goals he scored tonight, picking up a hattie as his Flyers crept by the Capitals in a really great 6-5 overtime win. The first two were absolute snipes the quality of which we haven’t seen since Dealey Plaza, and the third was one of those Johnny-On-The-Spot plays that good players always seem to be in position for.

Let’s put it this way: Alex Ovechkin is a man on a mission this year, yeah? Line of 6-3-9 in three games. Third player ever to score like that to start a season. That’s crazy. For real. And Mike Richards was considerably more impressive than him tonight. Wrap your head around that.

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With Ryan Parent on the shelf for the next three months, Randy Jones another eight weeks from coming back, and Luca Sbisa maybe headed back to juniors soon so as not to start his free agency clock (though that’s looking less and less likely), the Flyers had to do something.

So Boston, which had two NHL-quality players wasting away in Providence, was more than happy to send over Andrew Alberts and his way-too-big $1.25 million salary. Not reported in that TSN article, but included (from what I’ve heard), is an ECHL-level winger named Ned Lukacevic. The pick is also a conditional fourth-rounder in ‘09, not a straight-up one. If Alberts, who’s in the second season of a two-year deal, re-signs in Philly, it becomes a third-round pick. Pretty sure Boston traded its fourth-round pick in 2009 in the Manny Fernandez deal.

This solves both teams’ problems, actually. Philly gets its servicable, if overpaid, defenseman and Boston gets to call up defenseman Matt Hunwick, who impressed at camp but just couldn’t crack the top 6 because of Alberts’ contract predicating that he stays up, and forward Vladimir Sobotka, also a victim of Alberts’ cap hit.

In general, I don’t like the Flyers. I didn’t like the way they played last year (see: incredibly dirty) and I never even really cared for the players that didn’t play physical hockey (see: Dany Briere).

But tonight the City of Brotherly Love didn’t disappoint me.

Sarah Palin, accompanied by the two Palin daughters (the hot, pregnant one and the littlest one) who were used as a ploy to draw sympathy, dropped the first puck with some contest winner at the Flyers/Rangers game tonight. She was soundly booed by the assembled animals in the crowd. Shouldn’t have been a huge surprise given that this is the city that would boo a crippled kid who sings the national anthem, but I was worried that Flyers fans would arrive at their seats to find a note that read, “If you boo, Secret Service will come to your houses and snap all your necks while you sleep. No one is safe.”

The Flyers’ PA people, no doubt on the orders of team owner and Republican fundraiser Ed Snider, used a very loud orchestral song — and what sounded like piped-in cheers — to drown out the massively negative reaction.

Video’s here.

Alaska native Scott Gomez went out to center ice to take the faceoff against Flyers captain Mike Richards. Said Palin to Gomez, “HI SCAHTT!” and they did that almost-kiss-on-the-cheek thing. She also may have winked. It was adorable.

As Palin left the ice, and the Flyer fans never stopped booing, she waved to no one in particular to make it look like she wasn’t almost universally hated by the 19,519 in attendance. I’m actually shocked she wasn’t pelted with batteries.

With Marty Biron giving up a four-spot in the first period, the Flyers could have used Palin in net tonight.

Good for Flyers fans though. I know Wyshysnki was all like, “I’m candid about my political leanings, and I’ve been to Philly enough to know this will fall on deaf ears, but I’ll say it anyway: Polite applause will suffice. Don’t be a jerk and boo her, or toss beer on the red carpet. Save that stuff for Bettman.” Got nothin’ but love for ya, Greg, but come on. It’s not “being a jerk” if you boo her. First amendment and all that. We still have something resembling a Constitution in this country.

This “Ultimate Hockey Mom” contest wasn’t even announced until Sept. 12, meaning about a week after Palin accepted the VP nomination with “The ‘LIPSTICK!’ Speech.” In fact, in the Flyers’ initial announcement, they even used Palin’s famous, awful joke as the headline. And who do you think provided all the glowing quotes in that article? Ed Snider!? No WAY! I bet he had nothing to do with this contest getting off the ground at all. To highlight just how hastily it was thrown together, the winner of the contest was picked out of the crowd before the game tonight.

This was a cheap political stunt by Snider, who has attended a fundraiser for Palin herself and and donated $25,000 to the McCain campaign, to help a doomed ticket in what could have once been considered a swing state (right now Pennsylvania’s +10 Obama). Any talk otherwise is unbelievably naive. The fact that a left-leaning major city booed her shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The battleground of the state is much farther to the northwest than liberal ol’ Philly. She should have dropped the puck in Pittsburgh (or even Columbus) if she, or anyone else, didn’t want this reaction.

As a result of tonight’s events, I shan’t say anything bad about Philadelphia fans or teams for at least a week.

UPDATE: Here’s a video of Palin doing an sit-down chat with a way-too-energetic Philly interviewer. She only really “folksy colloquialism-ed” about hockey, and got about as many softballs as she did from Sean Hannity. I was very disappointed that we didn’t get to hear her ask, “In what regard, Coatsey?” or stumble her way through an explanation of which hockey blogs she reads (”All of ‘em. All the different ones”).

She did, however, note that she was one of those crazy hockey moms that’s banging on the glass until he told her to stop embarrassing him. So many jokes there (for example: replace “him” with “the GOP” and “banging on the glass” with “getting simple facts about Afghanistan wrong” and you’re in LOL City).

Said Palin: “I put my passion towards hockey better use by becoming the hockey manager. The team mom, y’know? Workin’ on the stats, workin’ on the executive side of the sport, and hopefully that was put to better use.”

So now she can add “team mom” to her list of executive experience. Boon for the McCain campaign!

UPDATE 2: This is hilarious.

When the two Philadelphia-based pro hockey teams, the Flyers and Phantoms (their AHL affiliate across the street), meet, you’d think there’s a pretty decent chance that the team that went to the Eastern Conference Finals last year would come out with an easy W.

Think again.

In the last game that will ever be played at the historic Spectrum, the Phantoms took it to the Flyers in what was reportedly a largely boring affair and emerged with a 4-2 victory. The Flyers played at the Spectrum until ‘96, when they moved across the street to the Wachovia Center. Since then, the Phantoms have played there instead.

Talk about embarassing. There’s no way the Flyers should have lost this game. The goalscorers for the Phantoms were Jared Ross, Patrick Maroon, Claude Giroux and Andreas Nodl. I consider myself pretty plugged-in hockey-wise, and I don’t think anyone who’s not an NCAA hockey fan such as myself would know who Ross is. Maroon I’ve actually never heard of. Giroux and Nodl were Philly’s 2006 first- and second-round picks, respectively.

It wasn’t like the Flyers trotted out the B team either. With most the NHL making last cuts Tuesday, the Phantoms WERE the B team. The Flyers, meanwhile, had Dany Briere, Mike Richards, Simon Gagne, Mike Knuble, Scottie Upshall, Jeff Carter, Kimmo Timonen, etc etc. Pretty much the team that’s going to threaten in the Atlantic this year.

Okay, to be fair, the AHL side was not without help. They got a ringer in the form of Anterro Niitymaki, who played the whole game for the first time since his surgery. At the other end, Marty Biron gave up two goals in his two periods, and JS Aubin gave up the other two in the third.

If you’re on the Phantoms, you’re feeling pretty good right now. If you’re Dany Briere, you might want to consider killing yourself. This might be the funniest thing that happens all year.

Aw there goes Lindros' brain again.

It appears as though the Kings are about to hire Philadelphia assistant coach Terry Murray as their next head coach.

According to sources, the Los Angeles Kings are finalizing details on a contract with Murray to become their new head coach. Murray, who turns 58 on Sunday, spent the past four seasons as an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Flyers and previously had head coach stints with the Florida Panthers, Flyers and Washington Capitals.

In those stints, Murray made the playoffs nine of 10 times, making it to the Conference finals three times, and advancing to the Cup final once (in 1997, those halcyon days of Ron Hextall and a 23-year-old Eric Lindros). In the 10 seasons, one of which was shortened by the 1994 strike, he put together a record of 313-258-82 (.636 winning percentage).

Murray replaces Marc Crawford, who is awful and has an unhealthy love for Dan Cloutier, who is also awful and does nothing to help Crawford’s awfulness.

Somehow, this actually seems like a good idea. What is Dean Lombardi thinking?