Because my only two other trips to Broad and Pattison resulted in loses, this season has been a little disappointing for me as a fan...until last night. Last night was freakin' awesome. Three key reasons:
- Dude, we won!
- We caused a few of the Avs to lose their composure...though not as badly as the Pens last season.
- I was about 8 seats over and one row behind Shawn!
Something I must point out to my non-Philadelphia readers: Flyers fans do not boo Santa. Santa was in section 216 or 215 last night, and he was greeted with cheers. (Drunken Eagles and Sixers fans are responsible for booing Santa, not Flyers ones.)
Knuble: Looooved your PPG. Your positive attitude, willingness to hang out at the net, and make like a screen keep serving you well. Congrats on number 100!
Blondie: Woo-hoo, another SHG! Tell me, what kind of noise does one of your wristers make, if any, when you score? With the team leading the league on them, and needing just one more to match last season's total SHG count, this is such a fun statbit to track. (Nice intermission interview, by the way.)
Lups: Thank you for putting one in on even strength. Way to do that during the second while I had a very good view of it.
Dear Captain: Another pretty one I saw clearly from my cheap seats. And a three point night? Bitchin'!
Gagne: Way to make sure that PPG entered the net! A second player with a three point night. I'm so glad you're back and playing like your old self.
Interesting off-topic factoid of the night: The announcer still cannot pronounce Ovie's last name with any consistency. How many seasons has he been playing in the NHL? Just make sure you balance that out with a Cindy Crosby, 'kay?'
Interesting game-related factoid: How sick is it that we have six players with 10 or more goals this season already? And I thought last year's seven players with 20 or more goals was cool.
Having a happier holiday season,
Flyers.Femme
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11 comments:
The Flyers make me do a lot of this :D when I listen to them. Our special teams are scary this year, and that's something we've never really been great at, and it's something that makes the difference between early playoff exits and a serious run at the Cup. Dare I say I think we can make it to the Finals this season?
There are still a lot of obstacles for the Flyers, and I'm not saying this just because I'm a Pens fan. Unlike most of us, I can recognize when Philly has a good team.
The biggest, maybe, is still your goaltending. Biron should be doing better than he is, and Niitymaki won't keep this up forever. For an example, look at Conklin for us last year or Sabourin this year. Out of their minds for a while, but they fall back to earth because they're backup goalies. Seeing what Niitymaki's done in years past, relegated to the AHL for a good portion of last year, I just don't see him being any different.
Another is that good teams, by and large, live off the 5 on 5 and their special teams are gravy. That doesn't seem to be happening in Philadelphia so far this season. The Flyers have 13 shorties this season and have yet to give up any. That's insane for this point in the season, maybe even historic, and likely won't continue. Furthermore, 43.8% of your goals have come on special teams. The Red Wings last year, considered to be one of the more dominant teams in recent memory, scored 30% of their goals on special teams. The top team in the East, the Canadiens, had a rate of 37.4%, and they couldn't get out of the first round of the playoffs. (I don't have a clear conclusion here, but it would be interesting to do a graph relating special teams scoring rates to overall team success in a season. Maybe I'll do it later if it gets slow.)
And haven't you been rather healthy so far this season? That could stay the same, but remember that's based on nothing but luck.
Alright, I went full-on geek during my lunch break. It turns out that there is a minor correlation between % of goals scored on special teams and number of points the team ends up with at the end of the season, at least from the 05-06 season through the 07-08 season. Any further back and the points scale will look different, so I didn't bother to figure it out.
For math/stats geeks who are interested, the correlation is 0.12. Not a ton, but it's measurable. The correlation between % of goals allowed on special teams and overall points is essentially meaningless, at 0.07, but it's kind of interesting that it's even positive at all.
Seeing what Niitymaki's done in years past, relegated to the AHL for a good portion of last year, I just don't see him being any different.
Justin, hunh? Please tell me what good portion of the 2007-08 season Niitty played for the Phantoms, 'cause I don't remember it. He was our back-up behind Marty all that time.
For me, as long as Biron's off-spell is canceled out by Niitty's being on, and vice versa, I'm fine with the see-saw routine. Admittedly, it's not ideal but I don't know that there's another Brodeur to be had out there.
On another matter, I understand about injuries messing good teams up, but I'm going to ride the good vibes of being present for Tuesday's 5-2 win for all its worth. Shame on you for even attempting to short my joy! ;p
Haha, sorry.
Niitty was on the NHL roster all year? Who was I thinking of? Maybe Aubin, but he wasn't in your organization last year...
I just wanted to let you know that this is all your fault.
Okay, not true at all, plenty of others contributed to my delinquency, but I've been sitting on a domain for a while with nothing on it. It now has something on it. One whole post, but it's something to start with...
Testing.
@Justin: Dude, that's why I don't do stats...they give me a headache.
@JustinM: Testing received. What now?
Sorry, those were both me. I was trying to see why it called me JustinM here and called me by my domain name on Brodeur is a Fraud. I came up emptyhanded.
You can go ahead and nuke that comment and this one if you don't want clutter.
Are you kidding? Keep pushing that comment count higher. I don't care!
By the way, welcome to the blogging world at your own little spot. :)
Why thank ya. About time, right?
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