Martin Biron est extraordinaire!

Just like what it says on the tin. Martin Biron had an amazing night in goal – He’s probably the best goalie the Flyers had since Roman Checkmanek (Saying Hextall might be a bit excessive). With 34 saves and 1st star, it just continues to prove my argument that Marty is on form and will take the Flyers far. The two goals scored against the Flyers both have stories behind them – The first was unlucky: Biron was distracted by Lasse Kukkonen getting caught in the face by a Hab skate. You could argue he should have been concentrating, but that kind of thing would catch out anybody. The second goal, I grudgingly admit, was pure class from the Habs. The rest I have to say about them is negative but that’s further down the post.

The Flyers as a team also showed their stuff. 4 great goals from Umberger, Carter and Briere gave the Flyers the win. They were also able to push their game to another level, matching the pace of the Canadiens for most of the game and using their classic physical play to keep the Habs down.

I also must complement Coach Steven’s for his tactical thinking. Alot of coaches would sit back after that Game 1 and say: “We were unlucky, I’m going to leave the plan as it is and hopefully we’ll have some better luck in Game 2″. Coach Stevens however, looked at his tactics and decided to change some of the lines around, the important one was moving Scott Hartnell up along side Briere and Prospal. It gave both Briere and Prospal space to work their magic, resulting in a goal.

I’m sorry to say it’s not all positive however – The Flyers need to stop picking up silly penalties! If they do that, the Habs will score 1 or 2 less goals a game. After picking up a 2 minute minor for having too many men on the ice, Randy Coburn cross-checked a Hab after Biron had freezed the puck, making a 5-3 situation for a minute. It could have been worse, Jeff Carter did the same thing on the same play. Mercifully, the Referee recognised that the Canadien went down fairly easily. Also, remember I praised the Flyers for their pace? It wasn’r entirley consistent as the Canadiens remained on the attack for most of the 3rd Period.

Now to start looking at the Habs. This game was fairly poor for them – Price had a very poor game, all of the goals were mistakes either caused by himself (sitting too deep in his goal) or his teammates (blocking Price’s view). These were some fairly rookie mistakes that may come back to haunt him later in the series (Remember the 5-1 trouncing against the Bruins?). Also, I noticed for most of the 1st and 2nd periods, the Canadiens would choose to dump the puck in rather than set up a proper offensive zone passing play. I must also bring up what will appear on a few blogs before the next game: Sportsmanship. I don’t know what is defined as “unsportsman like” in the US, but in Britain – Tom Kostopoulos, the Habs Hero from Game 1, hitting Kimmo Timmonen in the back during Jason Umberger’s second goal was unsportsman like. He should have been sent off. It does make me chuckle however as the NHL constantly looks to put the Flyers down, and in the process sees other teams like the Habs or the Caps do silly things like what Kostopoulos did.

Anyway, I think this will go the same way as the series against the Caps – The Flyers have picked up a little momentum and confidence walikng into two home games, which is always huge with the Flyers. Also, the Flyers know what they need to work on and have got the Habs figured out. My prediction remains Flyers in 6.

I also appologise for the poor use of French