Blogs > In The Room with Anthony SanFilippo

Daily Times beat writer Anthony J. SanFilippo takes you inside the locker rooms of the Philadelphia Flyers and the rest of the NHL.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Seen This Before

Although I rarely write with so many I's, this is former Flyers fatalist Rob Parent subbing for overworked Anthony J. SanFilippo after the Flyers' 4-1 loss to the Penguins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Hate to say it in such a personal way, but through too many years of too many lost playoff series and ill-fated visits to Pittsburgh's "Igloo" Arena ... I've just seen too many of these types of games by the Flyers.

This playoff opening loss? Terrible. Lack of mental preparation by too many players, including usually reliable forwards Mike Richards and Mike Knuble, among so many others.

Foremost in the folly, however, was Scotty Hartnell. A player who plays with so much emotion and energy, works so hard, finds different ways to score effectively for a player with somewhat limited talents ... Hartnell nevertheless too often slips into one of the most careless penalty takers I've ever seen.

And I'm old enough to have seen Terry Carkner in his Philly heyday. Hartnell far outshines him and everyone else.

John Stevens tonight said Hartnell has a way to rebound from games like these -- when he takes dumb penalties to hand teams like the Penguins power play goals, then goes out in a blaze of misconduct glory. Maybe he will, but only after a sit down scheduled with Stevens on Thursday.

Meanwhile, even if Hartnell was on his best behavior, the Flyers would have gone down in inglorious style on this night. They were awful, and precious little blame could be laid at goalie Marty Biron's feet. Like so many games at the Igloo for the Flyers dating to the 1990s, they opened this series playing too cautiously -- afraid, if you will -- because of the Penguins' offensive firepower.

Friday night, large measures of controlled aggression have to rule the Flyers' play, or they'll play themselves right out of the playoffs way too early.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Concerned Fan said...

Is it possible this coach can't motivate this team? The problems shown over the last few months continue to be those type from poor coaching. Team not prepared, no jump at the start, no effective defensive system, it goes on and on. Mr. Stevens is a nice guy but perhaps we need someone who can get the effort out of the team. Iron Mike did much more with far less talent back in the early 80's. Just my opinion.

April 16, 2009 at 12:29 AM 

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