City of Pain

What the hell is this bullshit?

It’s never good to have any player be a -5 for a game because, at a minimum, your team gave up five goals. It’s a fucking disaster when your best defenseman is a -5 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup. It’s the worst plus-minus rating he’s ever had in a game. EVER. It’s hard to wrap your brain around how that could happen at such a pivotal moment. Here are couple reasons why it’s not all Pronger’s fault:

Goaltending: Michael Leighton, awful. Brian Boucher, awful. They had some flashes where they were getting some good saves, but it was mostly positioning not actual reaction (I’m sure someone who played goalie could tell me what percentage of being a good goalie is each trait…but positioning is only as good as the first shot). I think back to the early second period when the Blackhawks kept shooting into the mess in front of the Flyers net. Everything bounced out, but who knows off of what. Not even Boucher probably knows.

Matt Carle: Hot Carle was trying to be a hero and join the rush a little too much, even with the Flyers down 3 then 2 goals. It’s tough to gamble quite so much so early in the game because that next goal against is an absolute killer.

Chris Pronger: Perhaps Chris Pronger was Chris Pronger’s problem. He had a target on his back the whole night. He played old and worn down, like when he made a hit from Byfuglien look worse than it was by looking like a giraffe on skates. Maybe the 30 minutes of ice time a game was catching up with him, maybe not. The Blackhawks got energy from beating up on him and seemingly from scoring against him. They smelled blood.

Cute Passing: The Flyers tried to start their breakouts with cute passes out of the zone. Little touch passes and redirects. Rather than clear the zone, they wanted to recreate the OT winner…four guys tic-tac-toeing the puck up the ice for an easy goal. Guess what? Not on the road. Not on that shitty ice surface (seriously, what the fuck Chicago? Why is it 7 degrees warmer in your building?) And not against a team that forechecks like that. Stop dicking around and dump it in.

All that being said, I have some faith in this team recovering. It’s hard not to after all they’ve been through already. But they have to play smarter (looking at you Scott Hartnell, doing your best Dan Carcillo impression) and get back to physical play and shot blocking. It’s how they won games 3 and 4, and it’s how they’re going to win game 6.

And….the Flyers are back. Holy shit are we actually going to win this thing? This team is unreal right now.

In other news, Fox 29 is reporting that a shitload of Flyers fans are going to attack the Blackhawks team bus in Center City today. The thing that I don’t get is why Chicago is even still here. Shouldn’t they have flown back last night after we whipped their asses, dominated them for the third straight game, took back the entire momentum of the series, and once again shut down their top line? Just a thought.

Sorry Lauren Hart. This is how it’s done.

So out of the blue in these playoffs Scott Hartnell has somehow learned how to play hockey at a high level again. Five goals, eight assists in 20 playoff games, and a seemingly unlimited energy source every time he is out there. Who knows why he decided to wait until the playoffs to wake up, but you won’t hear us complaining.

The guy totally dropped off the face of the planet this season. Scoring 30 goals last season, Hartnell only managed to score 14 this year.  Since the 2003-04 season with Nashville, Hartnell’s goal output was 18, 25, 22, 24, 30….and then this season happened. His assists remained consistent with last year (30), but the guy was taking shit penalties the whole year and looked like he didn’t have a clue what was happening on the ice. Maybe he was just part of an underachieving team in general, but rumors of a divorce from his wife Lisa pretty much sealed the deal for me.

Lisa is pretty hot. She looks like she should be living in a cottage in the mountains of Belgium milking goats and sowing tablecloths out of unicorn hair. Maybe the allure of dating a professional athlete clouded her vision from seeing she was marrying Carrot Top minus the steroids and plastic surgery. Or maybe she started banging Jeff Carter (allegedly). Either way, it had to be quite a year for Scotty going from Lisa to rotten bar slags in Old City each night.