GAME DAY: Ottawa Senators @ Philadelphia Flyers - 7:00pm Dec. 23rd, 2008

I think you have the same feelings towards Tavares as I do towards Hedman.

Tavares is the real deal though. He's the best player in the world not in the NHL. He's proved in year after year and is doing it on the international level. He's outplaying Hedman and everyone is noticing it.

He's going #1 for sure, and Hedman @ #2 is a good consolation prize. I just hope NY's wins over Ottawa screw them over and give Ottawa #1.

We should look into moving Phillips, Vermette, and Fisher (yes, I know, NTC). We don't need three defensive d-men in Volchenkov, Phillips, and Smith, especially all at $3-mil. Smith won't be traded so shortly after signing here, would look bad. I respect what Phillips has done, but he's often not that good out there, and some teams might want a guy like him.

DashRiprock wrote:I think you have the same feelings towards Tavares as I do towards Hedman.

Tavares is the real deal though. He's the best player in the world not in the NHL. He's proved in year after year and is doing it on the international level. He's outplaying Hedman and everyone is noticing it.

He's going #1 for sure, and Hedman @ #2 is a good consolation prize. I just hope NY's wins over Ottawa screw them over and give Ottawa #1.

We should look into moving Phillips, Vermette, and Fisher (yes, I know, NTC). We don't need three defensive d-men in Volchenkov, Phillips, and Smith, especially all at $3-mil. Smith won't be traded so shortly after signing here, would look bad. I respect what Phillips has done, but he's often not that good out there, and some teams might want a guy like him.

Oh man, that's tough. Phillips has played his whole career here (with some great success), has an A, has a family here, and is better than Smith at almost every conceivable category for only $0.4 million more.

I'd deal Vermette, though.

Also, I think Hodgson, right now, is better than Tavares. And Taylor Hall, despite not being selected, is amazing as well. So are Nikita Filatov and Alex Pietrangelo.

On to the West to bring our embarassment across all of Canada.

Now we need to pull out about 10 of a possible 14 points to have any shot at the playoffs, haha, at least we will be out of it by the time Christmas Vacation is over, alright!

Neely4Life wrote:On to the West to bring our embarassment across all of Canada.

Now we need to pull out about 10 of a possible 14 points to have any shot at the playoffs, haha, at least we will be out of it by the time Christmas Vacation is over, alright!

I maintain that the future is bright, if we handle our assets wisely.

Alright, t'is the season, so join me in what I'm sure Murray and company must be signing over the holidays...

"All I want for Christmas is a PMD... "

bluewhiteandgolf wrote:

Neely4Life wrote:Hopefully the score doesnt fool anyone, that game should not have been close.

nothing to be happy about here...
luckily we didn't escape with a point

Well, for the second game in a row we scored more than3 goals. We were missing our best defenseman (Kuba -- may not be Phillips but he's logged the most minutes) and lost our other best defenseman one minute into the game. To compound matters, Hartsburg had a brain fart when he put Schubert in as the 6th defenseman. He's great as a 7th, but when we lost A-Train and Schubert had to play more minutes, we all saw what happened. Two penalties, two PP goals. They were not the difference in the game because Ottawa was plain outplayed, but if not for those two goals we could have gotten an undeserved point.

I see positives from this game. Yes, they were a second slow in just about everything, but ew've got several players nursing injuries or sickness: Alfie, Spezza, Neil, Picard, Schubert (brain cramps). Also McAmmond has missed a lot of time and wasn't his usual self. Ruutu was also banged up -- I'm surprised he didn't get injured on that non-call.

Speaking of which, the Flyers were finishing every check, often finishing it on the next shift. After something like 48 hits in the previous game, I'm not sure I saw more than 2 or 3 last night. Unfortunately the ones I saw were delivered by featherweight Kelly.

What the hell is wrong wiht Phillips??! He looked small, weak and slow out there. I'd say he's battling something as well, probably the flu.

All in all, I hated that we lost and how we lost, but I saw positives out there. This team is starting to turn around.

Not to punch a negative feeling here, but it's probably the 4th time this season I heard talks about turning around.

Coming back from a 2-goal deficit in the third? That's got to be a positive as well (I missed that one). Lots of things to be happy about, other than the injuries and goal-tending