ECQF: #1 Philadelphia Flyers vs #8 Washington Capitals

[Da_Chief]

• First ever playoff meeting between the two clubs

• Flyers 2nd in overall goal scored this year (303), Capital were 29th (225)

• Flyers 4th in goals against (231), Capitals 26th (272)

• Flyers powerplay success ranked 14th in the league (19%) while Capitals were 28th (14%)

• Flyers penalty kill was ranked 2nd overall while Capitals were 4th

• The two teams probably made about 7 to 8 trades with each other over the season

• Flyers won all 4 head to head meetings this year, one of them in overtime and one in shootout

• Flyers out scored the Capitals 17-7 in those 4 meetings

• Tim Thomas, Capitals starting goalie, started the season with the Flyers

• Henrik Sedin, was a big ticket player Flyers acquired late season from the Capitals

• Capitals leading point getter is Ray Whitney (50 points)

• Flyers leading point getter is MVP candidate Jeff Carter, who produced a point per game for the Flyers

• Flyers goalie, Cam Ward, led the league in save percentage (91.8%) and goals against (2.58)

• Along with Sedin, Andrej Meszaros, Kyle Brodziak, Lee Stampniak, Brooks Orpik all now Flyers, were acquired from the Capitals

• Former Flyers now playing for the Capitals are Dave Bolland, Ray Whitney, Chris Phillips, Sami Lepisto

• Lets get on with the games!

[Knut]

Overmatched, outscored, outmuscled but not outhearted. The Caps will prevail!!!

[Da_Chief]

Flyers practise notes:

• No injuries, everyone skated and looked healthy
• Practise drills focused on even strength play
• Lines were sent into the league for game 1 and looked as following:
  
  
  Semin-Sedin-St.Louis (Triple S line)
  Kovulchuk-Getzlaf-Pominville
  Legwand-Carter-Umberger
  Stempniak-Nichol-Brodziak
  Begin will sit out Game 1
  
  Pronger-Suter
  Sterit-Ehroff
  Orpik-White
  Meszaros will sit out game 1
  
  Cam Ward
  Jonas Gustavsson

Coach Clouston's Take: "Both teams exceptional penalty kill units so I don't see either team making a difference with their powerplays. Thus we focused on even strength play in the practise."

GM Schum's Take: "Our team is ready, we have good amounts of skill, leadership, experience and guys who know what their roles are. Now we just have to execute our game plan and hope for some wins."

[MJK]

Well Sedin didn't last very long on your 3rd line!

[Da_Chief]

Was he suppose to?

[Da_Chief]

Game 1 in the books...

The Flyers are off to a very shaky playoff start. Looks like being the no. 1 seed brought some added pressure. Lines were changed and were not same as the ones mentioned in the earlier post. Besides the 2nd line of Semin-Getzlaf-St.louis no one else showed up.

Some Garbage Performances:

• Cam Ward was yanked in the 2nd period, giving up 5 goals on 22 shots.
• Ryan Suter was a defensive liability, on the ice for 3 Washington goals
• Regular season points leader Jeff Carter lost half his draws and was pointless

What we didn't do:

• Ice time for the big guns, Not a single forward played 18 minutes
• 33/66 = 50%, We lost too many key faceoffs
• Keep our composure, we're a hard team to play against but got caught up in being too physical

What we need to do for game 2:

• Big guns have to play more, Carter, Semin etc need more ice time
• Tighten up defensively, too many lines were charged up on OF
• Win faceoffs, we're a midlevel team when it comes to faceoffs, need the puck more
• Stay away from fights and keep our star studded lineup on the ice

[Knut]

The Capitals were able to come out and suprise Philly with their play. However, this may only serve to wake them up.

Mikhael Grabovski and Thomas Flieschmann had solid games, so we expect Philly to try and shut them down.

The Capitals have to keep up the physical play, as it seems to have thrown the stars off their game.

Overall, we are happy to get our 1 win out of the way for the series.