-For the second game in a row, the Flyers had a truly awful first period. Not a recipe for success, but pretty impressive that they got 4 points out of such games, which came against 2 of the best teams in the conference.
-It took the Flyers 68 shots, and a 21 shot period, to finally score on Carey Price this season. I'll say it now--I'm a big believer in this guy, and predict he will be one of the best goalies of his generation. I'm not an avid WJC watcher, but from what I have seen, he is hands-down the best goalie I've seen at that level. No matter how good the chance, he's always one step ahead and everything seems to hit him in the chest. Perhaps things have clicked for him at the NHL level (after some admittedly worrying concerns about work ethic the last 2 years).
-Speaking of clicking, things seems to have clicked for Nodl; he is skating hard, playing with confidence, and *gulp*, scoring goals. Good to see from a player who's excellent defensively and was a high end scorer in college and a 2nd round pick.
-As for JVR, after being benched for a few games, he finally got a goal last night. He's been buzzing around the offensive zone the last few games, hitting a few posts before scoring. I don't think he's found his identity in the NHL yet, but I would suspect he'll carry on that strong play for several more games, at least.
Sometimes young players have to hit a low early in their NHL career and they come back with a vengeance. This happened with Mike Richards, who hit a big dry spell in his second season, missed nearly 2 months with a hernia, and has pretty much been a point/game guy since returning from that injury. Here, I made a graph, because graphs are awesome, showing the rather dramatic turnaround for Richards after hitting his lowpoint, then things 'click' for him.
Is it worth mentioning that Richards and JVR had nearly identical points/game their rookie seasons? 11g 23a is 79gp for Richards, 15g, 20a in 78gp for JVR.
-Boucher is nothing more than a streaky backup goalie at this point, but man his low glove side stinks.
-As expected, nothing came off the Richards-Subban "controversy" last night.
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