March 18, 2013
With only 19 games let
in the lockout shortened 48-game schedule, every game becomes that much more
important for the Flyers.
Monday night's road game
against the Tampa Bay Lightning is no exception.
Playoff hopes are on the
line, and it's clear to everyone in the locker room that this team needs to
start stringing wins together.
"We've got to start
winning games," Kimmo Timonen told reporters on Sunday. "If you look
at the standings, the way we've been going, we win one game and maybe lose one
or two after that."
"That is not going
to work out," Timonen said. "We got to start putting some wins
together and that means three or four games together and then we'll go from
there. But the bottom line is, we need wins."
When the Flyers do take
the ice in Tampa Bay, Timonen, who will be celebrating his 38th birthday, will
also be achieving a milestone that only few players have done before.
While Timonen's 1,000th
game is a momentous occasion in hockey history, what the game itself means for
the entire team could be far greater in the long run.
The Flyers (13-15-1) currently sit
at 11th in the Eastern Conference, with 27 points in 29 games played. They are
fighting for the eighth and final playoff seed in the conference, which is being
held by the Carolina Hurricanes (15-11-1), who have 31 points in 27 games as of Monday
night.
Meanwhile the Lightning (12-15-1) are also in the hunt for a playoff spot. Tampa Bay is right behind the Flyers
with the 12th seed, trailing them by only two points in the standings and
trailing the Hurricanes by six, 28 games into their season.
The Lightning, much like
the Flyers, have struggled with consistency this year. But Tampa Bay is
coming of a 4-1 win off the aforementioned eighth seeded Hurricanes. Plus the
Lightning have a good offense that is led by the NHL's current leading goalscorer Steven Stamkos.
"I think they have
a lot of skill players," Braydon Coburn told reporters on Sunday.
"Their top end guys that can put the puck in the net are the best in the
league. They present a lot of difficulties defensively and we're going to have
to do a good job tomorrow."
The Flyers have been in
a "must-win" situation since last week, when they had a road and home
series against the New Jersey Devils.
The Flyers dropped the
first game in New Jersey 5-2, which certainly didn't help their place in the
standings, but they came home and escaped with a 2-1 shootout win to stay in
the playoff hunt. While the win at home was huge, the team knows they have to
build off it and keeping pushing forward.
"This is
huge," Scott Hartnell said to reporters. "These points we can’t blow
away. We can’t say "oh well, we'll get it next game" or whatever. We
need every point in every possible game."
"I think we did a
great job against the Devils of not getting out of our comfort zone,"Hartnell added. "I thought we played a pretty solid game. We were fine
with the 1-0 lead. 1-1 going the last 10 minutes of the game. I thought we were
pretty comfortable with that, so we got to keep playing that style.
"It's good to win a
game, but I think if you look at our schedule all year, one game in the past doesn’t
mean anything," Coburn said. "We got to move forward. It's a new game
for us and we got to make sure that, being the quality opponent in Tampa Bay
and the offensive guys we just talked about, we have to be ready for that."
"There are lots of
reasons why we need to win other than feeling good about it," coach Peter
Laviolette told reporters. "We got to continue to work and climb and gain
points. I think everybody realizes that."
The Flyers' next game
won't be until Sunday when they travel to Pittsburgh to play the rival
Penguins, allowing them five days to rest and regroup between games.
"We'll welcome the
rest when it comes," Hartnell said. "But we know we got one good day
of work ahead of us."
(Image from USAToday.com)
(Quotes are from Flyers.NHL.com)
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