Scouting the Enemy: Philadelphia Flyers

Record: 5-6-3

Leading scorers: Mike Richards (5G, 12A, 17pts), Simon Gagne (8G, 8A, 16 pts)

Blogs: They don't have loyal enough fans for a dedicated blog, but you can check 700 Level. It's one of those blogs that touches up on everything Philly, as in they only talk about winning teams.  As you can imagine, the Flyers are not a hot topic right now.

And so it continues.  After one decent year of hockey the Flyers are back to their mediocre ways.  Win a few, lose more than a few, win a few, etc.  Right now the Flyers are coming off a 3-1 win over the Islanders, prior to which they dropped three straight to the Oilers, Senators and Lightning.

Which brings us to tonight.  Game Two.  Next to the Red Wings matches lined up for this season I'd say the Flyers games rank right up there on the intensity level.  Not much has happened in Philly since last month, except the fact the miserable waste of a city finally won a championship.  But the Phillies, Eagles and 76ers can win as many championships as they want.  Just keep them out of the Flyers' hands.

The good news for tonight is Daniel Briere is out 5-7 days with an undisclosed injury.  He had a slight tear in his stomach muscle that sidelined him for a game or two last week, but allegedly this injury has nothing to do with the existing one.  The latest is labeling it a groin strain.  (Insert joke here.)  So there's one guy down, plenty more to go. 

Derian Hatcher, Randy Jones and Ryan Parent are all on the IR, as was the case on October 14 when these two teams last met.  If there were a Flyers blog I'm sure they'd use injuries as an excuse, but since there isn't we can just assume they would and say, "Suck it up, the Penguins got through injuries last year without complaints."  And at least our injuries were to decent players.

But I digress. 

Game time is 7:30 EST.