Eric Hartline-USA Today Sports
The Philadelphia Flyers logged another win on Thursday night as they defeated the New York Islanders, 2-1, in their home finale. Despite goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov telling the media that these games, ‘don’t matter,’ this last week of their regular season, the Flyers are playing on pride alone.
On Saturday night they will face off against the Ottawa Senators in their season finale road game. Since it’s their last game, the Flyers are going to want to make it count. With Oliver Lauridsen‘s successful goal on Thursday night, perhaps coach Peter Laviolette will give some more of the rookies ice time in this last game. Since the Flyers are not playoff bound, the team really has nothing to lose by playing the AHL call-ups.
Despite coming off a win and the fact that the Flyers have nothing to lose, this game still will not be an easy one. The Senators are everything the Flyers wish they were this season. Like the Flyers, the Senators could not escape the injury bug this season, but instead of blaming their flaws on injuries they prevailed.
Despite missing their top line for the majority of the season coach Paul MacLean successfully led his team to victory. They have been consistent all season long and have held onto the No.6 seed in the Eastern Conference for the whole season. They started to struggle towards the end of the season as they kept trying to clinch a playoff berth. On Thursday night they saw the return of Erik Karlsson and finally got the spot in the playoffs that they were aiming for.
So, with how successful this team has been the Flyers have their work cut off for them on Saturday. Karlsson will be a force to reckon with, but the Flyers also need to tail Sergei Gonchar. He only has three goals this season, but he leads the team in points through being a good passer. Gonchar has assisted his teammates 23 times this season.
Like Gonchar, Claude Giroux has quietly been leading the team in points through his ability to help out teammates like Jakub Voracek. It’s also clear that Voracek does not want the Flyers season to be over, so he will be gunning for another win on Saturday.
It’s unfortunate that the Flyers season will end on Saturday, but now it means we can really focus on the 2013 NHL draft.
Deanna Vasso is a Flyers writer for www.rantsports.com, you can follow her on Twitter, like her on Facebook and join her Google network.
