Cautious Optimism

Well the Flyers opener was tonight. It resulted in a 2-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. The two goals came on consecutive powerplays at the beginning of the second period and were only 14 seconds apart. The biggest story tonight though was Ray Emery. He made 28 saves and played really well in his Flyers debut. He was the first goalie to register a shutout in his debut since Jeff Hackett did it back in the opener in 2003 (who else forgot that Hackett used to play for us?). Other positive signs from tonight was our defense, which allowed few good scoring chances and our penalty kill which killed off 8 Carolina powerplays. It's a little troubling that we took 8 penalties tonight, but our penalty killers did a good job of collapsing on the puck and driving it down the ice whenever they could, we also had a few nice shorthanded chances. Our powerplay looked really nice tonight, as we scored on back to back power plays in the first minute of the second period. Anyways, this is one of the best games we've played to open the season in a long time. I know one game doesn't make a season, but it is nice to see all the important pieces clicking so early. We will be tested next week with games against the Devils, Capitals and Penguins, but if we play as well as we did tonight, we could see a quick start to the season.


Happy rosh-a-hockey everyone!