NHL updates – Philadelphia Flyers play host to the New York Rangers
The 473rd game of the Compuware NHL Premiere Series and the first game of Saturday will be played between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers. The match is expected to be very tough and entertaining battle as both teams are among
the top teams in the standings currently.
The Atlanta Division rivals are scheduled to face each other six times during the course of the season and this is their second meeting. The last time the two were up against each other, it was the Philadelphia Flyers who managed to win the match 4-1 on
the 4th of November 2010. Mike Richards came up with a splendid performance as the Flyers wrapped up the match with a dominating display of ice hockey.
New York Rangers were up against the Phoenix Coyotes this Thursday during which they blocked as many as 17 shots as they won. This has been the case for much of the season and the last two games. In their previous encounter they blocked 22 shots against
the Pittsburgh Penguins. The New York Rangers currently lead the standings in terms of shots blocked. But the interesting fact is that Philadelphia Flyers are in second spot trailing by just 3 points.
Though the Coach John Tortorella is happy with this but it has come at the cost injury to some players and a fall in the performance of offence.
Commenting on this, the coach said "There's a risk/reward that comes with that, but I think it's a huge part of our game that we have to have in order to compete," said Tortorella. "It's a huge part of our culture. We're not going to change."
New York Rangers have currently played 34 games out of which they have won 21 games and sit in a good position with 41 points. Their counterparts for Saturday have played 33 games out of which they have won 26 scoring 47 points.
Philadelphia Flyers are the team of the season currently bagging superb performance day by day. Not only have they come up with a strong defence but their attack is also among one of the deadliest that has a very high success rate. Due to this, they have
been able to face so much success.
Currently, Philadelphia Flyers is receiving a lot of boost from van Riemsdyk, Zherdev and Jeff Carter playing together. The trio has been able to combine and score goals regularly. The Flyers win against Montreal Canadians this Wednesday was a very good
example of this as the trio combined to score 4 out of the 5 goals that they scored.
"They were terrific from start to finish," Coach Laviolette said after Wednesday's win. "I thought that that line had plenty of jump. Carter was flying, (Zherdev) was flying, JVR looked like he had great legs under him. They generated a lot of speed. I thought
they dominated a lot of their shifts."
The difference maker for the Rangers could very well be Dan Girardi who has scored in each of the last three games. On the other hand, Claude Giroux has scored two goals in the last two games for the Flyers. Currently he has scored 16 goals in 33 games whereas
last season he scored 16 goals in 82 games.
The Philadelphia Flyers are undoubtedly the favourites to win the match and again with a difference of more than 2 goals.
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