"The Orange and the Bleck"

Flyers 0 Penguins 4

The Philadelphia Flyers kicked off their 40th season in the worst possible way last night. They were beat by the (perhaps formerly) hapless Pittsburgh Penguins 4-0. Starting the season the way the ended the last season making fans burry their faces in their hands.

Sure its only one game out of 82, and they always seem to get beat in the opener, however you can't ignore the signs of trouble here. They went 0-10 on the powerplay which is enough to make you sick to your stomach. They didn't score once. Their terrible system of having players stand motionless instead of skating during the man advantage seems to still be in place for some odd reason.

This is officially the beginning of the end for Flyers goalie Robert Esche who was awful tonight. It's well known that he is a huge head case and gets down easily. He is fairly weak minded and is easily set off. I doubt he will ever eat spinach again. It's clear the people high up favor Antero Nittymaki over Esche, so much so they are trying to convince him to play through the pain of his hip and blow off surgery. They would rather a dopped up on pain killer Nitty over Esche.

The defense is a disgrace, plain and simple. Freddy Meyer spent the entire night spinning around and watching the puck end up in his own net. With Lar Johnson returning soon from a sprained ankle I bet Meyer is sent back to the Phantoms. If Johnson isn't ready to go for Saturday's home opener vs the Rangers expect new comer Riley Cote to step in. Cote, is supposed to be a rough and tumble type d-men.

Debuts of Geoff Sanderson, Kyle Calder, Nolan Baumgartner and the return of Boyd Kane was soured if not non-existent. Sanderson had a few good plays, and Bamgartner a mid-game scrap but certainly they didn't seem to make the team looking and better than the train wreck that was the 2005-06 team.

Carter, Richards and Calder were supposed to be white hot line. They did nothing. The deuces Wild, were more like the deuces LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.

GM Clarke clearly could see the writing on the wall, and ripped the team in Sunday Philly inquirer. It's pretty clear that there might be a chemistry problem here, and a still big trouble when it comes to the special teams.

The Flyers must regroup quickly in time for the home opener vs the Rangers. This will kick off a home and home with the jerks to the north.

All, and all a pretty piss poor showing by the orange and bleck.