Will the real Flyers please stand up? Last season's Orange and Black gave us something to be excited about: Youth and skill and hunger combined to create an overachieving squad that reached the conference finals and augured a new era of elite hockey in Philadelphia. But in 2009, the trait that carried the day was inexperience, both on the ice and in the front office, and the result was a first-round playoff knockout to the Penguins.
The Flyers gagged down the stretch, failing on several chances to secure home-ice advantage in the playoffs. Then again, as the series with Pittsburgh showed, it may not have made a difference: Skating at the Wachovia Center, Philadelphia allowed a three-goal lead to evaporate in Game 6; the Pens' 5-3 win put them in the second round and shoved the Flyers into golf season.
And after making so many good moves last off-season, general manager Paul Holmgren found himself stranded in salary-cap hell as 2009 ground on. By the end of the season he was dressing Zamboni drivers as defensemen, contributing to the Flyers' late, fatal flaws. As poor as the team's on-ice play was, Holmgren needs to be held accountable as well.
Intent on shoring up the Flyers' most glaring weakness, Holmgren is now interested in former Ottawa goaltender Ray Emery, a mercurial talent with a penchant for partying and not playing nice with teammates. It says a lot about the franchise's inability to develop a quality goaltender that this is something the Flyers truly have to explore. Not since Ron Hextall, himself a walking (or skating) temper tantrum, has the team employed a netminder whom it could pencil into the starting lineup and forget about. If Emery can be that guy, Holmgren owes it to himself and his team to cross as many fingers and toes as he can find and pray to the hockey gods that the guy has found some semblance of maturity.
And then Flyers fans have to do the same and hope that Holmgren has grown up in his duties. The Zamboni crew can't afford to lose another driver. | PRS
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