Flyers Shut Out at Home by Rangers' Back-Up Goalie......Again

Steve Valiquette has the Flyers number. For the second time in ten days, the Rangers backup goalie shut the Flyers out, and New York got two power play goals to defeat the Flyers 2-0. The new Flyer lines, which I discussed in my previous post, did very little to generate offense. Even the Flyers vaunted power play, one of the best in the league, couldn't get anything going. It's even worse that this happened on their home ice, again. The Rangers have now won 11 of their last 12 games at the Wachovia Center. The Flyers also have fallen behind the Penguins and into second place in the Atlantic, although they still have a few games in hand on the rest of the division.

The lone "highlight" of the game came in the second period, when a good ol' fashioned hockey brawl broke out. It started ugly, as Linesman Pat Dapuzzo was accidentally sliced in the face by Steve Downie's skate. Everyone on the ice started fighting, with three pretty good slugfests going on at once. Riley Cote and Colton Orr, Steve Downie and Fedor Tyutin, and Jim Dowd and Ryan Hollweg all went at it. Of course, with one Linesman down, it was very difficult for officials to break it all up. Dapuzzo tried to help, but he was badly bloodied, and later would need 60 stitches.

Watch the highlights of the melee here, courtesy of The700level: