Flyers use balanced attack to scorch Sabres

Some things never seem to change with the Flyers. They are built on toughness, they never have good enough goaltending and they can be maddeningly inconsistent. Just 9 games into the current NHL season and the Flyers seem to have already run the gamut of highs and lows, from beating the Penguins to losing three straight games to a 5-2 beatdown of the Maple Leafs to looking inept against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night, when they lost 2-1.

Of course, after such a maddening loss, the Flyers did just what you would expect an inconsistent team would do as they rocked the Sabres on Tuesday night, 6-3. It was a total team effort for the Flyers, as 6 players had goals, including the red-hot Danny Briere, and 11 players had at least one point. Essentially everyone got in on the scoring act, even checkers Darroll Powe and Andreas Nodl, who scored his second career goal when he potted an empty netter late in the third period. Even more impressive for the Flyers was that this goal outburst came against U.S. Olympic hero Ryan Miller, who gave up 5 goals in 33 shots.

To prove just how on the Flyers where, even the power play, which has been a real sore spot this season, got into the act, as the Flyers scored three times with the man advantage to double their season total of power play goals. Just about the only thing that wasn't on for the Flyers in the game was their penalty kill, which allowed the Sabres to score on 2 of their 3 power play chances.

That's the effort we all expected from this Flyers team that is loaded with scoring threats on every line. While it's not realistic to expect them to score 6 goals a night, it would be nice if they played with this kind of intensity and not skate around aimlessly like they did against Columbus on Monday night. With a game against Pittsburgh up next, now is the perfect time for this team to find their identity and string together a nice, long winning streak.
(AP PHOTO)