Thursday, March 7, 2013

Flyers Pens Preview 3/7


Battle for Keystone State Supremacy
            There is not much debate around the NHL right now that the best current rivalry is the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins. The real question is what will cause another brawl? Or will the total penalty minutes be over or under 150?
            Tonight will be the third of four meetings between these two clubs this year, with the teams both winning on the road in the prior two contests.  Pittsburgh comes into this game red hot winning seven of their last 10 games.
            For the Flyers, they are the first team to reach the halfway point this season, and the results thus far are not nearly what they hoped. That being said, the Flyers sit just one point out of a playoff spot, and will have the luxury of not having a packed a schedule to close out the season.
            The Flyers need to show some desperation tonight, much like they did the last time they played Pittsburgh. Guys like Danny Briere and Luke Schenn are going to have to play a lot better for things to turn around.
            L. Schenn had two sloppy changes in Tuesday night’s game against the Rangers that both led too soft goals. For Briere, he has just simply not been himself this year, scoring just five goals with a -5 rating. What is also surprising is given how well Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds have played recently, all three still have a negative plus/minus rating.
            You can bet that Pittsburgh is going to try to defend heavily against Simmonds and Voracek, after the two combined for five of the Flyers six goals in a 6-5 win over Pittsburgh a little more than two weeks ago. This should leave the door open for guys like Scott Hartnell and Brayden Schenn too get their offensive games going.
            Defensively, if Nicklas Grossman cannot go (he is questionable after suffering a lower body injury during the first period of Tuesday night’s loss in New York) then the Flyers are going to have a real hard time containing Pittsburgh’s offensive attack. Grossman leads the NHL in blocked shots, he had 61 going into the game against the Rangers. He has also been arguably the Flyers best penalty killer, and it is no secret that the Flyers spend a lot of time in the sin bin.
            For Pittsburgh, head coach Dan Bylsma has decided to give rookie Beau Bennett a chance to play right wing on a line that features two of the league’s most feared goal scorers, center Evgeni Malkin and left wing James Neal. Bennett, who was the 20th pick in the 2010 NHL draft, has scored three points in his last four games.
Key’s to the Game for the Flyers
·         Stay out of the box
The Flyers are the most penalized team in the NHL, and if Grossman cannot play the Flyers penalty kill will be a little weaker. The Penguins power play is operating at a deadly 25.6%, which is good enough for third in the league. Discipline will be essential, especially with how chippy things can get when these two clubs meet.
·         Shoot the puck
Seems simple, right? The Flyers have had a tendency this year to try to make that extra pass, or wait for a lane to open up and it never does. While this can work sometimes, I think the Flyers just need to get shots on goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. We all remember what happened in the playoffs last year, and you know the crowd will be all over him again tonight.
·         Score first
Now hold on before you all tell me how the Flyers always come back against the Penguins and scoring first does not matter, it does. Not only because teams winning percentages go way up when they score the first goal, but because dating back to January of 2009, the road team is an amazing 17-5-1 in this series. Keep the fans at Wells Fargo into the game by scoring first and playing with the lead, and the chances of the home team winning become so much higher.
Tidbits
·         Under Dan Bylsma, the Penguins are 8-2-1 in Philadelphia, and have not had a losing record playing in Philadelphia since the 2007-08 season when they were 0-4.

·         In the Flyers last 22 meetings with the Penguins, there has been at least one power play goal scored in each game.

·         Fleury has a 52-18-10 career record in the month of March. 

Injury Report
Out for the Flyers is forwards Matt Read(ribs), Tye McGinn(orbital) and Jody Shelley(hip) and defensemen Andrej Meszaros(shoulder). Defensemen Nicklas Grossman is questionable with a lower body injury. Harry Zolnierczyk is serving game two of a four game suspension.
For the Penguins, defensemen Paul Martin is questionable with a lower body injury.

Let’s hope the Flyers play with some “JAM” tonight.
Enjoy the game, and GO FLYERS!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

show from 10-14-12

Enjoy our show from 10/14/12

Shows online

Shows Online
I know not to much has been going on with the blog. School and such will do that, but we'll try to get back to posting stories again.
As of now, I'm uploading our past shows to an audio site, so if you ever want to catch a show, it will be up online.

http://yourlisten.com/user/public/sportsman81
^If you ever want to check out our shows, this is where they'll be.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Super Bowl Preview

I am ending my blog drought, and what better way than to give you my Super Bowl prediction. This has been the year of the read option, however I'm not so sure on how long it will last.

Remember the wildcat? That died quickly, and the read option has many similar concepts. A lot of football experts also said that the west coast offense was going to fade out when Walsh introduced it with the 49ers. Ironically, the 49ers will try to use this new style of offense to win the Super Bowl tomorrow, and despite the west coast offense surviving, I think in a year or two the read option will be gone.

There is no doubt Ray Lewis is on a mission, even turning to deer antler spray to help on this Super Bowl run. Whatever it takes I guess.

Before I give you my score prediction, just let this sink in: since 2007, Joe Flacco has 8 playoff wins, Mark Sanchez has 4, Tom Brady has 3, and Peyton Manning has 2. Yeah.

I have gone back and fourth for the last two weeks on this game, and both Harbaugh's are great coaches. Baltimore had the tougher road to the Super Bowl, so some say they may not be as fresh as the Niners, but with two weeks off I think that plays itself out.

This has the potential to be a great Super Bowl.

Baltimore 29 San Francisco 26.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

So far in the month of January.........
Well, the winter sports are in full swing, Basketball is getting near the all star break. Hockey is back in time for a 48 game schedule. We've seen the start of a dynasty in Alabama and the continuation of SEC dominance in college football, also want to state this was the last year for bowl game, starting next year there will be a 4 team play-off. And to top it off, in a couple months, baseball will start up with spring training. 

Today has been a good day, I get the NHL back, even if I had to wait till early January. It will be interesting to see how the teams can adapt to playing so many games in such a tight window of time. I get to see how my sabres can play against quality teams right out of the gate when they play the flyers in their first game of the year. With no training games, this will be the first time they (the players) will have played with their respective teams either for the first time, or last year. Many have gone over sea's to play, so rust won't be an issue.

On the 7th of January, we saw the last BCS bowl game for the time being. I though Notre Dame had a chance, I was wrong big time. Notre Dame looked like little kids playing grown men on steroids  It didn't look good, especially when Alabama ran the ball, it was like the defensive line for Notre Dame didn't want to touch their ( Alabama's) Backs.

In the NFL, the battle to get to the superbowl continues with the greenbay packers and the Broncos of Denver ending their season tonight. On Sunday, the New England Patriots play the Houston Texans, and the Seattle Seahawks go to Atlanta to play the Falcons. Both look to be great games to watch. I'll be paying more attention to the New England game because I'm  a patriots fan, but I'll definatly watch the Falcons game as well. For anyone who isn't sure of the times. Falcons-Seahawks are at 1pm EST and the Patriots-Texans is at 4:30pm EST.
 








ITS OFFICIAL
The schedules have been released, there will be a 48 game schedule this year for the NHL.
If you're wondering when you're favorite team begins playing, here is a link for all the teams.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=85750&navid=DL|NHL|home