Flyers Win, Lead Change in Pool Again

The Flyers were definitely good enough in Montreal on Saturday afternoon, as they came through the 60 minutes with three good road periods to upset the Canadiens chances of making it a closer series.  I think the panelists between CBC and TSN had it right, the Flyers had to withstand the speed of the Canadiens early on, but they worked hard to then keep it all to the outside and away from Michael Leighton, making his job easier.  The defense was absolutely excellent for the Flyers, blocking shots, creating turnovers and making it really hard on the Canadiens own defense.  A 3-0 win was a perfect statement game for the Flyers, who now head home to the Wachovia Center on Monday to try and close out this series.

Doing the business for the Flyers offensively was Claude Giroux, who had a pair of goals, including the winner, giving the Flyers the offensive support their defense needed to pull this game through.  Giroux led all pool players in points with 3 and he helped change the face of the pool standings again today.

Well, if you remember from the preview earlier this morning, Giroux was tabbed as being the guy that would be key for Scott G. to climb back into the lead and there he was, front and centre.  Scott had the 3 points from Giroux (as did Myles, Stuart and Derek) and a single point from Kimmo Timonen to move past Neil B. in the standings and re-take a 2-point lead.  Myles didn't really gain anything on Scott, but made a stride or two towards Neil in the standings, while Stuart and Derek each passed by Russ in the standings and the preview for the Sharks and Blackhawks game will look a little different tomorrow.

Game Five of this series does go on Monday night and there is a good chance that we could be done the Conference Finals before the end of the long weekend.  How crazy would that be?  Don't count those chickens yet though, the Canadiens have come back from a 3-1 series deficit once already, although that could be asking too much to do it twice.