The Philadelphia Flyers shocked the world more than a few times during the playoffs last year, and they're preparing to try for the same success this year.
Granted, you could argue that the Flyers should have never been in a position to shock the world with the offensive superstars and loaded defense they had (and you'd be right), but they did.
So, is it a fall-off this year, or do they just get better?
The defense was tightened up with the acquisition of Sean O'Donnell, one of the best penalty-killing defensemen in the game, but he, Chris Pronger, and Kimmo Timonen are all 35 or better.
Yes, they lost Simon Gagne, but the Flyers have four guys (James van Riemsdyk, Claude Giroux, Ville Leino, and Nicholay Zherdev—according to the Flyers' website the spelling is different than everywhere else) who can easily replace those numbers (17 goals, 23 assists). You can also expect big improvements from the first three guys on that list with Zherdev being a wild card, so offensively they should be fine.
So, your roughly $2.4 million question is: Can Brian Boucher and Michael Leighton (once healthy) do it again?
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Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Bryan Thiel
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October 4th, 2010 by Bryan Thiel Leave a reply »
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