Accomplishments Big and Small

"Thats a load off my mind, I thought I was going to have to start giving the money back."

If you watched Monday night’s game versus the Toronto Maple Leafs, you saw something of a legend scoring his first goal for the Philadelphia Flyers: Scott Hartnell. Just kidding everyone… relax. The legend that we were talking about was the everlasting hockey dynamo known only as Jaromir Jagr. Jagr, obviously the oldest member of the team, came into the league with a lot of questions surrounding him. “Can he still cut it?” “Will he be worth the money Philadelphia paid him?”… so forth and so on. Naturally, as game 8 approached on Monday, a lot of the doubters were gloating because they thought they had gotten it right (Obviously these people are idiots because they don’t watch the game they just see 0 in the goals column and think he hasn’t done anything). Even before Jagr put these two goals in, he was having a pretty good season. He has shown he still has a lot of juice left in the legs. Along with that, he and Giroux are really meshing on their line and Jagr had already produced 4 assists in 7 games, which isn’t earth shattering, but still fairly productive. Along with the stats and chemistry he is forming with Giroux, he is bringing about a character and work ethic that needs to become contagious for a young Flyers’ team. When a group of young guys have success, they can sometimes let that get to their head, but bringing in a vet like Jaromir will help keep the young bucks in line over the season. His late night skating regiment with weights has already spread to the likes of Jody Shelley and James van Riemsdyk. If JVR learns a couple lessons of commitment from a legend like Jagr, we will have another explosive diaper dandy (Thanks Dickie V) to put alongside Claude Giroux and stack up a lot of goals and a lot of winning for years to come.

Also, Bobs did a number on Monday night. He looked extremely crisp in his 4-2 win against the Leafs in which he faced a total of 26 shots. He came up big on several occasions. Although he is not the starting goalie right now, it is critical that we have a solid back up so that we can give Bryz a ton of rest for our postseason run. A lot of times the backup is an underappreciated beast, but if we can keep Bryz fresh we improve our chances of winning immensely. On top of this, if something were to unexpectedly happen to Ilya, it’s important that Bobs has had enough reps where he is ready to step in right away. Good showing by Bobs on Monday night and is really a good thing to see for Laviolette and the rest of the organization.

Based on haircut and the obvious age of the gentleman in this picture, this individual is definitely Jagr, not Hartnell.

And yes… Scott Hartnell did get the monkey off his back as well against the Leafs. He scored his first two goals of the season on Monday night. That’s all that can be said about that. We will let you know immediately if he unexpectedly cuts his hair.

Congratulations are also due to 5’10” Danny Briere. The Center recorded his 600^th NHL point on Monday night with an assist in the game. That says a lot for a guy who many doubted because of his size, but coming from two undersized twins, we are proud of a fellow short athlete. Way to go Danny!