Talk Is Cheap

As the NHL’s Eastern Conference Final shifted to Montreal, the team with the 2-0 series lead vowed to play better. The Philadelphia Flyers echoed sentiments of improvement, despite having outscored the Canadiens 9-0 at the Wachovia Center. Well, as Chris Pronger so delicately put it early this postseason, “talk is cheap.”

For the fourth straight game, the Flyers came into the opening period flatter than a 10-year-old girl. Montreal worked the corners like a stiletto wearing nightwalker, and their game packed more punch than Ike Turner. For a team yet to light the lamp, the Canadiens were boiling with confidence.

Early in the frame, the home team created their own bounces, playing the old hockey cliché like it was their own anthem. Taking a page out of the Flyers playbook, the Canadians lead with a two-man forecheck, evoking havoc in the Philadelphia defensive zone. Pressure lead to forced turnovers, and at 7:05, Montreal’s first goal of the ECF. Andreas Nodl, who had been playing Ian Laperierre’s role admirably, made his first noticeable mistake as he coughed up the puck deep in the Flyers zone. The boards, showing more bounce than Dolly Parton on a trampoline, spit out a wide shot and Michael Cammalleri banged it past the unaware Flyer netminder. The tally sent the Montreal faithful into a ravenous frenzy, and the team never looked back.

Montreal strikes first

The Flyers were outplayed, outhustled, and out everything’d, in tonight’s Game Three. However, at the end of the day, it’s only one game. That is the sterling beauty of a 7-game series. You can take a Rihanna-esque beating, and still make platinum records. The better team will be the victor, more times than not, when all is said and done. The players of the National Football League – America’s Sport – cannot say the same thing.

Three-games into to the Eastern Conference Semi’s, the Flyers trailed 0-3.

However, if Philadelphia can’t match Montreal’s intensity the rest of the way, all of the historic memories of yonder series will be shoved aside temporarily (no Flyer fan will ever forget that comeback). Like they were saying before Game Three, they need to be better. Plain as the bagel I tossed at the TV, they need to be better. The players will agree, but Saturday will reveal if their words will manifest themselves on the ice.