SHalaked

Apparently fed up with having to chase a series, the Philadelphia Flyers decided to grab the Eastern Conference Finals by the throat in game one.

In the battles of the Cinderellas, the Flyers opened with a dominating 6-0 victory. They had six different players score goals, and 5 players had a goal and an assist. Michael Leighton turned aside 28 shots and presumptive Conn Smythe favorite Jaroslav Halak was chased after a 3 goal explosion in the second period.

Both of these guys scored in the game one romp

The first period saw an early goal scored by the Flyers Braydon Cobrun, who steamed in from the point to bang a rebound past Halak. The play was created by Ville Leino, who basically deked the Montreal defense out of it’s collective jock before sending the puck to the net.

The Canadiens showed some spunk after the goal, however. They had several good chances and actually outshot the Flyers for the period. But Leighton was very sharp-twice he casually batted aside redirections with his blocker as if they were flies looking to alight into his banana split. Leighton downplayed his excellent work

“They had a couple good chances in the first period,” Leighton said. “I was seeing a lot of the pucks. They don’t have a big presence like Boston did in front of the net, so I was looking over some of their guys and getting to see the pucks, and we were blocking shots.

“I just had to make the saves I should make in the first, and we kind of took over from there.”

Danny Briere disagreed “I didn’t think we were very happy with our first period,” Briere said. “Michael Leighton played really well. We were able to come back from the first period with the lead mostly because of him.”

Leighton has been dominant for the Flyers. Tossing out the first period of game seven vs Boston, he's stopped 83 of 84 shots

“There was a letdown,” said coach Peter Laviolette, ever the perfectionist. “The scoreboard didn’t show it, but the first period was not good …. We’re certainly glad to get the win, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.” The coach was hardly the only one critical of the first period effort.

“I don’t think we played very well in the first period and the message was there from the coach when we came back in the room,”  Giroux said. “In the second period, I think we just kept it simple and started working the way we did against Boston. Any time we keep it simple and work hard, things happen for us.”

“I don’t think they were even close to being at their best,” Philadelphia’s Blair Betts said. “That being said, I don’t think we were at our best, either. We were pretty opportunistic with our chances.” So it’s telling that the Flyers realize that the first game is not indicative of what this series is likely to become. Halak has followed being pulled with strong performances twice, so to expect another rout could be an easy path to losing home ice in game two on Tuesday.

Mike Richards agreed with Betts’ statement on the Flyers being opportunistic. “I thought we had confidence,”  Richards said. “We just came out slow. As the game went on, I thought we got better. We were very opportunistic.”

No matter what happens, one thing is sure. The Flyers won’t have to repeat history to make it to the finals.