Philadelphia -- The Philadelphia Flyers entered their game with the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night as the team with a likely expectation of victory.

Understandable because they had suffered an embarrassing 5-2 loss to the still undefeated Washington Capitals on Thursday at home, so it stood to reason that they would motivated to have a better performance.

They also had quite a few built in advantages.
They came in having one of the league’s best power plays versus one of the worst penalty killing units. The Blues had played a game the night before against the Carolina Hurricanes and didn’t arrive in Philadelphia until 3 a.m. They went with the same goaltender (Brian Elliott) on back to back nights because their supposed top starter has been so bad that they didn’t even bother to dress him.

After the first period, whatever inferred expectations or advantages was pretty nonexistent.

The Blues came out with plenty of spring in their skates, beating the Flyers seemingly to every puck, causing turnovers at the worst possible times, and spotted themselves a 2-0 lead.

Their first marker came at 1:48 after Jason Arnott won a draw against Giroux and defenseman Kent Huskins fired a low trajectory wrist shot that eluded Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov.

At the 10:04 mark, forward T.J. Oshie got into the zone after a turnover by Flyers defenseman Andrej Meszaros and finished with a high wrist shot off a great feed from defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo.

“It was a great start,” Blues forward Matt D’Agostini. “We took it to them early and got a couple quick ones. I think we kind of set them back on their heels a bit.”

The Flyers entered the game with several forward line adjustments. Most notably, the top line of Claude Giroux, James van Riemsdyk, and Jaromir Jagr was broken up and it had a domino effect to the rest of the units.
There was a definite feeling of on ice dishevelment, though the players and Laviolette denied it.

The Flyers came out in the second period and applied pressure. The Blues seemed to fall back into the defensive zone and were content to counterpunch. Finally defenseman Chris Pronger found a streaking Danny Briere who fired a wrist shot just under the bar to cut the lead to 2-1.

Play remained tight checking throughout the 2nd period until Philadelphia got a major opportunity with a slashing penalty at 13:03 to give themselves the man advantage, but as was the pattern for the evening the Blues were able to keep the puck on the periphery and kill off the penalty.

After time expired, the Blues went on the attack as Grachev came out of the box and found a streaking Alex Steen who fired a shot at point blank range with Flyers’ players draped all over him. The puck rebounded out to defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo who deposited the puck behind a down and out Bryzgalov.

It was moments like that in which the Blues were able to get ahead just enough to force Philadelphia to chase the game.

In the early part of the third period, Laviolette engaged in his first in game line change, putting Brayden Schenn between Briere and van Riemsdyk
In the third period, the Flyers began to pressure the puck and attack the net more, but Elliott, who had shut them out twice in five games played against them, seemed equal to the task. It required a goal mouth scramble and a shot by defenseman Matt Carle just getting over the line, cutting the lead to 3-2 at 13:14.

But a terrible lack of communication between goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov and defenseman Brayden Coburn led to Blues’ forward Matt D’Agostini gaining a gift goal when he picked up a puck that neither Flyer decided to clear. He cut hard across the crease and put a backhander past a stunned Bryzgalov.

“We have to establish (communication) because it needs to be very simple. We need to have three words and everybody has to know these words: play it, leave it, or over. Not everyone comes up with their own words like “I’ll pick it up.”

Bryzgalov was pretty demonstrative that the error was not his.

“Somebody yells “I’ll get it” and doesn’t get it.”

When asked if it was Coburn, he said, “Yeah I guess.”

It was a microcosm of a game which plainly showed that expectations don’t mean a thing once the puck is dropped.

photo by del Tufo.