Broad and Pattison is moving. Head on over to SB Nation, where we’re now known as Broad Street Hockey. You can read my whole spiel about why the move was made over at the new site.

I know there are a ton of readers here who haven’t commented often or a lot. The move to SBN is for you guys. The new site is yours as much as it is mine, and you can certainly read more about that over there too.

I’m still going to be bringing the same type of commentary and analysis at Broad Street Hockey as I did here at Broad and Pattison. The new site just gives a bigger platform for that.

It’s an exciting time and I hope you’ll join me in continuing to create the biggest Flyers blog on the ‘net.

Travis

http://www.broadstreethockey.com

We had the news about two weeks ago that Luca Sbisa had been sent back down to Lethbridge, but apparently the source out in Switzerland was wrong.

This time, though, it’s straight from the Flyers.

The Philadelphia Flyers announced that they have reassigned defenseman Luca Sbisa to the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the Western Hockey League, according to club General Manager Paul Holmgren.

“We feel that it is in the best interest of Luca and the Flyers organization that he gets back to playing on a regular basis,” said Holmgren in making the announcement. “Luca will join Lethbridge for its game in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday.”

Everything Homer is saying there is correct — Luca does need to play — but couldn’t this have been done two or three weeks ago?  According to the CBA, if you’re on the active roster for 40 or more games, it counts as one season against your contract. If you’re a healthy scratch, you’re still on the roster — you’re just not playing. Sbisa has only played 39 games, but as far as I understand it, that’s not the number that matters. He’s been on the roster for every game to this point, and is a year closer to free agency now because of it.

EDIT (h/t to Mirtle): A little clarification… after10 games you lose a year off of your contract, but after 40 games you become a year closer free agency. Sbisa is now both.

Holmgren made a mistake here.

Two former teammates square off, Aaron Asham v Cam Janssen. Asham keeps it classy at the end with a respectful tap on the helmet. I’d call it a draw.

Right after David Backes made it 3-0, the Captain tried to give his team some jump by taking on Dan Hinote. A couple early shots by Richie added to the take down probably give him the edge in this one.

The Flyers were outworked, outhit, and outscored 4-0 by the Blues tonight in St. Louis.

Possible Excuses

• long road trip (albeit only three games, it was kinda long though)
• second game of a back to back
• team is flu ridden, Randy Jones/Braydon Coburn missed the game
• “the Blues have the same goal horn… we thought we were up 4-0!”

I don’t care. You just lost 4-0 to the worst team in the Western Conference. That cannot happen. Period.

B&P’s Take: The Blues just beat the Flyers in every aspect of the game tonight. Chris Mason was astonishing, stop all 36 of the Flyers shots. Antero Niittymaki wasn’t bad either, but the rest of the team didn’t hustle in front of him.

When you go 0-for-11 on the power play, you don’t win. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is. The special teams, or lack thereof, lost the Flyers the game tonight.

The Blues are a young team with a lot of talent, and if they were fully healthy, they’d be threatening to make the playoffs. They’re a physical team, and boy did they take it to the Flyers tonight.

The flu keeping Jones and Coburn out meant Luca Sbisa and Lasse Kukkonen both got a chance to play. The pairing of Sbisa and Matt Carle was a minus-2.

The officials were busy tonight, and it didn’t help that one of the linesmen went down with an illness before the game. It was interesting watching two refs and a linesman try to officiate the game, though… especially one that featured 23 minor penalties.

This game sucked. I’m done talking about it. Forget it, move on. Three full days to focus on Boston.

Questions With Answers

1. Do the Flyers focus on St. Louis or do they play like they’re looking ahead to Boston? It certainly didn’t look like it. They just didn’t play well tonight at all. As soon as the Blues scored that first goal, which came immediately after they killed a two-minute-long Flyer 5-0n-3, you had a feeling it was going to be a rough night.

2. The Flyers lead the league with 52 fights, but St. Louis isn’t far behind with 43 (fourth in the NHL). Cam Janssen is the Blues leading tough guy. Former teammate of Aaron Asham. Sounds like a fight to me? It certainly was a fight, and it was a good one. I’d call it a draw but it was a little unfortnate the stripes jumped in so early. I’ll throw up the video when it pops up on the YouTubes.

3. Mike Richards broke out of a little slump last night with three big points. What’s he do for an encore? Well, he got in a second period fight with Dan Hinote to try to boost his team. It didn’t work, but at least he tried.

Comprehensive playoff update, as well as a roundup of the rest of the action in the NHL tonight after the jump…

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