Tag Archive: Philadelphia Flyers


Flyers extend D Coburn, add D Meszaros from Tampa

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July 6, 2010

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—The Philadelphia Flyers have signed defenseman Braydon Coburn to a contract extension and acquired defenseman Andrej Meszaros from Tampa Bay.

Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren announced the trade and Coburn’s two-year contract extension Thursday.

Coburn tallied five goals and 14 assists last year for the Flyers, while Meszaros had six goals and 11 assists with the Lightning.

The Flyers gave up a second-round pick in the 2012 draft for Meszaros, who has 33 points in two NHL seasons. Holmgren says Meszaros is durable and can play in all situations.

Philadelphia also announced the signings of veteran defenseman Sean O’Donnell, who appeared in 78 games with the Los Angeles Kings last season, to a one-year contract, and veteran forward Jody Shelley, who split the last season between the San Jose Sharks and the New York Rangers, to a three-year deal.

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Recent Wild drafts haven’t yielded much production

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June 30, 2010

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)—The Minnesota Wild have been stuck in the NHL’s mediocre middle, with just two playoff appearances in five post-lockout seasons and only one trip past the first round in the franchise’s 10-year history.

What’s worse for the Wild and their long-term viability is that they’ve been too competitive to bottom out. Since getting Marian Gaborik with the third pick in their inaugural draft in 2000, the Wild have been in the top five only once. Benoit Pouliot, the No. 4 selection in 2005, was traded to Montreal last November.

Chicago and Pittsburgh were able to quickly rebuild tattered teams into Stanley Cup champions with top-three picks like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane and Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal, but the Wild never had a chance at those gems.

That young-talent drought has been exacerbated, too, by a lack of production from drafts between 2004 and 2007. Pouliot did bring in Guillaume Latendresse, who led the team with 25 goals in 55 games after his arrival in a trade, and another deal last season landed the third overall pick in 2004, defenseman Cam Barker, from the Blackhawks.

But that’s essentially it. Aside from Cal Clutterbuck, a third-rounder in 2006 who has been a hard-hitting, productive right wing, the Wild haven’t got much from the middle of the draft, either. And trades left them lacking a full slate of picks the last three years.

So when the Wild come up on the clock with the ninth pick in the first round Friday night, general manager Chuck Fletcher and assistant general manager Brent Flahr will need to make a shrewd selection, even if the player probably won’t be playing for Minnesota for at least another year or two.

“I don’t think it’s fair for me to talk about what happened before I was here,” Fletcher said last week. “I just know that every year if you’re not adding two or three young players into your system, you’re falling behind.”

The average, Fletcher said, is 1.8 players per draft who play 100 or more NHL games over their career.

“We always are working on adding talent for the future, because if you don’t in this system you’re in trouble,” he said. “You can’t buy your way out of the basement. You have to have young players come in every year.”

The Wild are also armed for Saturday with two second-rounders plus selections in the third, fourth, sixth and seventh rounds. In all, they have four of the first 69 picks and five of the first 99 selections.

Last year, they had only two of the first 77 and three of the first 103.

This is the first year Flahr will run the draft after former assistant general manager Tom Thompson was fired in April. The Wild look at the Blackhawks and the Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers as teams to emulate.

“Those clubs were littered with good young players throughout their lineup,” Fletcher said. “And the ultimate key to our long-term success is adding more youth into our organization. That doesn’t mean we won’t trade draft picks. That doesn’t mean we won’t trade young players. But over time we have to make sure we’re adding a lot more than we’re subtracting.”

The draft isn’t the only avenue for this. European free agents, like the Wild hit the mark on with goalie Niklas Backstrom out of Finland in 2006, are one way.

American college free agents are another, which Fletcher called “like free draft picks,” after proudly pointing to the Wild’s ability to sign forwards Casey Wellman and Jarod Palmer and defenseman Nate Prosser earlier this year.

Wellman had a goal and three assists in 12 games and is on track for a roster spot next season.

But the draft is the place to start this weekend. Might the Wild trade their No. 9 pick to acquire more ammunition?

“If we trade No. 9 for a player, ideally it’d be a younger player with some time left on his contract who can be part of our group here in Minnesota for several seasons,” Fletcher said.

The Wild will likely have a couple of Minnesotans available to them at No. 9, in defenseman Derek Forbort of Duluth, a North Dakota recruit, and center Nick Bjugstad of Blaine, who is bound for the Gophers. Other prospects projected to be picked early include Finnish center Mikael Granlund, Swiss left wing Nino Niederreiter and Canadian center Ryan Johansen.

“Whether they be young players in the NHL, prospects, or draft picks, we just want young assets,” Fletcher said.

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Hurricanes acquire 3 players in draft-day trades

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June 30, 2010

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)—The Carolina Hurricanes picked up two former first-round draft picks in separate trades Saturday during the second day of the NHL draft.

Carolina acquired defenseman Bobby Sanguinetti from the New York Rangers for two picks after obtaining center Riley Nash from Edmonton for another selection.

The Hurricanes also acquired minor league center Jonathan Matsumoto from the Philadelphia Flyers for a seventh-round pick.

Sanguinetti, the Rangers’ first-round pick in 2006, had four penalty minutes in five games with New York. The 22-year-old defenseman also had nine goals and 29 assists in 61 games with Hartford of the AHL.

Edmonton took Nash in the first round in 2007 and he played the last three seasons at Cornell.

The Hurricanes sent the 46th selection to the Oilers, who drafted Slovakian defenseman Martin Marincin. The Rangers received the 157th overall pick this year and the 2011 second-round selection the Hurricanes acquired from Washington in the trade for Joe Corvo.

Matsumoto, 23, led Philadelphia of the AHL with 30 goals and 62 points in 80 games. The Flyers received the 206th pick, which Carolina had acquired from the Capitals in the trade for Scott Walker.

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Blackhawks to raise Cup banner against Red Wings

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June 26, 2010

NEW YORK (AP)—The Pittsburgh Penguins will open a new arena, and the Chicago Blackhawks will unfurl a long-awaited championship banner in the first week of the 2010-11 NHL season.

The league said Tuesday the Blackhawks will mark their first Stanley Cup title since 1961 on Oct. 9 when they host Detroit, a fellow Original Six member.

Pittsburgh, the 2009 Cup winner, will play its first game in the CONSOL Energy Center two nights earlier on NHL opening night against defending Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia. The Penguins had played at Mellon Arena since joining the NHL in 1967.

On New Year’s Day, the Penguins host the Winter Classic against Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals at Heinz Field—home of the NFL’s Steelers.

For the fourth consecutive season, the NHL also will begin with games in Europe—this time with six teams. The Carolina Hurricanes will play two games against the Minnesota Wild in Helsinki, Finland; the Columbus Blue Jackets and San Jose Sharks will have a two-game set at Stockholm, Sweden; and the Boston Bruins and Phoenix Coyotes will play a pair in Prague, Czech Republic.

Those six games will be spread over the first four days of the season.

Once those clubs return to North America they will all play on Oct. 30 when 28 of the NHL’s 30 teams will be in action on the busiest day of the season. Only Vancouver and Edmonton will be off.

The Blackhawks will host the Philadelphia Flyers on Jan. 23 in the lone rematch of this year’s Stanley Cup finals. Just one week later, the NHL All-Star game will return after a one-year break because of the Vancouver Olympics. The Carolina Hurricanes will host the 58th edition of the midseason exhibition for the first time.

The regular season will end on April 10, and the Stanley Cup playoffs will begin three days later.

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Kings extend deals of GM Lombardi, coach Murray

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June 26, 2010

LOS ANGELES (AP)—The Los Angeles Kings signed general manager Dean Lombardi and coach Terry Murray to two-year contract extensions through the 2012-13 season on Wednesday, solidifying their leadership after the club’s first playoff appearance in eight years.

The Kings also gave two-year extensions to assistant general manager Ron Hextall and hockey operations vice president Jeff Solomon, senior director of communications Jeff Moeller said.

Los Angeles also hired John Stevens as an assistant coach, signing the former Philadelphia Flyers head coach to a three-year contract to replace Mark Hardy.

Lombardi, Murray, Hextall and Solomon each had one year remaining on their contracts, but the Kings’ owners clearly are pleased with the franchise’s direction. Los Angeles made the playoffs this spring for the first time since 2002, tying the franchise record with 46 victories while finishing sixth in the Western Conference. The Kings lost a six-game series to the Vancouver Canucks.

Lombardi, the San Jose Sharks’ GM for seven seasons, took over a struggling franchise in April 2006 and steadily built it into a contender with enviable top-line talent and a solid farm system. He drafted defenseman Drew Doughty, already a Norris Trophy finalist at 20, and acquired veteran Ryan Smyth, who played a major role in the Kings’ playoff return last season.

He also hired Murray, who will turn 60 next month, to develop his young roster in 2008. The former head coach in Washington, Philadelphia and Florida is 80-64-20 in two seasons with the Kings, leading them to 101 points last season— third-most in franchise history.

Stevens spent parts of the past four seasons running the Flyers, going 120-109-34 and taking Philadelphia from the NHL’s worst record in 2006-07 to the Eastern Conference finals in 2007-08. He was fired last Dec. 4 after a slow start and replaced by Peter Laviolette, who led Philadelphia to the Stanley Cup finals.

Stevens played for the AHL’s Philadelphia Phantoms during the 1996-97 season while Murray was the Flyers’ head coach.

With their leadership structure secure, the Kings can focus on hosting the NHL draft for the first time this weekend. Los Angeles also could be a player in the free-agent market, with fans clamoring for the club to take a run at impending free agents Ilya Kovalchuk or Patrick Marleau.

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Blackhawks title puts spotlight on Cup-less Leafs

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June 24, 2010

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—With the Chicago Blackhawks’ 49-year Stanley Cup drought a part of history, the Toronto Maple Leafs are now on the clock.

Since last winning the NHL championship in 1967, the Maple Leafs have seen each of their Original Six brethren hoist the Cup as well as 11 expansion teams. Toronto now has the biggest gap between titles among teams that were around the last time the Maple Leafs won it.

Toronto, which hasn’t even qualified for the playoffs the past five seasons, will have a tough enough time just getting out of the Eastern Conference where powerhouses Washington and Pittsburgh reside. The Capitals and Penguins are built on the strength of young superstars and appear set to dominate for years.
Pittsburgh has already won the Stanley Cup and had another runner-up finish since Sidney Crosby came aboard, while the Capitals’ stunning first-round knockout by Montreal will surely rile up already excitable forward Alex Ovechkin once he gets back on the ice.

The biggest surprise of this postseason isn’t that the young Blackhawks rose up to win the Cup for the first time since 1961, it’s that neither the Penguins nor Capitals reached the Eastern Conference finals. There is so much balance and parity in that the seventh-seeded Philadelphia Flyers got on a run and nearly skated off with the Cup.

It wasn’t until the second-seeded Blackhawks picked them off with a 4-3 overtime road win in Game 6 that the surprising surge ended.

That is where the story of this hockey season ceased and the look toward the next campaign began. Chances are the Blackhawks will be making stabs at multiple championships instead of counting the years between few and far between titles.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Chicago forward Patrick Kane said. “You envision this and hope for the best when you first come in, but everything we’ve been through, it’s been obviously an unbelievable year. Very exciting. It’s fun to be a part of it right now.”

Kane, along with young captain Jonathan Toews, are the two biggest reasons the Blackhawks have been able to rise from the bottom portion of the NHL standings in 2007 to the top of the heap in just three years. Toews, an Olympic and Stanley Cup champion at age 22, was chosen with the No. 3 pick in the 2006 draft. Kane was taken No. 1 overall one year later.

The influx of veteran forwards such as now three-time Cup winner John Madden, who grew up in the title-conscious world of the New Jersey Devils, and Marian Hossa proved to be enough to get Chicago over the hump after it made a trip to the West finals last year.

The Blackhawks rolled through Nashville and Vancouver before taking their biggest step by sweeping top-seeded San Jose upon their return to hockey’s final four.

Madden beamed on the ice at the Wachovia Center on Wednesday night as he was surrounded by his family in the madness of the spontaneous celebration created by Kane’s overtime goal.

Usually intense and stern, Madden smiled and spoke glowingly about his young teammates that had never experienced this thrill before.

What amazed him the most was how quickly he was embraced upon arriving in Chicago and how interested the rest of the club was in hearing his stories of past glory.

“They are a bunch of young guys and they were all ears,” Madden said.

Now they have moments to share together, starting with Friday’s victory parade in the Windy City.

“It is a special time of the year, and a special couple of days,” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Having guys been there and done that helped stabilize the guys’ mindset.”

And what can be made of the Flyers?

They rode the wave of being a preseason Cup contender to a club that lost its way and fell to the bottom of the East. Their drop cost coach John Stevens his job but led to the hiring of Peter Laviolette, a 2006 champion with the Carolina Hurricanes, who arguably did his best job behind the bench with this club.

Through precision tactics, a cool demeanor and with a keen flair to motivate, Laviolette spurred the Flyers to turn their season around. They did, and clinched a playoff spot on the final day with a shootout victory over the New York Rangers in an elimination game.

The defining moment for Philadelphia will be Laviolette’s timeout in Game 7 against Boston in the second round when the Flyers trailed 3-0 in the first period after winning three straight games to stay alive. He calmed the Flyers and inspired them to rally for a 4-3 victory that made them the third NHL team to finish off the most improbable of comebacks.

Philadelphia finished two wins short of ending its own title drought that began after the second of two straight Stanley Cup championships in 1975, and now questions abound.

Are the Flyers the team that made it to the Stanley Cup finals, or are they really the flawed bunch that finished seventh in the East? Was their run a product of a favorable draw that allowed them to avoid Washington and Pittsburgh, and is goalie Michael Leighton really good enough to make them a legit challenger to raise the Cup a year from now?

“It was a good learning experience for us,” captain Mike Richards said after admitting his pain and disappointment. “I mean, you have to take out of it what it takes to win. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough.

“We went through a lot this year as a group. I can’t analyze the season right now, but when you go through stuff like that, I think it brings the group closer together.”

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Game 6 earns highest rating for NHL game since ’74

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June 24, 2010

NEW YORK (AP)—NHL television ratings have bounced back from the post-lockout doldrums—and way beyond.

The clincher of the Stanley Cup finals was the most-watched and highest-rated NHL game in 36 years. The Chicago Blackhawks’ 4-3 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6, which earned them their first championship since 1961, drew a 4.7 rating and 8 share Wednesday night on NBC.

That’s the best since a 7.6/27 for Game 6 of the Boston-Philadelphia series in 1974. It was 38 percent higher than the 3.4/6 for last year’s Pittsburgh-Detroit Game 6 and 9 percent higher than the 4.3/8 for Game 7 in 2009.

The network said Thursday that the game was watched by 8.28 million viewers.

The series’ average rating was a 3.4/6, the best on network TV since Carolina-Detroit in 2002 and up 10 percent from last year.

“This has been a special year for hockey beginning with the Winter Classic continuing through the Olympics and ending with this incredibly exciting Stanley Cup final,” NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer said in a release.

Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with televisions tuned into a program. Shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time.

Game 6 drew a 32.8 rating and 50 share in Chicago, which means that half of all homes with televisions in use were tuned into the game.

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Chicago celebrates Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup win

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June 24, 2010

CHICAGO (AP)—Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith asked for the name of a good dentist. Patrick Kane insisted he loved cabbies. And team captain Jonathan Toews hoisted the Stanley Cup to roars from a huge and appreciative crowd.

An estimated 2 million fans turned out Friday to cheer for the Blackhawks, holding a boisterous parade and rally to honor the National Hockey League champions who beat the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime Wednesday to win the series 4-2.

The Hawks, some clad in sandals and shorts, many with their caps turned backward, delighted their supporters with seemingly unrehearsed boyish charm.
“Who knows a good dentist, by the way?” asked Keith to laughs and cheers. He lost seven teeth after being hit in the mouth by a puck during a sweep of San Jose in the Western Conference finals, but he was all gap-toothed smiles on Friday.

Kane’s comment was a wink at his arrest following an altercation with a Buffalo, N.Y., cab driver last summer. He exhorted the crowd to be louder and louder, then said: “Just for you guys, for all the cab drivers out there, I love you.”

Some players, including Toews and Patrick Sharp, had shaved off their playoff beards while other like Troy Brouwer, Dave Bolland and goalie Antti Niemi still had theirs.

“What’s up Chicago? Anyone want Pat Kane’s cell phone number?” Sharp playfully called out to the fans.

The Mayor’s Office of Special Events said the crowd was bigger than that for Chicago White Sox World Series celebration in 2005. Spokeswoman Cindy Gatziolis said 1.75 million came for the baseball celebration and speculated that school being out for summer helped draw more people this time around.

There’s no disputing it was a huge crowd, turning the streets red for blocks around a stage the Blackhawks shared with Mayor Richard Daley and Gov. Pat Quinn. Toews looked out over the throng and said, “I didn’t know there were this many people in Chicago.”

Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, credited for turning around the moribund franchise, told supporters the Stanley Cup is home to stay.

Among the die-hards were Scott Galligan and his family. Galligan, a 47-year-old from Hobart, Ind., and his two sons—5 and 19—camped out for spots at the rally starting at 6 a.m. Friday. It was worth the wait for Galligan, a lifelong hockey fan, who wasn’t alive the last time the Hawks won the cup in 1961.

“Finally they come through this year, it’s been a long time but I’m enjoying it,” said Galligan, who still talks dejectedly about the Hawks’ loss in the 1971 finals to Montreal.

“They broke my heart,” he said.

Dolores and Tom McMahon of suburban Schaumburg and their son, Ryan, camped out for hours before the rally too. Tom McMahon, 54, said it was good to see so many young people there.

“We’re so happy another generation of Blackhawks fans can appreciate this moment. It’s been 49 years,” he said. “In ’71, I never got over when they lost to Montreal in the seventh game. But I’m so happy. This fills in a void.”

Before the rally, the Blackhawks rode through the streets of Chicago in double-decker buses as fans roared and confetti spilled from the rooftops. Team legends, including Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito, joined current players on the open-topped buses. A sea of fans wearing the team’s red-and-black colors streamed into the streets behind the caravan as it headed to Michigan Avenue.

Jockeying for a position along the parade route, was 23-year-old Andy Dwyer of St. Charles, who has two Blackhawks tattoos to prove his dedication to the team, one on each calf and the newest inked on Wednesday. He said his team will go all the way again next year.

“I love my Blackhawks,” said Dwyer, a Hawks flag draped around his shoulders as a cape. “There are no words to express the joy and the excitement that the Hawks have brought the Stanley Cup back to Chicago.”

Alex Manley, 18, of West Chicago wore a feathered headdress and admitted to being new to Blackhawks fandom.

“I love bandwagons. They’re the best,” Manley said. “You get to dress up, it’s great.”

Thrilled to have the silver cup back in Chicago, fans brought tin foil replicas to the parade. They climbed street lights and stood atop parking garages to get a better view of the real cup.

Craig Marr, 49, a Chicago attorney, walked the parade route and enjoyed the rally, getting the most out of the celebration for a team he has long followed. Marr said he loves how the city comes together to celebrate and the new fans the Hawks have created.

“As a longtime Blackhawk fan, you know, I’m thrilled that there’s all these people now. I mean I know some people are like well, you just jumped on the bandwagon but there’s plenty of room on the bandwagon,” Marr said.

“This is a whole other generation of Hawk fans and I think that’s fantastic,” he said.

Associated Press writers Deanna Bellandi and Rick Gano contributed to this report from Chicago

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Toews captains Hawks to Cup, wins Conn Smythe

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June 23, 2010

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Jonathan Toews( is the second straight kid captain to lift the Stanley Cup.

And the Chicago Blackhawks’ still rising star didn’t stop there. He also claimed the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

Quite a performance for the center, who celebrated his 22nd birthday a little more than a month ago. Sidney Crosby( captained the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Cup title last year when he was 21.

Toews also nearly finished atop the playoff scoring race with 29 points. Only a three-point night by Philadelphia’s Danny Briere( in the Cup clincher on Wednesday night kept Toews from a most impressive hat trick of hardware.
Toews was held to only three assists in the Blackhawks’ six-game victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup finals, but his last point got Chicago going in Wednesday night’s 4-3 overtime win that finished the series.

“This team put on one heckuva run,” Toews said. “We knew from Day One of the season this team had the potential of our goal. It’s just an amazing feeling right now.”

Throw in the Olympic gold medal Toews earned with Canada at the Vancouver Games, and it’s been one amazing year for the Manitoba native.

Toews helped set up Dustin Byfuglien’s( power-play goal in the first period, giving him a Blackhawks playoff record-tying 29th point and franchise-best 22nd assist in 22 postseason games. Denis Savard posted 20 assists and 29 points for Chicago in 1985.

That was enough to impress the voters for the award that recognizes a player’s performance throughout the entire postseason, not just the finals.

It is only fitting that Toews led the Blackhawks to their first Stanley Cup title since 1961, the longest current drought in the NHL. Toews became the first piece of Chicago’s rebuilding process when he was chosen with the No. 3 pick in the 2006 draft.

That was just the beginning.

Toews was a key cog in the Blackhawks’ drive to back-to-back appearances in the Western Conference finals. After putting up 25 goals and 68 points during the regular season, when Chicago won the Central Division and earned the No. 2 seed in the West, Toews carried the Blackhawks further than they had been in nearly 50 years.

He had one goal and five assists in the four-game sweep of top-seeded San Jose in the conference finals and carried a 13-game point streak into the championship round—a run that produced seven goals and 18 assists.

“There’s so many great things about winning a Stanley Cup,” Toews said. “This is it. This is the best feeling you can ever get. I just can’t believe it’s happened.”

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Leighton likely in for desperate Flyers in Game 6

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June 23, 2010

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—The ever-guarded Peter Laviolette tipped his hand. But make no mistake, this was hardly a slip-up.

Always coy and protective about who will be in his lineup, Laviolette strongly hinted Tuesday that Michael Leighton( will be back in goal when the Philadelphia Flyers try to force a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup finals.

“I don’t comment on lineups or goaltenders,” the stern-faced Laviolette said at first on the eve of Wednesday night’s Game 6 against the Chicago Blackhawks.
That retort has been standard for Laviolette back to his days as coach of the New York Islanders, the Carolina Hurricanes, and even the 2002 U.S. Olympic hockey team. It doesn’t matter if the question is about the starting goalie or if he is considering using five defensemen instead of six for the first time this season as Philadelphia faces elimination yet again.

But Tuesday provided a bit of a twist.

“Our goaltender has the best numbers in the playoffs. I didn’t think I had to announce it,” Laviolette said tersely. “I’m very confident in Michael. He’s played excellent in the playoffs. His home numbers are terrific.”

And there it was. All it took was a quick look at the stat sheet to see that Leighton has an NHL-low 2.34 goals-against average in 13 appearances since taking over for the injured Brian Boucher( in Game 5 of the second-round series against Boston.

That league-best number even takes into account his sub-par showing in Game 5 on Sunday night in Chicago when Leighton allowed three goals on 13 shots in the first period.

“You just try to support each other, and that’s it,” said Boucher, whose 2.47 GAA is second best in the playoffs. “Both of us have to be ready, but in this case just support him and make sure he’s feeling good about himself.

“From a personal standpoint, you’d love to be in there, but right now our main goal is worrying about getting a win and getting this thing back to Chicago.”

Boucher gave up three goals on 14 shots in the final two periods of the 7-4 loss that put Philadelphia on the brink of elimination, creating a bit of a question as to who would get the nod for Game 6. Leighton is 6-0 at home in this year’s playoffs, yielding only nine goals in those games.

“I talked to Lavie, and he wasn’t really disappointed in the way I played. He was disappointed in the way the team played,” Leighton said of the Game 5 performance. “He told me, ‘We did it to shake up the team.’ For me, there are a few things I would change. We went over the video, and there were some good things and some not so good things.

“You’ve just got to take the positives and erase the negatives and go from there.”

Leighton has made a habit of shaking off rough outings and bouncing back with strong efforts. He did it within Game 7 of the Boston series when he was touched for three goals in the first period, but gave up nothing else as the Flyers rallied for an historic 4-3 win.

Leighton gave up five goals on 38 shots to Montreal in a Game 3 loss in the Eastern Conference finals, but yielded a total of two goals in the next two games as the Flyers finished off the Canadiens in five.

And then, the Blackhawks—the team that selected Leighton in the sixth round of the 1999 draft—lit him up for five goals on 20 shots in the series opener. Laviolette pulled him then, too, but went right back to him for Game 2. Leighton took a tough 2-1 loss in that one before posting back-to-back home wins to get the series even.

“We’ve seen this story before,” top defenseman Chris Pronger(. “I think he’s the type of guy that can let things like that roll off him and just go out and be focused and be prepared. I’m not too worried about him. I don’t think anybody else is, either.”

It appears that Laviolette is the leader of that group, even though he seems to enjoy employing the mind game with his players, opponents and the media.

When asked Tuesday if he had told Leighton or Boucher who would get the Game 6 start, the 2006 Stanley Cup-winning coach said he hadn’t. The follow-up question probed when he would let the goalies know.

“Do you know who is starting in the net for Chicago?” Laviolette asked back. The resounding response in the packed room of reporters was “Antti Niemi(,” the man who has played all but 25 minutes of the 1,283 logged by the Blackhawks in their 21 postseason games.

“Oh. But nobody has asked?” Laviolette said.

Seems like a fair question.

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