Wanted: Goaltending

This has to be the offseason when this organization finally goes to Nordstrom's to look for a goalie instead of shopping for one at Wal-Mart or Value City. The last time we had a dominant goalie was 1987. It is beyond ridiculous. Even the Chicago Bears have a legit QB now...it's time for the Flyers to have a legit goalie.

- YodelInTheVlly

oh, and i just remembered-- wouldn't it be funny if we lost the 4th seed to pittsburg by 1 point. go marty, way to play aggressive there buddy. he still doesn't know why what he did was wrong. he thinks his ridiculous andre iguodala pass behind the back was his only mistake. somebody buy this guy a clue. or at least dock his pay every time he skates more than 2 feet out of his net.

- kappadonna

Uh-oh. The natives are restless. In any other city it might not be a cause for concern but Marty Biron might want to stop parking on the street lest his car be flipped over and lit on fire. So what happens in games where no one plays defence and the goalies are in a giving mood? Hat-tricks:

Jeff Carter notched his first career hat trick to highlight last night's win. But my favorite stat, courtesy of PR guru Ike Richman, was this: 412 hats were thrown onto the ice after Carter's third goal.

- Sam Carchidi, Philadelphia Inquirer

Oh Jeff, we'd throw so many more hats for your hat-tricks. Don't you wish Kaberle had waived his no trade clause?

I’m glad he didn’t.

- Jeff Carter

Well FUCK YOU TOO! I don't hope you die in a chemical fire (I'm not from Philly after all) but Chemmy came up with a much more sane alternative in his poll.

"It wasn't pretty, that's for sure," said Gerber, who was briefly pulled from the onslaught in the first period, allowing backup Curtis Joseph to come in and give up two goals. "You feel like you're playing soccer and the net is getting bigger and bigger."

- Paul Hunter, Toronto Star

Ummm soccer games end with scores like 1-0 or 2-1 not 8-5. You guys looked more like the starting pitchers for the Kansas City Royals or the Pittsburgh Pirates. And you sure as hell weren't pitching to the Blue Jays.

Gerber gave up six goals on 30 shots as the highly motivated Flyers built a 6-0 lead early in the second period and then coasted to an 8-5 victory. 

I guess we can take some heart in the fact that the Leafs never gave up and pulled the score back to semi-respectability right?

When you get down five or six nothing it gets easy to play.

- Ron Wilson

Well, that clears that up. There was one big winner from the offensive outburst by the Leafs: Curtis Joseph.

The Mayers goal was a key for Joseph because it got him off the hook for career loss No. 352, which would have tied him for the most in NHL history with Hockey Hall of Famer Gump Worsely. Joseph would have been the loosing goalie because he gave up the fifth Flyers goal, which would have been the game-winner.

Good for him. Now Wilson can bench him the rest of the way and keep his honour intact because after all, in the words of Alexandre Daigle, no one remembers number two (Chris Pronger) unless you're a hilarious bust. Speaking of potential busts, Christian Hanson made his debut last night:

"Anytime you lose you don't feel you have played well."

Christian Hanson was a victim of the old Slap Shot-type joke in which the Leafs told him to lead them onto the ice for the pregame warm-up and then they let him skate a lap before the rest of the team joined him. "I knew it was coming," Hanson said.

That makes a league record 45 times the Leafs have to pull that prank on a rookie. Just kidding, it's only like 14. He wasn't much of a factor last night but definitely did not look out of place. You know who does look out of place? Damien Cox talking about hockey:

The trickiest tightrope the Leafs have to walk right now, meanwhile, is that NHL teams are only allowed 50 contracts on their reserve list, and Toronto is at 49. In addition to Thiessen and Gilroy, the club is expecting University of Vermont junior forward Viktor Stahlberg, an '06 Leaf draft pick, to come out after the April 9-11 Frozen Four in Washington, D.C.

- The Omen

Congrats Damien! You're only a week behind the Barilkosphere and you still don't know that the answer to that quandary is that they've been signed to contracts for next year and are on amateur try out deals until then. Way to do your job.