Seven

Cristobal Huet v. Martin Biron

It's what every Flyers fan feared; it's a one game series in Washington. The Flyers needed one game to win, and they coughed up their two game series lead. All bets are off now. The regular season doesn't matter. Games 1-6 don't matter. Throw out any stats or trends. One mistake, one penalty, one save changes everything. Actually, before we throw out trends: 20 teams have failed to hold their 3-1 series lead. The Flyers have been that team twice. We all remember the Lindros/Stevens incident from eight years ago, but the time before that? Against these same Capitals 20 years ago.

I'm just not very confident heading into tonight's showdown. They had their chance to wrap things up, but they got overconfident and complacent. Washington has taken the play to them, and now they have all the momentum at home. Throw in the Flyers and particularly Biron's struggles in back to back games, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Maybe they can surprise everyone, but things are not looking good. Adjustments need to be made, and players need to start winning their one on one battles. They got off to the fast start they needed to last night, but then they tried to protect the lead. Sitting back does not work, and it will not work again tonight.

Hopefully this isn't the last time I plug Bill Meltzer on HockeyBuzz.