Flyers Notes: Laperriere Flashes Some Style
(from CSNPhilly.com)
By Tim Panaccio
CSNPhilly.com
April 14, 2010 - NEWARK, N.J. – Ian Laperriere is not known for clever or creative assists. Not with a puck, anyway.
Yet he dished one out in the second period of Wednesday's 2-1 Flyer victory over the Devils in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals that won't soon be forgotten.
He tossed it behind-his-back to Mike Richards, coming off the bench for a critical goal that gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead.
The goal turned into a game-winner.
"I didn't see him [Richards]," Laperriere said as people laughed.
"I'm just kidding. If I miss that pass, I don't think you would have seen me on the ice again. It's one of those where you got to take chances and I did. It worked good for me and good for the team. I saw Richie come out of the bench and it worked."
"If it didn't work, I don't think you would have seen No. 14 out there for a while."
Richards admitted the behind-the-back move surprised him, as well. By the way, Lappy had 17 assists in the regular season.
"I knew he saw me and I expected the pass, but not a behind-the-backer," Richards said. "That's a great play."
Discipline
The Flyers kept their emotions in check in Game 1.
"They were pretty disciplined," said Devils' goalie Marty Brodeur. "Emotion wise, it's a lot different to play them in Philly than to play them here. They don't run around as much. We have to be ready to match that discipline.
"It's going to be a tough series. Everyone expected that. We've got to find a way to get ourselves going. We drew a lot of penalties, enough to be successful. It didn't happen."
Special teams
No question, the Flyers won that battle. They were 1-for-3 on the power play and 5-for-5 on the penalty kill. A double win.
"We played well enough to win, except for special teams," said Travis Zajac. "I think special teams cost us the game. I don't think we [tested Brian Boucher] enough. We could've done more. On the power play we could've gotten a few more shots on him."
Loose pucks
Brodeur faced just 14 shots. ... Matt Carle and Chris Pronger combined for seven blocked shots. ... Pronger played 30:01. ... Laperriere had four hits ... Zajac had four shots as did Ilya Kovalchuk; Zach Parise had four. ... Jay Pandolfo's 123-game playoff streak ended. ... Devils coach Jacques Lemaire is dressing 13 forwards, seven defensemen and two goalies for morning skates to concentrate on players he wants playing that night. ... Peter Laviolette on how people perceive the Flyers: "There's probably not a lot of love out there for the Philadelphia Flyers." ... Ville Leino, Riley Cote, Ryan Parent and Jeremy Duchesne were scratches for the Flyers. ... Ex-Tampa coach and former Flyer Rick Tocchet will be doing pregame and postgame for CSN beginning with Friday's Game 2 of this series. ... Laviolette went with Kimmo Timonen-Braydon Coburn in second period as the Timonen-Lukas Krajicek pair wasn't working well. ... Chris Pronger on the second period: "We were getting our feet moving and getting into the game which means getting pucks in deep, crashing and banging and creating turnovers and getting pucks to the net. But the biggest thing was turnovers and we did a lot better job in the second period."
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net