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NHL: Is Philadelphia finished?
2021-06-02

The Flyers gave a much better overall accounting of themselves in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals and actually dominated the last 20 minutes, but they don’t hand out Stanley Cups for trying. You have to win four games to take home this trophy, which is proving to be a large dilemma in Philadelphia right now. The Flyers will look to get back in the series when they host Chicago in Game 3 on Wednesday night as -130 favorites, according to .

The Flyers outshot Chicago 15-4 in the last period and against 80 percent of the teams in the NHL they would have won the last stanza 3-0 or more, however not every team has a goalie like Antti Niemi between the pipes, as he made a handful of incredible saves to keep Philly shooters out of the net but once.

Philadelphia has remorse for not playing with the same passion the entire contest.

"I thought we were way too conservative in the first two periods," Philadelphia forward Danny Briere said. "We didn't give them much, I understand that. But it's not really our type of hockey. We didn't forecheck. We didn't create much offensively. We didn't spend much time in their zone." This left the Flyers 6-18 against good passing teams averaging five or more assists per game this season.

What was particularly painful was letting down at the exact wrong moment. Ben Eager, a former Flyer, is a high energy enforcer who was moved from fourth line duty to the first line by coach Joel Quenneville with Jonathan Toews and Dustin Byfuglien, just seconds after Marian Hossa had broken scoreless tie.

Philadelphia had done exceptional work in keeping the Blackhawks top unit down and Quenneville wanted an individual to mix it up, especially after he had flatten a couple of Philly players earlier in the game.

However, Chicago wouldn’t be 44-21 off a home win had it not been for netminder Niemi. The 26-year rookie has exceptional flexibility and he needed it throughout the third period with the Philly barrage. “We call him the octopus because he's got arms and legs going everywhere," Chicago forward Adam Burish said. "He was special tonight. Niemi was unbelievable in that third period. Some of the pucks, I don't know how he saw them."

Philadelphia might be dire straits (teams that sweep the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals are 31-2), however they are in familiar territory (think Boston series) and have leaders like Chris Pronger upon returning home where they are 22-7 the second half of the season.

"Yeah, I think we need to play with more desperation than we did, like the third period," Pronger said. "We need to play with that passion, energy, drive, determination, like we did in the third through the whole game. It needs to be 60 minutes."

The Flyers are 7-1 in the tournament at the Wachovia Center and 9-1 in last 10 since April 4. has Philadelphia as -130 money line play with total lowered to Ov5.5.

With the unbalanced schedule in place, this will be just Chicago’s 10th visit to the City of Brotherly Love in 14 years and they have one win in the time span. The Blackhawks are 20-5 after playing exactly two consecutive home games this season and 8-1 UNDER in road tilts riding a six-game or more win streak.

The Flyers have lived dangerously almost all season, with their margin for error thinner than a skate blade and are 6-14 revenging consecutive losses to opponent as a favorite. The Flyers are 8-1 UNDER off a road failure by one goal this season.

The first game in Philly has an 8:00 Eastern start on NBC, with Chicago having won seven straight on the playoff road.

The StatFox Power Line shows the wrong team is favored, Chicago -123

The Vancouver Canucks finished the regular season with 49 wins and 28 losses. For 103 points.. They also lead the Western Conference in goals with 272. Chicago had a record of 52- 22 good for 112 points. They faced each other four times during the season. They split it evenly 2 wins for each. Each team also won one game on the road.

Vancouver defeated the Los Angeles Kings 4-2 in Los Angeles in game six to advance to the semi final round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. One important factor that aided Vancouver was the fact that the Kings were 0-5 in the power play during game 6 thanks to the penalty killing of the Canucks.

Vancouver and Chicago met in the playoffs last year. The Black Hawks knocked off the Canucks four games to two winning the conference title for the first time since 1995. This is going to be a good match up this year. These are the matchups that NHL bettors dream about. The savvy NHL bettor will find the best situations to bet on in NHL hockey.

Henrik and Daniel Sedin the talented twins will lead Vancouver on the ice with their outstanding abilities to both score and pass. Henrik Sedin finished the regular season with 112 points. Daniel had 85 points but only played in 63 games because of a broken foot. Chicago will need to control the Sedin brothers during the games if they want to win and advance to the finals for the Stanley Cup. Henrick lead the NHL in scoring this season and is a finalist for the Hart Trophy, given to the leagues MVP. During the playoffs so far Daniel had four goals and six assists. Henrik scored one goal and seven assists. Mikael Samuelsson had seven goals and four assists. Samuelsson also led the NHL in goals during the first round of the playoffs. Both he and Daniel Sedin made double-digit points. Henrick lead in assists and scored only one goal.

The Chicago Black Hawks are a favorite this year and have the home ice advantage. As far as talent and superstars goes Chicago has Patrick Kane. He led the team in scoring during the regular season. He had 30 goals and 58 assists. Other top producers for the Black Hawks are Duncan Keith who scored 14 goals and had 55 assists and Jonathan Toews with 25 goals and 43 assists. Toews only played in 76 regular season games. Jonathan Toews lead Chicago in the first round with eight points and most of them came in the final three games of the series.

To get to the semi finals the Black Hawks had to defeat the Nashville Predators in six games. Nashville started strong by winning the first game 4-1. The Black Hawks came back to win the second game 2-0. The Predators won game three 4-1 again. Chicago then came back and won the next three games 3-0, 5-4, and 5-3.

This match up is going to be an offensive battle between the Canucks and the Black Hawks and they do have a long history of not liking each other, which adds to the excitement. It should be a very offensive series with plenty of checking and action and probably some drama as these teams have along history of strong dislike for each other. Vancouver will be looking to get back for the defeat from last season that eliminated them. They had lead the series 2 games to 1 . In game four the Black Hawks came back to win in OT and then went on to win the next two games and clinch the series.

Goal tending will also play a big part in this series. Vancouver's Roberto Luongo, who led team Canada in their gold medal victory during the Olympics, was 2-2 against the Black Hawks this year. He gave up 7 goals last season in the final game against Chicago. The rookie Antti Niemi of the Black Hawks was 1-2 against Vancouver with one shut out. He had two shut outs against the Predators in the first four games. This included a power play goal and a couple of assists to help Chicago win game six

The key to winning this series is in the strong offense of both teams. The goalies will be working hard to keep the puck out of the goal. I think it will be Chicago in 7 games. Who do you think will win? Get over to www.here where everybody bets on NHL hockey.