According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Flyers have placed defenseman Matt Walker on waivers on Thursday.

Walker, 30, dressed in only four games for the orange and black after being acquired in the Simon Gagne trade from Tampa Bay. He didn’t register any points.

With Chris Pronger back from injury, it was only a matter of time before the Flyers deemed it best to waive Walker and his heavy $1.7 million cap hit.

What this means for the Flyers is that they’re content with their depth at the NHL level with Oskars Bartulis being their seventh defenseman, but they would like to keep Walker in the system.

Should Walker clear waivers, he’ll be assigned to the Adirondack Phantoms.

It also may be a sign that the Flyers plan to being active at this year’s trade deadline, which is Feb. 28th at 3 PM.

The Flyers can afford a player with a yearly cap hit around $3 million per Dustin Leed of The Fourth Period.

Another possibility is that a contract extension with pending free agent Ville Leino could be in the fold sometime in the near future.

Because the Flyers weren’t forced to dump salary, it’s safe to speculate that general manager Paul Holmgren is up to something.

What it is, however, nobody knows.
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Scott Hartnell celebrates his goal 10th of the year.


Coming into Sunday evening’s affair with the Red Wings, the Philadelphia Flyers hadn’t won a game in Detroit since 1988—two years before I was born. A 16-game losing (0-14-2) streak at the Joe Louis Arena was intact.

That changed.

Second period goals by James van Riemsdyk, Dan Carcillo and Scott Hartnell propelled the Flyers to a 3-2 victory to jump atop the Eastern Conference standings with 53 points.

Philly is tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Red Wings for the most points in the league; however, since the Flyers have played one less game than the Pens, they’re above them in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference standings.

Brian Boucher got the start in net for the orange and black, trying to get the team back to their winning ways after dropping two of their first three games on a five game road trip. Boucher earned the game’s first star with a 25-save performance, getting his eighth win of the season.

The game was scoreless in the second period until the red-hot van Riemsdyk put the Flyers up 1-0 just 51 seconds into the period. Shooting at a bad angle, JVR fired a shot that went off two Red Wing players and past goalie Jimmy Howard.

van Riemsdyk has nine goals in his last 18 contests after not scoring a goal in his first 17 games.

About five minutes later, Carcillo finished off a great shift by deflecting an Andrej Meszaros bomb from the point past Howard to give the Flyers a two-goal lead. Carcillo just missed scoring seconds before Meszaros took the slapper. It was his second of the year.

Meszaros finished the game with a +1 rating in 22 minutes of ice time. He leads the NHL in +/- with 25.

With a little over five minutes left in the period, Hartnell potted his 10th of the year after gathering a rebound, and roofing it past the struggling Howard. The play was created by a great keep in from 39-year-old defenseman Sean O’Donnell.

For the Flyers, the second period against the Wings was the team’s best effort all season in one 20 minute period. Detroit’s a puck-possession team, and the Fly guys did a wonderful job breaking up passes, and keeping the puck themselves. Philadelphia out shot the Wings 19-11 after two, and had a 3-0 lead heading into the third.

Detroit’s coach Mike Babcock decided he had enough of Howard, who allowed three goals on 27 shots. Chris Osgood replaced Howard to start the third period, and held the Flyers scoreless. Osgood had five saves.

In the first minute of the third period, Valtteri Filppula scored a dandy of a goal to get Detroit within two goals when he undressed Meszaros and sniped Boucher for his 10th of the year.

With 8:22 left in regulation, Henrik Zetterberg got his Wings within one goal when he backhanded home a rebound on a power play with former teammate Ville Leino in the sin bin for a very questionable goaltender interference call.

A couple minutes prior to Zetterberg’s tally, Boucher had the play of the game when he performed some left-handed larceny on Swedish winger Johan Franzen from the slot with a phenomenal glove stop. It happened with 12:43 left in the game and a 3-1 Flyers lead.

The Flyers will finish off their road trip in New Jersey on Thursday night as they play the away portion of a home-and-home with the Devils.

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No showdown, but the Flyers pulled out the late win.


Coming into Monday night's game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal Canadiens, much had been made of the blossoming rivalry between Flyers' captain Mike Richards and Canadiens' rookie PK Subban.

In a post game interview following a 3-0 loss to Montreal last Tuesday, Richards had some harsh comments about the multi-talented Subban.

"He's a guy that's come in the league and hasn't [earned] respect. It's frustrating to see a young guy like that come in here and so much as think that he's better than a lot of people. You have to earn respect in this league. It takes a lot. You can't just come in here as a rookie and play like that. It's not the way to get respect from other players around the league."

He wasn't done yet.

"Hopefully someone on their team addresses it, because, uh, I'm not saying I'm going to do it but something might happen to him if he continues to be that cocky."

When ESPN.com asked Subban his opinion on Richards' comments, Subban fired back.

"I think that I'm confident, but I think that there's a lot of players that are confident in this league," said Subban. "I'm not the only person that's confident when I play the game. Maybe the fact that I'm a young guy coming in, maybe people don't take well to that."

"As long as my teammates and the coaching staff are happy with what I'm doing, I'm going to continue to do that."

Less than a week later, the Flyers and the Canadiens squared off for the second time as the orange and black enjoyed sweet revenge with a 3-2 comeback win against Carey Price and Montreal at the Well Fargo Center.

The storyline surrounding the contest was what was going to happen with Richards and Subban. Were the two going to go mano y mano to solve their off the ice matter or was the situation overblown by the hockey world?

Surprisingly, no extracurricular activities took place during the game, which wasn’t expected after how chippy the third period was the last time these two teams played.

Nothing happened between Richards and Subban, neither played dropped their gloves to please the sold out crowd at the Wells Fargo Center. Instead, they both concentrated on playing their games.

"I'm not going to answer, I'm not going to start anything up," Richards said after the game via Delco Times Flyers beat writer Anthony SanFilippo. "It got a lot bigger than I thought it would."

Facing a 2-0 deficit after one, the Flyers once again had difficulties beating Price, who stopped all nine shots faced during the first stanza. However, Philly got to the Habs' net-minder in the second period.

Ville Leino scored a goal from the left circle after being setup by Danny Briere to end a scoreless streak of 164 minutes against Montreal in the last two regular seasons.

Trailing 2-1 in the third period, Claude Giroux provided the Flyers' faithful with another clutch goal as he tied the game at two with a tip-in following some hard work by Darroll Powe on the forecheck. It was Giroux's team-leading 12th goal of the season.

Six minutes later, a miracle happened for the Flyers.

James van Riemsdyk, who was the subject of rumors of a possible benching for recently recalled Eric Wellwood, took a crisp pass from defenseman Braydon Coburn on the power play, and sniped the left corner for his first tally of the season.

For scoring his first goal of the year, JVR couldn't have chosen a better time to light the lamp.

With the win, the Flyers move into first place in the Eastern Conference.

*Don't forget to check out 2M2MG's breaking news section! It's an up-to-the-minute running post to keep you informed on all the goings-on around Philly sports. Bookmark it today!

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Leino and the Flyers need only two wins for The Cup.


Ville Leino has been an unsung hero for the Flyers ever since entering the lineup as an injury replacement for Jeff Carter in Game Five of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, and he penciled his name into the history books Friday night.

Leino scored his seventh goal of the postseason in the Flyers nail biting 5-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks in Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals to send the series back to the Windy City tied at two.

The 26-year-old rookie’s goal moved him into sole possession of the Flyers playoff rookie scoring record with 16 points, surpassing Brian Propp, who scored 15 points in the 1980 Stanley Cup playoffs.

“It was a special moment,” Leino said. “It was a fun game. It was a nice little moment. I will remember it always. Good win there too, so it was a great game.”

His story is an amazing one to follow considering how the Flyers acquired him, and what he has become from where he was at the start of the playoffs for the Orange ‘n’ Black.

The Flyers traded away defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen and a fifth round draft choice to the Detroit Red Wings for Leino on Feb. 6th, a move that was going to provide Philadelphia with another scoring threat.

Instead, Leino had difficulties cracking Peter Laviolette’s lineup as it appeared that the coach and GM Paul Holmgren had different opinions about the Finnish winger, who had been a fourth liner for the Wings.

It took Leino nearly a month to play his first game with Philadelphia—not that bad if you account for the Olympic break—and couldn’t play with enough consistency to stay in the lineup for more than one or two games.

Simply put, he wasn’t showing anything to Laviolette to justify taking Arron Asham or Darroll Powe out of the lineup, who both play important roles for the Broad Street Bullies.

Leino scored only four points in 13 regular season games with the Flyers, and was an extra forward entering the opening round of the playoffs against the New Jersey Devils.

Despite playing in seven postseason games with Detroit, including the Cup Finals, Leino didn’t have a chance to play until center Jeff Carter broke his foot in Game Four versus the Devils, opening up a spot for the Savonlinna native.

With Carter out of the lineup, the Flyers needed Leino to put together some consistency while providing them with another scoring threat. They have received far more than what they were asking.

Leino has scored seven goals and nine assists in 17 games playing with Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell. In the Finals against Chicago, Leino has four points in four games.

It was his Game Three performance that informed the hockey world that he’s no joke, and pretty much guaranteed himself a spot on the Flyers second line next year.

Leino scored the game tying goal just seconds after Patrick Kane put Chicago up 3-2 with a 2-0 series lead in the third period, and led all forwards with 23:12 minutes of ice time, more than Mike Richards and Jonathan Toews.

Every championship team seems to have one guy who comes out of nowhere to step up his game, and it appears as if the Flyers have found their playoff hero in Ville Leino.
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