Better Know a Contender?

Often times when you are a young person, nuance often goes unnoticed.  For it is the subtle characteristics that truly separate the good from the wow.  An understated flinch by an actor, a defensive "glue-guy" coming off the bench in the 4th quarter, a drum beat that achieves the extraordinary but by doing nothing out of the ordinary. It all adds up.

And then you have In Living Color, the over-the-top antecedent to Mad TV, which somehow had a way of making Chris Farley's Chippendale's audition look reserved.  I mean, take a look at the picture: 5 of the 6 faces look retarded to some degree.  The 6th?  Artistically autistic... (But is there any other way?).  There's no measure, there's nothing hidden, it is just all out there, and well, it worked less often than you probably remember.

Kind of like the Philadelphia Flyers, aka the Fly Girls.

Look at their numbers: 3+ G/G , top 3 on the power play (22.7%), top 7 in shots, top 5 in shots allowed, 3 players with 20+ goals, 4 players with 40+ points.  These should represent a team at the top of the conference, even the league.  But how about some of their other numbers?  Like the fact that they have competed in 22 7+ goal games (9 9+ goal games).  So, they can obviously score, but in the same way that men can be sluts, too, they also get scored on... A lot.

So what's the problem?  Well, I'm not one to speak on ethnic-angled comedies, but being a white boy and seeing a black goaltender... Where was In Living Color on that one?   Not that Ray Emery is the complete source of the Flyer's troubles (although he always has been trouble), after all, there other two goalies are even worse.  And now that Emery is donezo for the season, the Flyers have plenty to be concerned about.  There were even rumors that they would be bringing back the much maligned Marty Biron, because that would probably be the worst solution?  At the moment, Flyers goaltenders are combining for a .903 save percentage, which, if were the product of one goalie, that goalie would be ranked 33rd in the league.  As a unit their GAA is 2.75 (good for 29th in the league as an individual).  Guess that explains all those 7 and 9+ goal games.

Sure, they're currently in the 6 slot in the Eastern Conference, but that ain't saying much considering the garbage immediately to their rear (Boston and Montreal), and the non-sense immediately to their front (Buffalo).  Coincidentally, this also explains the relative success of In Living Color in the early 90's, as well as the relative lack of success of such movies as Little Man in the mid-2000's.  So, unless the Flyers can stop acting like a bunch of retards, who think over-the-top displays of offense and goonery are going to get them anywhere near the the Stanley Cup, then as my man Fire Marshall Bill once said, let me show you somethin...

Players to watch:

Chris Pronger - The big bad defenseman, with the wicked awesome +/- of 24.  Never any goaltender problems when this cat is on the ice, apparently.  Too bad a hockey game is 60 minutes and that Pronger cannot play all of them, because when he is on the ice, the Flyers are all offense and apparently plenty of defense, too.

Mike Richards - Captain Dick is one of the steadiest players in the NHL averaging over 75 points in the last two NHL seasons (and over 200 PIM, too).  He can scrap and score with the best of them, and as evidenced by his generally positive +/-, the man can backcheck, too.  Oh, and he's only 25 years old... Yikes.

Michael Leighton/Brian Boucher - Now that Emery is done for the season, it's up to these two stiffs to be slightly better or worse than meh.  Based on their first performance last night, it isn't looking too good early on.  The Flyers biggest weakness is their goaltending, and it looks like an easy target just got softer.