4-3: not a good score for either Philly hockey team today

Looks like the Phantoms and Flyers BOTH dropped games tonight, coming in at the wrong end of a 4-3 score. In the Flyers' case, it was their home opener vs. the Rangers. In the Phantoms' case, it was our first road game of the year, vs. the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.


Here's the game recap of tonight's Phantoms game.

Here's the box score of the game.

Tonight, Aubin got his first start of the year for us. I got somewhat nervous while listening to the Flyers game in our car radio, as we drove home from a wedding in Chester County, when Niittymaki was described by all of our announcers in various ways as "slow to get up" following a barrage of shots. WHY WHY WHY did the front office send Aubin down so soon? Why didn't they wait until Nitty had a regular-season game or two under his belt? SIGH. Aubin can't go back up without clearing waivers, and if a team claims him, we are on the hook for half his salary for the remainder of his contract (which is only for this season, but that's beside the point). I can't imagine that Aubin will clear re-entry waivers if the Flyers need to call him up... the temptation of having a solid backup at half-price for the year will probably be hard for at least one other GM to pass up.

But this is all a rant for another time. In the meantime, I can't offer a lot of opinion of the in-game proceedings. There were technical difficulties with the new internet audio, and I never got the opportunity to check and see if I can pick it up on my PDA phone, as I did for the past couple of seasons with our previous setup. But I noticed that Boyd Kane was a -3 for the night. My first thought was that he got a bit banged up at one point during last night's game, just as a period ended. The trainer was checking him out in the tunnel as the rest of the team and coaches filed past on their way to the locker room. Finally, he and the trainer proceeded up the tunnel, and I was concerned about his condition until I saw him come out for the next period. However... anyone who's hurt themselves can attest that sometimes they feel worse the next day than they did on the day they got hurt. So I wondered if he was playing through the after-effects of whatever was bothering him last night.

The good news is that he won't have to play again tomorrow night. The Phantoms Phan Club's "Meet and Greet" is on Sunday afternoon, so all Boyd and the team will have to do is bowl. They won't have to deal with wear-and-tear like being checked into the boards. So that should give him, and the rest of the Phantoms, time to rest and recuperate from Friday and Saturday's dents and dings.

I'll be there tomorrow, even though there's no way I'm able to bowl right now. My physical therapist would have a fit. I know I've improved over the past few weeks, but not to the point where I can safely haul a bowling ball around or try to throw it. So I'll be attending the event but foregoing the actual bowling.

I have to be up very early in the AM, so I'm going to post this now and finish my Friday-night game recap tomorrow.