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So it was not to be. For the second night in a row, the Flyers got themselves into trouble after obtaining an early lead. On Wednesday, they were able to hang on for the 3-2 victory against the Buffalo Sabres. Last night, however, the Devils erased the Flyers’ 2-0 lead and won the game in a shootout when long-time Devil that goddamn assassin, Patrick Elias, slipped a Devils’ win under Sergei Bobrovsky’s left leg. For sad.

It wasn’t all bad, though.

It was an entertaining hockey game, and certainly a lot better than the alternative– watching the Union struggle to finish like a band geek who’s yet to “learn her own body” (graphic, but true. mostly). For realsies, I don’t know much about soccer (I’m trying), but their strategy for the series amounted to: go deep to Le Toux. It was the futbol equivalent of throwing hail marys to DeSean Jackson for four quarters. Only if DeSean Jackson were lanky. And French.

Nice strategy, Nowak.

***

Back to the hockey game.

It wasn’t all bad. Zac Rinaldo scored his first NHL goal on a sweet pass from Sean Couturier. Rinaldo celebrated by punching out the ref for “pointing at him that way.”

Max Talbot scored on a penalty shot in which he used his circle the airport move– drifting wide, in front of the Devils’ bench, then slicing across the slot.

It went a lot better than his other penalty shot:

“Yeah, well it’s the second one of my career. I had one last year or two years ago. And missing that by about 5 feet, it was nice to have a second chance and actually put it in the net.” 

 

Jaromir Jagr showed of his moves – again – using a modified version of Talbot’s circle the airport. He swung wide, went behind the net, mesmerized the defense, and hit a lonely Claude Giroux, who put the cookies he was baking into the oven before slamming the puck into the back of the wide open net

And it was nice to see the Pennsylvania Lottery brought back their holiday commercial for the 19th straight year. Really.*

*My dad told me that he thought it’s been on since before he got married (1980), but, according to some guy on YouTube, it started airing in 1992. 1992. In 1992, Lenny Dykstra was still alive.

Now the ugly parts.

The Flyers blew their first lead by playing awful for most of the second period. The Devils fired 21 shots, the third-most they’ve ever had in one period against the Flyers, and most since 1997.

Then the CSN Philly coach showed up…

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Immediate Twitter reaction:

(@TurkFebruary22)

it made me bite my arm til i was bleeding and kick my dog in the face….ok i lied about the dog part but i thought about it

 

(@jharkins1216)

I would purchase every web-capable device to log onto CSN Philly if they had the Ice Girls promoting it and not that douche

 

(@mikebiff)

Can we tie up "Hip-Hop", hide him somewhere in South America and send the "CSN Coach" to go find him?

 

AP's Dan Gelston

Fleetwood Mac would be proud. CSN Philly coach needs to go first over hip hop in a Landslide

 

(@Languedoctor)

so forced, so uncomfortable. Makes the Stan Lee superhero project last year look good. 

 

Don’t worry, we’ll have much more on this later…

In the shootout, Danny Briere scored his Luis Mendoza goal (video here) before Elias scored the winner and continued his dominance of the Flyers (his 32 goals are the most against any team).

Quote of the day? Bill Clement on Postgame Live:

"I'm surprised they [Flyers] had any toes left because they were shooting their own feet left and right."

 

The wasn’t Clement's lone highlight, though. He came back from break on the phone: 

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Video of that and highlights are after the jump. Your photo gallery is here. JVR is day-to-day. Anthony SanFilippo has a list of confirmed Alumni game players. David Gryzbowski interviews Clement.