One Team's Misfortune, Is the Flyers' Gain

After an eventful weekend, here are five ways that the Flyers and their fans benefited from other team's misfortunes over the weekend.

1) Evgeni Malkin out for the season:
Now, I am not encouraging fans to cheer at the season ending injury of a rival player, but it is impossible not to see how this injury helps the Flyers. Malkin has enjoyed success against the Flyers over the course of his career, he has 43 points in 30 regular season games and 14 points in 11 postseason meetings. With the Flyers being eliminated by the Pens twice in the past three years, you have to start measuring the Flyers against the Pens as the playoffs grow closer. Without Malkin the Flyers look to be the better team, by a good margin. The Pens will no longer be able to combine Malkin and Crosby when they are desperate for a spark, they will have to depend on Crosby and contributions from secondary scorers. Take Malkin and Crosby away and the Pens only have four players with double digit goals, and three of those only have 10 goals. Crosby is also trying to recover from a concussion, or two, and is not guaranteed to be 100% the rest if the way. I fully believe that Crosby has the will to carry his team in the playoffs, but they are defiantly not as scary any more. 

2) The Avalanche signed Peter "The Foot" Forsberg:
Well, we dodged a bullet there. There was part of me that just knew the Flyers would go after him. He was only going to sign in one of two places, and the Flyers gave him a better chance at getting deep into the playoffs than the Avs. I am not going to deny that Forsberg is extremely talented and had some awe inspiring moments as a Flyer, but at the age of 37 and three and a half years removed from any NHL experience, it just wasn't worth the risk. How long until he misses a game with an injury? Less than a week? Even though the Flyers could use another forward capable of scoring heading into the playoffs, Forsberg was not the answer.

3) A schism in the Bruins locker room:
One of the biggest threats to the Flyers advancing out of the East this season is the Bruins. The team is playing great so far, Tim Thomas is playing out of his mind again, and the team has given up the fewest goals of any team in the NHL (119) because of it. On Thursday, Bruins forward Daniel Paille laid a blindside hit on Stars rookie Raymond Sawada that was similar to a hit that Matt Cooke put on Bruins forward Marc Savard almost a year ago. Sawada, playing in his first game in the NHL, is now sidelined indefinitely with a concussion and separated because of the hit. Andrew Ference spoke out condemning the Paille saying "It was a bad hit. We can't be hypocrites when your own team does a hit like that, which the league is trying to get rid of." Paille openly defended the hit the next day, and took exception to the comments from his teammate. Of course, all players involved are now saying that there is no split in the locker room. For a team that is rebounding from a monumental collapse to end last years playoffs, there could be some doubts still floating around in the heads of the players. Hopefully this dispute over a hit will lead to further disputes amongst the team and full on schism. 
A side note: Marc Savard is out for the season with a concussion.

4) The Rangers start to fall:
The Rangers have now lost four games in a row, and have only managed three wins in their last 10 games. Its not that the Rangers scare me down the stretch or in the playoffs, but it sure is fun to watch them lose. I think all Flyers' fans can smile at the thought of the Rangers' playoff hopes coming down to the last week or day of the season, again. The Rangers are healthy for the first time all year, so they do have a good chance to pick it up and make it comfortably into the playoffs. But if you are like me, you find great joy in watching the Rangers slowly slip down the standings and closer to ninth place in the East.

5) The Devils start to rise:
Ilya Kovalchuk finally decided to play hockey. Thankfully it was 41 games into the season before he figure out how. Kovalchuk has 12 points in the last 11 games, but only 20 points over the first 40 games of the season. Normally the Devils winning is not a benefit to the Flyers, or their fans, but at this point the Devils winning only hurts themselves. In just one week the Devils have jumped three teams in the overall standings and move further and further away from the number one overall pick in this years draft. 
A side note: Martin Brodeur had to pull himself from the game tonight with a knee injury. Hopefully it is season/career ending, not that I encourage fans to cheer at the season ending injury of a rival player.