Perfect Weekend

What a great and perfect weekend by the Flyers. Two regulation wins against two opponents in the heat of the Eastern Conference playoff race. What a huge 4 points for the club, who went into Friday night's game with 84 points, which is good enough for 7th place in East tonight. If the Flyers were sitting in 7th place right now I'd be calling for John Stevens' left testicle and Paul Holmgren's right, but instead we are in a good position to at least make the playoffs and hopefully earn home ice for a round.

We're now 8 points ahead of 9th place Florida with 11 games to play. If we win 7 of them they can't touch us. We're 12 points ahead of Buffalo who lost considerable ground this weekend with regulation losses to Danny Briere and the Rangers. The Senators have amazingly gone 15-6-3 since their coaching change and are on a 9-1-0 run. They are long shots for the playoffs but could spell trouble for the Panthers, Hurricanes, and/or the all but dead Canadiens if they keep finding a way to win.

But back to the Flyers. We have at least a game at hand against everyone in the Conference. We have two games against the Islanders and two against the Maple Leafs. A serious playoff contender should get at least 6 of those possible 8 points. We have the division leading Devils and Bruins. We have the new Sens. And we have the Panthers and Rangers twice each. If we take a pragmatic approach to the remainder of the schedule we should get somewhere around 14 points in the remaining 11 games. That would be good enough for the most points the franchise has seen since the 2002-03 season when we finished up the regular season with 107.

A win tomorrow night against the Devils would be a great way to start this final stretch. Three weeks and eleven games until the city of Philadelphia is back in the post-season.