Well It's About Time

The night began with one-time captain Peter Forsberg spurning the Flyers and choosing instead to sign with the Colorado Avalanche.

Things would get worse before they got better, as the Sabres raced out to a 3-0 lead in a building that has been a personal house of horrors for the Flyers. Already having lost ten straight games and multiple key contributors to injury, it would have been easy for the Flyers to simply pack it in and look ahead to Thursday night's match-up with the Ottawa Senators.

But something happened on the way to loss number eleven.

Jeff Carter scored on a breakaway to make it 3-1. Newcomer Patrick Thoresen fed Scott Hartnell, who cut the lead to one. Then in the third, R.J. Umberger exorcised some HSBC Arena demons of his own and tied the game on the power play.

Then in dramatic fashion, the former Sabre Danny Briere won it in the shootout, the Flyers first shootout win in five tries this year.

Hello, playoffs. Goodbye, losing streak. Good riddance, Foppa.

In hindsight, tonight's game could be the one that we look back on as the momentum-changer for the season. With all of the breaks seemingly going against them, with their post-season lives hanging in the balance, they rallied around Carter, Hartnell, Umberger, and Braydon Coburn. This could be the one where the breaks start going in their favor.

And if it is, it will have been under the unlikeliest circumstances, in the unlikeliest of locations, at just the right time.

After the game, the Flyers re-acquired Vaclav Prospal (29 G, 28 A) from Tampa Bay in exchange for Alexandre Picard and a draft choice. With all the injuries to the front line, adding Prospal without subtracting from the young nucleus (Read: Jeff Carter) represents another shrewd move by Paul Holmgren.