Boston-Philadelphia: Opening Night Notes

Game Notes and Commentary: Boston vs. Philadelphia

The Stanley Cup banner-raising ceremony at TD Garden was quite impressive – though perhaps a bit drawn out at points. Some highlights:

Each player getting the opportunity to raise the Stanley Cup one more time, including the retired Mark Recchi and Shane Hnidy, and the injured Steven Kampfer.
Jeremy Jacobs, who could not have gotten one cheer a year ago at this time, received a warm welcome from the crowd. It got much louder when he said the next time the Bruins win the Stanley Cup, it will be in Boston.
Andrew Ference awarding the 20-year-old Bruins jacket, a source of inspiration throughout the 2010-11 season, one last time – to Recchi.
The 1972 Bruins, led by Bobby Orr, Derek Sanderson and Ace Bailey’s son, Tom, shaking the hands of the current team and raising the banner.
This is the third time in their history that the Bruins have opened a season vs. the Flyers. They took 4-1 wins each on Oct.4, 1990 and Jan. 22, 1995 in the previous two contests.
The Bruins are 35-35-16-0 all-time in season-opening games and they are 28-15-11-0 when those games have been home contests.
A positive sign for Tyler Seguin’s development was the fact he led the team in goals in the preseason with 3. Brad Marchand led the team in pre-season scoring with 2-2-4 totals in four games, while Zdeno Chara and Rich Peverley (1-3-4 each) and Nathan Horton (0-4-4) also had four points during the exhibition schedule.
Even more positive was the patience Seguin showed on the first goal of the season, firing a 50-foot pass from his defensive zone to the tape of a streaking Marchand, who scored the season’s first goal.
Not sure I like the numbers on the front of the helmet, but then again, I probably would not have noticed if the announcers had not mentioned.
Happy birthday to Daniel Briere, who turns 34 today.
The Flyers’ opening night roster includes eight players who did not play for the Flyers at any point last season (Lilja, Couturier, Simmonds, Read, Talbot, Jagr, Voracek, Bryzgalov). A ninth, Zac Rinaldo, only played during the postseason.
Courturier is the first 18-year-old to make Philly’s opening night roster since Luca Sbisa in 2008.

First period

A great start, as the Bruins played a fairly wide-open style and stretched the Philly defense with long passes and quick breakouts (a rarity for the Bruins). It led to the first goal of the season, as Marchand scored off a great long feed from Seguin.
The Bruins did a great job of breaking the puck out of the zone, mainly because the forwards do an outstanding job of supporting the puck carrier.
The Flyers did not have a final minute goal in any period of any game last season, but got two in the first period of this season (Giroux, Voracek).
Jaromir Jagr can still play! Congratulations on his 1600th career point — an assist on Voracek’s goal.

Boston-Philadelphia: Opening Night Notes

By Editorial Staff | Oct 6, 2011

Tonight’s lines:

Forwards: Lucic-Krejci-Horton

Marchand-Bergeron-Peverley

Caron-Kelly-Seguin

Paille-Campbell-Thornton

Defence: Chara-Boychuk

Bartkowski-Seidenberg

Ference-Corvo.

Goal: Thomas (starter), Rask