Week 30 of NHL 2005-6 (final)

For all practical purposes, the 2005-06 NHL season is over for me. The Flyers managed to win the Friday game, tie the series at 2-2 to foil my prediction of a 4-1 series beating but they returned to their usual form of letting the Sabres control the next two games; a 3-0 shutout in Buffalo concluded with a 7-1 asskicking in Philly. The team was lucky that the fans didn’t storm the rink for a public lynching with how poorly they played. Thanks to the screw up between Dish and Center Ice, the final insult was on OLN so I missed the horrendous first period which gave the Sabres a 3-0 lead. I had pretty much given up and started watching Sunset Boulevard (recorded earlier on TCM) instead. My team began the season looking so great but the injuries (Primeau, Johnsson), their lack of speed on defense and this ongoing malaise of “showing up” 30 minutes late in the game doomed them to their first round playoff exit. 
 
Now it’s time to use the PS2 with NHL 2K6 and/or NHL 2006 to revise the outcome of the season for my own personal reasons. 
 
Meanwhile, what will the Flyers do until training camp in September (a mere four to five months away)? Hopefully Ken Hitchcock will remain as coach. It wasn’t his fault and isn’t a case of the team no longer listening to him like Vancouver’s big casualty Marc Crawford or LA’s Andy Murray. Next season does look better with all the youth (Richards, Carter, Umberger, Niitymaki, Dimitrakos) and strong experience (Gagne, Knuble, Johnsson, Pitkanen, Handzus). What to do with the albatrosses we’re stuck with: Hatcher, Rathje, Forsberg (yes, him, he’s just a Swedish version of Eric Lindros or Bill Walton), Therien and sadly Desjardins (his game was off all season). I can only hope Forsberg retires like Kapanen plans to. The salary cap will give Clarke a few million more to maneuver with but we have to find a way to ditch these lead-footed defensemen. We also need to regain multiple scoring lines. It was exciting to see Gagne and Knuble have career-breaking goal totals but the opposition can focus their defensive efforts there and then you’re crippled. 
 
The other dilemma is now who to cheer for to the Cup. I think I will wait until the next batch of teams are eliminated because there are too many pros and cons for such a decision. I just don’t want it to be a repeat of the last Stanley Cup which had two teams I disliked. Tampa for beating my Flyers for the Eastern championship and Calgary for a lousy clutch-n-grab playoff series.