NHL Winter Classic 2012: Philadelphia Flyers Show True Colors in Loss to Rangers

The Philadelphia Flyers had a chance to make a statement on the biggest stage that the NHL has to offer by hosting the New York Rangers in this year's Winter Classic. Instead, they let a 2-0 lead evaporate and find themselves asking more questions than they have answers to. 

The biggest problem that the Flyers have had all season is on defense and goaltending. Ilya Bryzgalov has seen his playing time decrease in recent weeks thanks to his 3.01 goals against average and .890 save percentage. 

Sergei Bobrovsky has shown potential since the team increased his playing time, but he is still just 23 years old and has a lot of growth and development ahead of him. He was the one that surrendered the third period goals that cost the Flyers the game. 

Now the Rangers aren't exactly chopped liver, they are tied for the league lead with 52 points and 24 victories. But this was supposed to be a statement win for the Flyers on their turf and they let it slip away.

And to make matters worse for the Flyers, the officials did their best to send the game into overtime. Rangers head coach John Tortorella went off about the penalty shot that was given to Danny Briere with less than 20 seconds to play. 

From Yahoo! Sports:

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"It started with the non-call [when] Gabby was pitch-forked in the stomach, and then everything starts going against us. They're two good referees; I thought the game was refereed horribly. So I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe they wanted to get it to an overtime. I'm not sure if they have meetings about that or what. But we stood in there. They're good guys. But in that third period, it was disgusting."

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So even though everything was set up for the Flyers to walk away from this game with a victory, they still couldn't get it done. They will still make the playoffs, they might even bounce back and skate their way to a Stanley Cup title. 

But considering how poorly they executed late in this game, and their problems in the net, this loss is going to linger with them for the rest of the season. 

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