Because you only look at this website while you’re at your desk job, by the time you see this post tomorrow (today to you) you’ll already know that the USA put a whoopin’ on Team Canada last night (err, tonight–whatever). Point is, the prospect of a gold medal on home ice for the Canadian people would be about as wonderful to them as when France shut out Brazil to win the World Cup in Paris in 1998. An uninspired performance last week against Switzerland aside, the gold medal favorite, Canada, will face its first real test from an American team that is as good a bet as anyone to grab an Olympic medal.

Tonight’s game is a rematch of the 2002 gold medal game won by Canada in Salt Lake City in 2002. The ‘02 Canadian team featured only one Flyer, Simon Gagne, while the American team had 2 Flyers, John LeClair and Jeremy Roenick. Both Flyers playing in tonight’s game will skate for Team Canada and they are Chris Pronger and Mike Richards.

Pictured above is Team USA’s starting goalie, Ryan Miller of the Buffalo Sabres. Because one of the best goaltenders in the history of hockey will be about 190 feet away in the person of Martin Brodeur, a significant chunk of the U.S. hopes will rest on Miller’s shoulders. The Canadian roster features an abundance of scoring talent; Rick Nash, Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley headline the Canadian forwards so Miller and his defensemen had better be sharp. For whatever it’s worth, I think they will be and I’m predicting a 3-2 American victory.

It’s only natural that the teams that bookend the State of Pennsylvania hate each other. As both the Flyers and the Penguins have come into their own in the past few seasons, their dislike for each other has grown even stronger. Among a variety of on-ice fireworks, some Tabasco was spilled into the rivalry’s jock strap earlier this month when it was reported that the Penguins’ TV affiliate failed to provide all replay angles on a goal scored by Simon Gagne that was under review.

Well today the National Post of Canada is reporting that they are officially blood rivals. Flyers’ forward, Aaron Asham, is accusing Pittsburgh forward, Matt Cooke, of biting him. The two were involved in a scrum when Cooke allegedly bit Asham on the finger. Said Asham: “there were 2 guys on Harts (Scott Hartnell) and my glove got tangled in his mouth and he bit me, so I lost it…he’s a gutless guy…I have no respect for him at all…I just have no use for him.”

You’ll remember that it was Scott Hartnell who was accused back in October of biting Penguins’ defenseman, Kris Latang’s finger. With the mutual hatred at an all-time high, we can expect a straight-up war when the two teams meet for the final time on March 27.

The Penguins have had the upper hand this season, winning 4 of 5 contests which may help to explain why Scott Hartnell made a point of nibbling on it. With so many points going the Penguins’ way thanks to the Flyers, it was Matt Cooke this time who chose to bite the hand that feeds him. Perhaps there’s a Shakespearean angle to all this with both teams referencing literature’s greatest story of cross-town rivalry, Romeo and Juliet. One can only image Chris Pronger asking Sergei Gonchar “do you bite your thumb at us sir?” I could go on and on with these childish cliches but I should probably just bite my tongue.

The Latvian Olympic hockey team has been announced and defenseman Oskars Bartulis will be on the roster. This is news because apparently he plays for the Flyers. As exciting as this is, he’s not the only Flyer who will be taking part in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Mike Richards and Chris Pronger will be playing for Team Canada (presumably under very little pressure to win gold with the Olympics on native soil) and Ole-Kristian Tollefsen will be in the red, white and blue for the Norwegian team while Kimmo Timonen will suit up for the Finns.

The U.S. roster will be announced on Friday, though Brian Boucher and James van Riemsdyk are the only American-born Flyers, so don’t expect any orange and black representation on Team USA. As disappointing as this may be, if you’re blue about it just think about what an honor it is to have Oskars Bartulis on the Flyers and you’ll be merry in no time.

The Flyers are 3-11 in their last 14 games. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, part of that disgraceful record has to do with the fact they’ve played a brutal schedule. 7 of those losses came to teams that are either first or second in their divisions and 3 of the losses came to 3rd-place teams. In short, they haven’t exactly been playing a lot of patsies (though 2 of their 3 wins were against the Islanders).

None of this excuses a pathetic performance from a team that many thought would contend for the Cup this season. During this 14-game skid, the Flyers have been outscord 26-49. Neither the off-season addition of Ray Emery nor Chris Pronger has proven to make them any better than they were last year. And the Flyers nominally-powerful scorers have done little this year; the highest-ranked scorer on the Flyers is Mike Richards. His 26 points are good for 49th-place in the NHL.

Last night’s 6-1 drubbing at the hands of the Penguins was a good indication of how far removed from the League’s elite teams the Flyers are. And that game put the issue of the Flyers personnel into stark contrast with one of the NHL’s best rosters. Offensively, the Flyers don’t have anyone as good as Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. Defensively they don’t have anyone as good as Sergei Gonchar. And their goaltender (whoever that may be) isn’t as good as Marc-Andre Fleury. With the better part of the season remaining, the Flyers need to start looking at making some moves on their bench, not just behind it.

John Stevens was fired on Friday by the Flyers. In four seasons behind the Flyers bench, Stevens was 120-109-34 and his playoff record was 11-12. True, these numbers aren’t stellar but they aren’t terrible either. Stevens took over in ‘06 with a team that was historically awful, posting a record of 21-42-11. In his next two seasons he took the team to the playoffs, reaching the Conference Finals in ‘07-’08 and getting bounced last year in the first round by the eventual champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

His replacement is the fiery Peter Laviolette, most recently of Versus TV coverage fame. The upside to this hiring is that Laviolette has a Stanley Cup under his belt (2006 Carolina Hurricanes) and his career winning percentage is 21 points higher than Stevens’ (.562-.541). And maybe most importantly he’s known to be a hot-tempered coach with lots of personality, something Stevens lacked in the way Andy Reid lacks a clear throat.

While Laviolette has 7 years of coaching under his belt, the only season he won a playoff series was the year the ‘Canes went all the way. His teams missed the playoffs in 4 of his 7 years and he was bounced in the 1st round twice while with the Islanders.

The bottom line for the Flyers is that they’re not as good as 9 other Eastern Conference teams right now. Their scoring has cooled: they’ve scored 8 goals in their last 5 games and have been shutout twice during that stretch. And their goaltending is, once again, in flux: of the 9 teams ahead of the Flyers, 7 of them have starting goalies with lower GAAs than Ray Emery (the Islanders’ Dwayne Roloson and the Senators’ Pascal Leclaire are worse) and 7 of them have goaltenders with better save percentages than Emery (only Leclaire and Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury are worse).

If the players continue playing below their collective ability, the Flyers won’t be any better off with Laviolette. Of course, merely the act of changing leadership often times is enough to turn it around. With rumors swirling that Mike Richards will lose his captaincy to Chris Pronger, there’s a lot more than simply the head coaching that needs to improve if this team is going to realize its potential.

The road to the Stanley Cup goes through Pittsburgh. Whether you like that statement doesn’t matter; the Penguins are the defending champions and there’s no reason to think they won’t do it again, other than the high hopes of Eastern Conference aspirants like the Capitals, Rangers, Bruins and Flyers. Tonight at the Wachovia Center will be the first installment of the Flyers’ season-long test to see whether they can unseat the Pens.

Barry Melrose and E.J. Hradek have a pretty good piece today about the impact that Chris Pronger will have on the Flyers hopes. There’s no two ways about it: the addition of Pronger in the off-season was made largely because of the need to shut down Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. To boot, Pronger becomes the point man on the power play and (along with Matt Carle) will make the man-advantage a whole lot more productive for the Orange and Black.

Through the first 3 games the Flyers hold the statistical edge on the Penguins in just about every department. They’ve scored more goals, allowed fewer, have a better power play %, a better penalty kill percentage and are 3-0 while the Pens are 2-1. Of course, 3-games into a season doesn’t tell much of a story other than being representative of the Flyers doing their homework for their first big test. And that’ll be tonight at 7 pm at the Wachovia Center.

UPDATE: In case you haven’t heard, the Flyers are giving remaining tickets to tonight’s game away for $25 if you have a Phillies ticket. If the Phils are successful this afternoon, that spillover crowd could make the arena even louder and more raucous than usual.

In case you had any illusions about the integrity and quality of The Philadelphia Inquirer, let me put them to rest. In their most recent gaffe, they miss the bus altogether. On the same day as the Flyers’ season opens (in a season, mind you, full of championship expectations), the lead story on the Inquirer’s online sports page is “Smith Shines In Scrimmage.” In case you didn’t recognize that name, you’re not alone. It’s Jason Smith, the Sixers’ power forward who missed all of last season.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. To be sure, the second-to-last day of Sixers camp is incredibly awesome, especially when you consider the prospect for excitement surrounding a team that will be lucky to make the playoffs in a league so devoid of competitive suspense that the only question in its post season is which one of three star players will get his own puppet.

Today is the first game of the Flyers’ season. With the addition of Chris Pronger and Ray Emery, folks around here are pining for a Stanley Cup. Instead of acknowledging the prospect of an exciting season for a team infinitely more competitive and, frankly, playing in a better professional league, the Inquirer and its surrogate, philly.com, run some story that’s about as interesting as listening to cricket on the radio. It’s no wonder The Inquirer is bankrupt.

Here are two things you can comfortably vote “yes” for. The first is Shane Victorino’s All-Star campaign. Nothing more need be said about that.

The second one is a little funny: today’s Inquirer poll as to whether the Flyers should extend Chris Pronger’s contract. Apparently 152 people voted “no,” which means they thought it was smart for the Flyers to trade Luca Sbisa, Joffrey Lupol, 2-first round picks and a conditional 3rd-round pick for Pronger’s services for one season. You’ve heard of Socrates? Plato? Aristotle? Morons.

NHL free agency began yesterday and it didn’t take long for Mike Knuble to land with the Washington Capitals. The Caps inked Knuble for 2 years at $6.5 million. If Knuble is anywhere as good as Flyers fans thought, this move makes Washington even scarier.

The Flyers did pick up gritty forward, Ian Laperriere, from Colorado and brought back goalie, Brian Boucher, to back-up Ray Emery. For all the whining and bitching this town did about Martin Biron’s inability to take this team to the Cup, I sure hope everyone’s happy with his replacements: the ketchup and mustard bottles from the bottom shelf of the fridge.

Aside for Holmgren’s Hobos in net, I don’t have a problem with the Flyers’ off-season moves. Obviously, Chris Pronger is a blue line presence who can eat-up minutes and crush opposing centers. Laperriere should add some toughness up front and the loss of Lupol and Knuble really does little to slow a potent offensive lineup. The only problem I see isn’t of the Flyers making; it’s the existence of a growing Pittsburgh dynasty and two uber-talented teams (Washington and Boston) that make the Flyers’ task (regardless of off-season acquisitions) a daunting one.

As it turns out, Jay Bouwmeester wasn’t meant to be in a Flyers uniform after all. At least for the next season, however, the Flyers did get their defenseman. Shortly before the draft last night, the Flyers traded Joffrey Lupol, Luca Sbisa, two first round picks and a conditional third round pick (2010 and 2011) for Chris Pronger and Ryan Dingle. Ironically, this isn’t the first time a team has given up a boatload for Pronger, nor is it the first time he’s been traded for (among others) Joffrey Lupol: in 2006 he was traded to Anaheim from Edmonton in exchange for Lupol, Ladislav Smid, a first round pick, a conditional first round pick and a second round pick.

Pronger has always been a big, fast and talented defenseman capable of scoring as well as leading with the body. He was taken 2nd overall by the Hartford Whalers in the 1993 draft behind former Flyer, Alexandre Daigle, who said (with great irony, as it turned out) after being taken in the top spot “I’m glad I got drafted first, because no one remembers number two.” Or number 4 for that matter, which happened to be Paul Kariya.

In any event, Pronger has been one of the top defensemen in the NHL throughout his career. He won both the Norris Trophy (best defenseman) and the Hart Trophy (MVP) in the 1999-2000 season. He owns an Olympic gold medal (2002) and his name is on the Cup from the 2007 Anaheim Ducks’ Stanley Cup win. Pronger has 606 career regular season points and 102 playoff points.

The downside to Pronger is that he has a reputation as one of the dirtiest players in the League. Of course, to fans in this town that’s a good thing but Pronger was suspended twice during the 2007 playoffs for separate incidents as well as 8 games in 2008 for stepping on Ryan Kessler’s leg leading up to the playoffs. As a likely team captain, this is not the kind of playoff leadership the Flyers should hope for in the Eastern Conference. When you consider the talent level of the Conference elite (Pittsburgh, Washington and Boston), the last thing the Flyers need would be their best defenseman sitting out playoff games because of suspension.

With that said, the Pronger acquisition is about as good as the Flyers could have done. It is a relatively short-term commitment as he has one year left on his contract at $6.25 million. Sure, giving up Sbisa and Lupol is a gamble (as are the two other first round picks) but Pronger is a premier player and if this move says anything, it’s exactly the statement Philly fans always talk about wanting to see from their teams: making the moves to show the organization is serious about winning now.