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Rink to Rink: prepare for overreactions

Sports writers, bloggers, fans and assorted ragamuffins will often take one game to judge a trade (or on opening day, a season). Yes, I filed the Philadelphia Flyers under “loser” for the deadline but some people on Twitter made it seem official after one bad game. Remember kids, a lot can happen in one game.

You know, like that time a bunch of scrappy Americans upset a Russian superpower ...

Washington Capitals 3, Buffalo Sabres 1

Thanks, American hero Ryan Miller! OK, enough of that, now get back to work because you’ve already lost your first game back and the Sabres are 0-2 this week. (Hockey can be really cruel.)

Florida Panthers 7, Philadelphia Flyers 4

Oh no, the Flyers are RUINED! Leighton was chased from the net in the second period after allowing 4 goals on 26 shots while David Booth powered the Panthers’ surprising outburst with 1 goal and 3 assists.

Games reviewed after the jump.

Vancouver Canucks 6, Detroit Red Wings 3

I’ll let Mike Babcock’s hilarious quote in the AP article linked above tell most of the story:

“We were poor. We were poor in goal. We were poor in the back end. We were poor up front. We were poor in the work ethic department.”

In other news, Ryan Kesler is my hero.

Chicago Blackhawks 5, Edmonton Oilers 2

This game didn’t start off that badly for the Oilers, considering the fact that they dressed an astoundingly sub-par group of defensemen. They even had a 2-1 lead at one point in the second period. The Blackhawks eventually scored four unanswered goals to take the game but Devan Dubynk cannot take much of the blame; he turned aside 42 of 47 shots.

Minnesota Wild 4, Calgary Flames 0

After a spotty (at best) Olympic run by Finland’s mandatory starting goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, the goalie allowed 4 goals on 21 shots. The Wild also managed to score 4 goals without a single PP opportunity. Not a great performance by the Flames. (Oh, and the other Finnish goalie - Niklas Backstrom? He earned a shutout.)

Colorado Avalanche 4, Anaheim Ducks 3

It took exactly one game for Peter Mueller to make both a good impression (PP goal) and bad impression (bad penalty) with the Colorado Avalanche. Nonetheless, Matt Duchene scored the game winner to take the win. Craig Anderson made 31 saves, proving irrefutably that he should have been in Vancouver watching Ryan Miller play for Team USA.