The Flyers stop by the Wachovia Center tonight for a rare game

While a certain local baseball team was busy winning a certain second straight National League pennant, a certain local hockey team was busy doing... well... nothing of interest really, unless swapping minor leaguers with the Columbus Blue Jackets counts.

The Flyers will take the ice tonight for the first time since losing the Florida Panthers last Friday. Their opponent will be the 4-4-0 Boston Bruins, who have had themselves a rough start to the year. Aside from the .500 record, the Bruins lost grinder Milan Lucic to a broken finger and playmaking center Marc Savard to a broken left foot. Add to that a defense that hasn't looked sharp and a some early season jitters from last year's Vezina trophy winning netminder Tim Thomas and the Bruins early season struggles sort of make sense.

No offense, poor defense, sloppy goaltending, key injuries. Yeah that'll about do it, I think.

The orange and black will look to take advantage of a tired Bruins team, which won 3-2 last night at home against Nashville. The Flyers will have the fresher legs, but then again, the Flyers should be pretty rusty after playing two games over the course of the last 12 days or so.

Ah the NHL scheduling committee.

Now that they're back from fall break, the Flyers will play four games in six days. Couldn't have spread some of those out over the last two weeks? That wasn't possible at all? Oh well.

Here are some keys to this thing.

Three Keys

1.) Simplify the offense- The Flyers have struggled scoring goals lately as a result of trying to do too much with the puck. They'll need to knock of the cute-sy stuff if they want to have any success against a Bruins defense that ranked amongst the league's best last year.

2.) Withstand the Bruins early flourish- The Bruins will likely come out firing on all cylinders tonight as they look to win back to back games for the first time all season. The Flyers should have the advantage the longer the game goes, due to their recent inactivity.

3.) Show some fire- The boys in red from across the parking lot have set the bar very high for the rest of the city's teams as they head to the World Series for the second straight year. The home fans will be loud and excited tonight, the Flyers just need to give them a reason to go crazy. It shouldn't take much, but the Wachovia Center will be ROCKING tonight.

Player to Watch: Simon Gagne had an assist last week when I picked him. Not totally what I was expecting but, hey, I'll take credit for it. I'm that kind of guy. Tonight, keep your eyes on James van Riemsdyk. The young man has been rock solid so far, but the sky's the limit for this former #2 overall pick. And he doesn't beat up cab drivers over pennys like the guy who was picked ahead of him.So, he's got THAT going for him to. Go get 'em JVR.