from Mike Sielski of the Philadelphia Inquirer,

In their first home game after the death of Ed Snider - their founder, owner, and chairman - the Flyers and their followers put on a display that manifested the worst instincts within themselves and validated the worst stereotypes about them. They embarrassed themselves, all of them, in every possible way. When spectators scream during a pregame moment of silence for a team's patriarch - as several Flyers fans did Monday - and it's not the most graceless, dishonorable episode of the night, that's telling. The Flyers ignited a melee with 7 minutes, 43 seconds left in regulation, and from that point until the final buzzer, they took 39 minutes in penalties. The Capitals took none, and they scored two power-play goals, and they could chuckle and gloat as the maintenance crews swept up the wristbands in front of their bench.

"They weren't interested in playing anymore," Capitals coach Barry Trotz said of the Flyers. "So we were on the power play for the last seven or eight minutes. I just thought it wasn't very good for our game. It's that simple. We were on national television. It didn't display our game very well."

If there's anything positive for the Flyers to extract from what happened Monday night, it should be the reaffirmation of general manager Ron Hextall's small-step-by-small-step plan to transform the team, to improve it by holding on to young talent and allowing that talent to blossom over years, to build it into something better than what it is now, what it has been. Game 3 was nothing but a myth that the Flyers have been peddling for years: that no matter how great the gap in talent between themselves and their opponent, no matter how long a shot they are, they can overcome anything merely by working harder, by playing tougher, by mucking and grinding and checking and punching and playing Flyers hockey.

That narrative has long been nothing more than malarkey, and the opening minutes Monday night proved as much. Once the Center reached a fever pitch after Michael Raffl scored 57 seconds into the game, the Flyers had nothing left. Nothing. They were at the Capitals' mercy.

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