Shenanigans

The Flyers really can kill two birds with one stone tonight.

All they need to do is lose in overtime or a shootout, and they will

A) Clinch a playoff berth, while...

B) Letting Florida (possibly) vault over the Rangers into the eighth seed in the East and deal the Rangers a blow to their playoff hopes.

Of course, the Rangers will have something to say about it because they're at home against a ripe-for-the-picking Montreal club which lost two of its defenseman for the long term.

The Flyers...well, why not engage in a bit of shadiness? The Penguins set their entire playoff run from last year in motion by tanking at the end, so why can't the orange and black help themselves a little bit extra by laying down?

Winning puts a nice little ribbon clinching the playoff berth, since this year it comes without all the white-knuckle drama. But losing and manipulating the ridiculous system which awards points for losses beyond regulation, and at the expense of a hated rival, is too good to pass up.

Come on now, you can't realistically think that it won't cross the mind of someone on the team today. They're just not going to say that in public.

They're also not going to throw in a real stinker - that was last Wednesday - so it'll come off like a great effort which came up a bit short.

Whatever the case, it'll at least be two clubs in very nasty moods, each vying for something very important.