The Rangers are coming to South Philly for a little Black Friday Metropolitan Division matinee action today. Read along as I give updates and my reactions to the game as it goes along. Expect some vulgarity and a lot of muppets to help me make fun of the Swedish monster that is Henrik Lundqvist. 

1:15pm: Realized the game is on NBCSN which means we get Doc Emrick on the play by play. Oh happy day. Also, Emrick's got the SHAKES. Can't even hold the mic in the pregame show. 

1:23pm: Can we please get rid of these 50th anniversary jerseys?

1:24pm: 20 seconds into the game and we're in the box good lord. 

1:29pm: 

HUGE 4 minute penalty kill. Love the aggressiveness to make the Rangers make mistakes. Great tone setter. Love the move by Hakstol: "Hey go take a 4 minute high sticking penalty so we can kill it off and get the people going" Genius. I see you. 

Also loving Gudas and Provorov on the PK together. 

1:41pm: DING DING DING!!!! KONENCY YOU DOG!! Flyers were going on the Powerplay for a bad hit on Brandon Maning so Konecny hits em with a crosscheck and takes him to the ground with the ground and pound! But FUCK they just announced Konency is getting two for instigating and a 10 minute misconduct. Bullshit he didn't even drop the gloves first. Let the kids play. 

​Here comes my bitching and moaning. 

1:45pm: Ryan McDonaugh just got hit with a screamer from the point and limped off the ice. Flyers need to capitalize. 

1:51pm: UGH. Flyers are putting all the pressure on the Rangers and then Scott Laughton just coughs the puck up in the defensive zone and hands the Rangers the first goal of the game. 

​1:56pm: WTF.... Steve Mason just looked like a pee wee as Puempel beats him easily for the Rangers second goal. Stevie needs to shape up. 

2:03pm: Brandon Manning off to a rough start. Gets hit from behind to start Konency's fight then takes a hit from Kreider and decides to drop the gloves at center ice. Manning stung him with a few jabs but took the L on the fight for sure. 

First period over Rangers up 2-0. The Flyers have been pushing the envelope on every shift but can't beat Hank just yet. Flyers gave up two soft goals so I'd be happy to see Mason pulled in favor of Stolarz before he lets up another softy. "

2:37pm: Why can't we control passes??????

2:38pm: 3 on 1 and Giroux"s point blank shot goes off Lundqvist's face. Unreal. Flyers can't catch a break.

2:45pm: This is a joke. The Flyers are dominating this game but for the second time just give the puck away in our zone and line the Rangers up for a tic tac toe goal. What the fuck guys? 

2:58pm: 2nd period over and I just have a bad taste in my mouth. This is what we get from the Flyers all the time. They play great but can't scrape across a goal and then just give up easy opportunities for opposing teams to capitalize and score easily on us. 3-0 Rangers and unless Hakstol's got some serious motivational speaking skills to light a fire under their ass for the 3rd, we can kiss this game goodbye. 

3:18pm: Great news- the Rangers are 12-0-0 this season when leading after two periods. 

3:19pm: ACTUALLY GREAT NEWS- Andrew MacDonald just chucks the puck in front and it ricochets in. Just the kind of break we needed. FUCK we're going to review....

GOOD GOAL LETS GO BABY!!! Flyers down 3-1 with 18 and a half minutes left in the game. 

3:45pm: Stevie just stonewalled Grabner!! Keep us alive Mason! If they would've scored off another turnover I would've thrown out my TV.

3:52pm: GHOST!!!!!! Clapper from the point gets us down 3-2 with two minutes left. We're still alive!!!!

3:55pm: Fuck. Unreal finish. Crazy pressure by the Flyers in the last 3 minutes really thought we were pushing the third one across in all that. If G doesn't fan on that one timer from Ghost we may be heading to overtime as we speak. 42 shots and two goals. Fuck Lundqvist is good. He's the king for a reason. Fuck the Rangers. But thank you Flyers for that last two minutes so I don't have to sulk for the rest of the day. 

Wash your filthy hands, Aleksander. I think what he just did to Henrik Lundqvist could go down as a Swedish hate crime. Thank you Aleks because fuck the Rangers!!

Erik Karlsson and the Ottawa Senators came to Philly last night and Steve Mason did everything he could to stave them off but the offense refused to cooperate. Nick Cousins scored his second goal of the year on a beautiful breakaway move and Michael Raffl also added his second on a #gritty face off win from Bellemare, a great shot by Del Zotto (thanks Rangers), and an easy trash goal for Mikey. Steve Mason stood on his head all night, including the majestic 3 on 3 OT, which ended as a tie thanks to Stevie winning the battle in a 2 on 0 with Karlsson and Turis coming in HOT. Then in SHOCKING fashion, the Flyers failed to score in the shootout and Stevie finally got beat by Karlsson, who notched his 399th career point in the NHL, in the fifth and final round. He is now one point away from becoming the 12th NHL defenseman with 400 points. The Flyers now sit at 7-7-3 which is a travesty considering how well they've been playing. It just seems like we take every 3rd period off and put ourselves in bad situations. The offense needs to wake up and help this defense and our two great goalies out for once. But if we're talking goalies I will say one bad thing: if we get beat by another wrap around goal this year I'm gonna fucking lose it. 

Oh boy that was an interesting game. I've been flipping back and forth between the World Series so I didn't get to see the full 60+ minutes but I saw the greatest OT in sports- the 3 on 3 hockey OT- and I got enough of what I need. Larkin got an early goal but the defense stood tall in overtime. IDK who it was down low in OT but why they didn't pull the trigger is beyond me. Defense pokes the puck out to center, G picks it up, slides it to Scoracek and that's the ball game folks. Flyers have been playing good hockey even though their record doesn't show it. G leads the league in assists. Matty Read is playing insane hockey, and Provorov and Konecny have been everything as advertised. In great news, the Red Wings haven't won in Philly since 1997, which is surprising but super dope. Now I need to get my ass to the Wells Fargo Center for a game soon. In the meantime, let's go Cubbies!!

P.S These 50th anniversary jerseys are the WORST