Claude Giroux

IF YOU'RE not from Philly and you wander into Wednesday night's Flyers playoff game, you'll hear the high-pitched chants of little children blending with the roars of their proud parents, and you'll assume that the Pittsburgh Penguins have a star player named "Crosby Sucks. " On Sunday, as the Flyers clobbered the Penguins, 8-4, to take a commanding 3-0 lead in their best-of-seven first-round playoff, Crosby Sucks repeatedly started fights, knowing that his teammates would finish them to preserve his concussion-prone head.

Like Domonic Brown, Claude Giroux will benefit from being on a team with a lot of established players who know the ropes. The Flyers have a 25-year-old captain in Mike Richards who will be expected to shoulder the heavy lifting. Giroux has been a big-time point generator at every level. During his rookie season with the Gatineau Olympiques in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, he had 39 goals and 103 points in just 69 games. The Flyers drafted him 22nd overall in 2006, and he proceeded to post two more hundred-point seasons in juniors, including 112 points in 63 games in his second season for Gatineau.

Position: Right wing Height, weight: 5-11, 180 Age: 22 Birthdate: Jan. 12, 1988 Hometown: Born and raised in Hearst, Ontario Years pro: 2 How acquired: Selected by Flyers in the first round (No. 22 overall) of the 2006 draft This year: Giroux didn't have the breakout sophomore regular-season campaign many hoped he would, notching 16 goals and 31 assists; he had a minus-9 rating in 82 games. But like many of his teammates, the playmaking puck wizard has far exceeded expectations in the playoffs, collecting nine goals and 11 assists in 20 games.

The Philadelphia Flyers hold "The Meeting" every spring, and this was the one in 2006. The team employs more than a dozen scouts, scattered in outposts around the globe. Their task is both simple and simply daunting: to identify kids who will grow up to look good in orange and black. In the weeks before the NHL draft, the scouts gather to assemble and sift through a list of these kids. Arguments are had. Voices are raised. It is the scouts' business, after all, and their passions are being tested, their reputations on the line.

The concussion changes the perception, just a little. Even if his recovery is complete, it is hard to forget a period of December days when just a slow turn on the ice left him feeling sick. That was Claude Giroux's existence as the year neared its end. That the feeling passed is to be celebrated. He can only hope that that the healing is complete, and that 2011 will be remembered for what it was. That is, the year he became a star. That is the word: star. As he sat down with his concussion, Giroux led the National Hockey League in points.

"This year, he's really spread his wings. " — Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, on Claude Giroux Flyers center Claude Giroux has spread his wings, all right. Spread them from Anaheim to South Florida and all stops in between. One year after a breakout season in which he earned his first all-star spot, the 23-year-old Giroux is a legitimate MVP candidate. The award has been won by just two Flyers - Bobby Clarke (three times) and Eric Lindros in 1994-95. And with the Pittsburgh Penguins coming into the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night, it's not a stretch to wonder if the game will match two of the NHL's best players: the incomparable Sidney Crosby and the fast-rising Giroux.

SUNRISE, Fla. - For the Flyers, there are lots of positives at the all-star break, which officially started with their hard-earned 3-2 shootout win over Florida on Tuesday night. Backup goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who improved to 11-4-1, stopped all three shots in the shootout at the BankAtlantic Center. Bobrovsky made 23 saves in the game and could not be faulted on either goal, and he gave the Flyers their first win in four shootouts this season. "I don't think we had our best effort tonight, and he made some key saves - and obviously three big stops in the shootout," said Brayden Schenn, who scored the Flyers' first goal midway through the first period.

THE DAY WAS May 9, 1974. Bobby Clarke had just scored two goals against the Boston Bruins in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals, including the game-winner in overtime. The Flyers had not won a game in Boston in 7 years and 19 attempts, and that moment is widely viewed as the turning point of a series that brought the Flyers their first Cup. That day, his coach, Fred Shero, said, "You know, Clarke is the best player in the league, not just from me . . . [The Russians think] Clarke, he's the best we have over here.

Flyers Notes A year ago, center Claude Giroux had a so-so regular season with the Flyers, and defenseman Andrej Meszaros managed just 17 points and was minus-14 with Tampa Bay. It would have been difficult to foresee what transpired this season. Before Saturday night's season finale against the Islanders at the Wells Fargo Center, both were honored as the Flyers' top players. Giroux won the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the team's MVP, and Meszaros won the Barry Ashbee Trophy as its best defenseman in a vote by sportswriters and broadcasters.

CLAUDE GIROUX became the face of the Flyers this year. By winning the 2012 John Wanamaker Athletic Award, he has become the embodiment of Philadelphia sports. Giroux was selected from among 10 finalists for the award, a list that included LeSean McCoy, Bernard Hopkins and Hunter Pence. He had a career-high 93 points. "This year's recipients are wonderful representatives of the caliber of individuals in the Philadelphia sports community," said David Montgomery, the chairman of the Philadelphia Sports Congress.

It is not a pretty snapshot. The new-look Flyers fell apart in astonishing fashion in the second round of the playoffs. Meanwhile, the jettisoned cornerstones of the old-look Flyers are preparing for the Western Conference finals as members of the Los Angeles Kings. It is hard to look at that picture without concluding that Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren took a gamble and lost when he radically remade the team last summer. But this snapshot is not the complete picture, because the complete picture is not available yet. Even if Mike Richards and Jeff Carter skate with the Stanley Cup this year, the picture will not be complete.

THE BLOOD HAS barely dried on the Flyers' season, yet so many questions remain after their shocking second-round departure at the hands of the New Jersey Devils. Here are answers to five burning questions: 1. Will Jaromir Jagr return? Judging by the way Jagr performed in the regular season, with 54 points in 73 games, the Flyers would love to have the No. 9 all-time point scorer in league history back for another campaign. Judging by the way Jagr performed in the postseason, with eight quiet points in 11 games, the Flyers could probably think of better ways to spend money in a salary-cap world.

IT IS HARD not to think back to Game 1 of the Flyers-Devils playoff series, which is the last time anything made sense. The Flyers came out lethargically in that game, which was entirely predictable after sitting around for a week following their first-round series against Pittsburgh. Then they came out for the second period and established their game, fast and physical and relentless — again, exactly what most people thought would happen. It took until overtime to win it, because goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov let the Devils back into the game in the third period, but that was not entirely unexpected, either.

SIGHTS, sounds and observations from the Flyers-Devils series: *It was interesting to watch Danny Briere give out pointers to Zac Rinaldo during the morning practice on Tuesday. It was as if Briere was saying, "when Volchenkov gets along the half boards, you smear him. " *Briere, who is just about always accessible before and after games, was too distraught to speak after Game 5 and asked if he could skip the postgame media availability. *It's time to retire Kate Smith from the pregame National Anthem ceremonies.

Claude Giroux's one-game suspension caused Flyers coach Peter Laviolette to tinker with his lines, a common occurrence in this Turnpike Series with the New Jersey Devils. With his team facing elimination Tuesday, Laviolette started the night with four different lines from the ones that he primarily used Sunday. The first-period lines: Matt Read centering Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr; Danny Briere centering Brayden Schenn and Jakub Voracek; Eric Wellwood centering James van Riemsdyk and Wayne Simmonds; and Sean Couturier centering Max Talbot and Zac Rinaldo.

AND SO, THIS is how it ends, one of those only-in-Philadelphia nights. It is a story that we pass down through the hockey generations, like baldness. The Flyers lost a playoff series to the New Jersey Devils and this will be the enduring symbol from the final game: Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, trying to shoot a puck away from the front of his net, away to safety, instead seeing the puck picked out of the air by Devils forward David Clarkson and ricocheting behind him and into the goal.

Playing without suspended star Claude Giroux, the Flyers were trying to stave off elimination against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night. "G's been our best player all year. We owe him one," winger Zac Rinaldo said before the game, before he sparked the Flyers with five first-period hits. "This one is for him. " Well, they'll have to pay the debt another time. The New Jersey Devils eliminated the Flyers, 3-1, and won the Eastern Conference semifinal series, four games to one. A Flyers season that had seemed so promising after they jolted the Stanley Cup favorite Pittsburgh Penguins came to a crashing end. The Flyers lost the last four games to the hungrier Devils; they had not lost four straight all season.

Players to watch FLYERS: Danny Briere Without their leading scorer in Claude Giroux, who was suspended for Game 5, all eyes will be on Briere, the Flyer next likely to make magic. DEVILS: Martin Brodeur The toughest pill to swallow for the Flyers, if they are eliminated, will be the fact that Brodeur has been beatable in this series. They just haven't had the sustained pressure and chances to compete. Three keys to the game   1. The Flyers need to play with desperation, a trait clearly missing in Sunday's dreadful Game 4 loss in Newark.

IF THE FLYERS have any dreams of digging out of their self-created crater against the New Jersey Devils, beginning Tuesday night with Game 5, they are going to have to do it without their top point producer and leader. That's because the NHL decided on Monday to suspended Flyers star Claude Giroux for one game as a result of his high hit on New Jersey's Dainius Zubrus late in Game 4. The suspension seemed to surprise many around the Flyers organization, since the game that Giroux - who previously had a spotless disciplinary record - will miss what just happens to be the one game in which the Flyers are facing elimination for the first time this season.