Stanley Cup

Maureen Powers, a police officer for Amtrak, uses a flashlight to illuminate the Stanley Cup for Dennis Henry to see where the names of this year's champions will be inscribed, last night at 30th Street Station.

The Stanley Cup hangover continues. On the day after the Rangers broke their 54-year date with dismay, a hockey halftime broke out at the basketball game. Mark Messier, the Rangers' team captain, did an encore performance with his sport's most precious trophy. One night after Messier and his teammates did the traditional victory celebration in some New York drinking establishment - sipping from the Cup, kissing the Cup, the whole deal - the captain came back to the Garden and raised high his prize.

A replica of the Stanley Cup made from 6,000 Lego bricks that was stolen from a Las Vegas show earlier this week has been found. Brian Copp, of Tucson, Ariz., told police he was working in Las Vegas when he bought the cup for $50. He contacted police when he saw an article about the stolen model in a newspaper. "He was being a good Samaritan," Tucson police spokeswoman Kathy Wendling said yesterday. "He was being a good kid, doing the right thing. " Copp could not immediately be reached for comment yesterday.

The Stanley Cup Finals lost nearly a quarter of what already was a small television audience. Anaheim's 1-0 win over Ottawa in Game 2 on Wednesday night got a 0.6 cable rating on Versus and was watched in 446,000 homes in the United States. The rating was down 33 percent from last year's second game, a 5-0 victory for Carolina over Edmonton, which received a 0.9 cable rating (600,000 homes) on OLN, as Versus was then known. The Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby, at 19 the youngest player in NHL history to get 100 points in a season and to win a scoring title, is now the youngest to wear the captain's C. The youngest previous captain was Tampa Bay's Vincent Lecavalier.

The Flyers will watch the Bruins raise the Stanley Cup championship banner when they open the season Oct. 6 in Boston. On their way to the Cup, the Bruins avenged a 2010 playoff loss with a four-game sweep of the Flyers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. In their second Winter Classic, the Flyers will host the New York Rangers at Citizens Bank Park at 1 p.m. Jan. 2. And former captain Mike Richards, traded Thursday to Los Angeles, will return with the Kings in the Flyers' fourth game of the season, Oct. 15. Oct. 6 at Boston, 7 p.m. Oct. 8 at New Jersey, 7 p.m. Oct. 12 Vancouver, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 Los Angeles, 7 p.m. Oct. 18 at Ottawa, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 Washington, 7 p.m. Oct. 22 St. Louis, 7 p.m. Oct. 24 Toronto, 7 p.m. Oct. 26 at Montreal, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 Winnipeg, 7 p.m. Oct. 29 Carolina, 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at Buffalo, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 3 New Jersey, 7 p.m. Nov. 5 Columbus, 7 p.m. Nov. 9 at Tampa Bay, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13 at Florida, 5 p.m. Nov. 14 at Carolina, 7 p.m. Nov. 17 Phoenix, 7 p.m. Nov. 19 at Winnipeg, 3 p.m. Nov. 21 Carolina, 7 p.m. Nov. 23 at N.Y. Islanders, 7 p.m. Nov. 25 Montreal, 1 p.m. Nov. 26 at N.Y. Rangers, 2 p.m. Dec. 2 at Anaheim, 10 p.m. Dec. 3 at Phoenix, 8 p.m. Dec. 7 at Buffalo, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 8 Pittsburgh, 7 p.m. Dec. 10 Tampa Bay, 7 p.m. Dec. 13 at Washington, 7 p.m....

To appreciate the best of what the NHL has to offer - the speed, skill and exquisite timing that attract the game's purists - it's necessary to gaze toward the Western Conference, where the power and entertainment are monopolized by four teams. In St. Louis, Colorado, Detroit and Dallas, the game is played at its highest and most enjoyable levels. So it will be surprising if the Stanley Cup is not hoisted by the Blues, Avalanche, Red Wings or Stars when the most grueling tournament in professional sports ends in the heat of mid-June.

For the next two months inside NHL dressing rooms stretching from Buffalo to Anaheim, the demand for painkillers, sutures, face shields, bandages and vials of ginseng extract will become more frequent. On the periphery of the games, the howls for justice and the accusations of foul play will grow louder, and the secrecy surrounding injuries to key players will be tightened. The Stanley Cup playoffs, the sporting world's most physically demanding tournament, begin tonight with the openers of four Western Conference series.

Last June the Flyers came within two wins of winning the Stanley Cup. Today, Flyers fans can pose and take pictures with the Stanley Cup and snag autographs from their favorite Flyers' alumni. Lord Stanley's mug will be at Ice Works in Aston, (3100 Duttons Mill Rd.) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Former Flyers Bill Clement, Brian Propp, Dave Schultz, Bob Kelly, Jim Watson, Joe Watson, Ed Hospodar and Kerry Huffman will be signing autographs at various times throughout the day. Admission is $5 per person or $10 per family, with all proceeds going to Flyers Charities including Hockey Fights Cancer, the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation and the Jenny Barber Cancer Fund.

The Flyers' struggles down the stretch have not dampened the expectations of Philadelphia sports fans, a year after the team's amazing run to the Stanley Cup finals. In a poll as part of the ongoing "Philly Fan Project" with the Daily News and Temple University's Sport Industry Research Center, 44 percent of respondents said they expected the Flyers to reach the Stanley Cup final, with 33 percent saying they expected the team to win. Another 30 percent said they expected the Flyers to lose in the Eastern Conference final, 19 percent said they will lose in the second round and 7 percent predicted a loss in the first round.

Good-natured Ilya Bryzgalov, the talkative, talented goalie whose availability caused the Flyers to make offseason (roster) gyrations that would have made Lady Gaga proud, welcomes the high expectations. But he also has words of caution for the fans who have been starving for a dominant netminder. Speaking with a thick Russian accent - he sometimes struggles to find the right words, but his English is very good - Bryzgalov acknowledged he has heard himself being mentioned in the same sentence as Bernie Parent, Pelle Lindbergh and Ron Hextall.

CAN THE FLYERS' system, as currently constructed, win a Stanley Cup? On the surface, the question seems easily dismissed. Peter Laviolette won a Stanley Cup in Carolina and went to the finals with a Flyers team only two seasons ago, using a pair of journeyman goalies, no less. And yet the way it has ended for him over the last two springs - his offensive-minded men bottled up haplessly in their own end by healthy, defensive-minded teams in Boston and New Jersey - has created not merely seeds of doubt, but weeds of it. And so, as they packed their bags up Thursday at Skate Zone, this was the overriding discussion: Did a team that dispatched the Stanley Cup-favorite Penguins with 30 goals in their first-round matchup, and had a week to rest and recharge, simply get outplayed by a sixth-seeded Devils team that had to rally just to push past Florida in seven games the previous series?

WHEN JAROMIR Jagr signed with the Flyers last summer, no one was sure what to expect this season. That includes Jagr. But after scoring 19 goals in the regular season and becoming one of the veteran leaders in the Flyers' dressing room, the $3.3 million the team spent on the 1-year deal to bring him back into the NHL proved to be a bargain. Now that the season is over, the 40-year-old Jagr isn't sure what 2012-13 will bring. "I really don't know what's going to happen," said Jagr, obviously dejected after Tuesday night's 3-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils that eliminated the Flyers from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

KIMMO TIMONEN twirled and dished the puck back, deeper into the Flyers' zone to try and shake a pressuring attacker. The puck landed on Ilya Bryzgalov's tape and by the time he could look up, David Clarkson was bearing down hot and heavy. With panic in his eyes, Bryzgalov tried to saucer the puck out of harm's way. It was a Bryzaster. Ultimately, Clarkson's series-clinching gift - after Bryzgalov's pass deflected off his outstretched stick and into the net - will be the forgettable, lasting image of the end of the Flyers' spring dreams.

The New York Rangers played what amounted to two games over two days just to get one win against the Capitals in Washington. Each team scored a goal in the second period, then skated up and down the ice for the next 83 minutes before Marian Gaborik gave the Rangers a 2-1 victory at 14 minutes, 41 seconds of the third overtime to end the 20th longest game in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs, a tense matchup that began on Wednesday night...

MAKING IT to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs is a sweet present for the Flyers' James Van Riemsdyk, especially after a concussion and a broken foot put a damper on his 2012 season. The forward scores his way to 23 on Friday. The stars say focus on the present, so JVR should keep his mind on the game. He can rest up after the Flyers win the Stanley Cup (wink, wink). Adrian Pasdar of "The Lying Game" bluffs his way to 47 on Monday. He has a reason to smile: ABC Family just picked up his show for another season.

SAVORING THE sweet taste of victory over a hated rival, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette did not want to get into picking an opponent for the second round on Monday. It's hard to blame him, after his team just dispatched the odds-on favorite to win the Stanley Cup. Not surprisingly, the Flyers went from a 14-1 shot to win the Eastern Conference to an 8-5 favorite on Monday. "At some point," Laviolette said, "we'll get an opponent and they'll tell us who and where we are going.

Sidney Crosby was making no excuses. On a day that his Pittsburgh Penguins team needed him to recapture his Stanley Cup-winning past, Crosby's lack of production drew notice. The Flyers closed out their first-round series with the Penguins with Sunday's 5-1 win at the Wells Fargo Center, winning this sometimes crazy matchup four games to two. On the surface, Crosby's statistics looked solid - three goals and five assists for eight points in the six games. Yet Crosby didn't register a point in the final two games.

Pascal Dupuis had no Mark Messier in him. Dupuis, the Penguins' scrappy forward, stopped short of guaranteeing a victory for Pittsburgh in Wednesday night's Game 4. His words were short and sweet, as the Penguins stare down being swept for the first time in 33 years. "It won't end like this," Dupuis said. That's a more tepid guarantee than the one Mark Messier delivered on behalf of the New York Rangers in a 1994 Game 6 matchup with the New Jersey Devils. He made good on the promise and the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup. For the Flyers, the benefits of ousting the pompous Penguins with a handshake on home ice are endless - including handing their hated rival the dubious distinction of being just the second team in the 94-year history of the sport to be swept in the first round following a 50-plus win season.

IF YOU HAVE watched the Flyers for the last several decades, and especially the Flyers in the playoffs - and you have done it with your eyes and not your heart - it would be hard for you not to have become a connoisseur of the reckless hit delivered with questionable intent. I mean, let's be honest. And another thing: It is important for everyone to remember that, in the National Hockey League, in April, there are no virgins. That said, the targeting of Flyers rookies Brayden Schenn (by Arron Asham)

THE BIGGEST moment of the New York Rangers' postseason-opening win came when play was stopped, and the top-seeded team in the East tried to catch its breath at the bench. The Rangers were nursing a one-goal lead in the second period, but the Ottawa Senators were all over them. Coach John Tortorella used his lone timeout, and shifted momentum completely. Marian Gaborik and Brian Boyle scored minutes apart shortly after, and the Rangers rolled to a 4-2 victory over the visiting Senators on Thursday night.