Van Riemsdyk

James van Riemsdyk had a coming-out party on Thursday night. The much-maligned Flyers winger scored two goals - the second with 32.8 seconds left - to give the Flyers a riveting, 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks before a roaring, sellout crowd at the Wells Fargo Center. Van Riemsdyk converted a Scott Hartnell pass while the Flyers were on a power play because of a high-sticking penalty by their old nemesis, Patrick Kane. "He put it right on my tape, and all I had to do was close my eyes and put it in," van Riemsdyk said after scoring his 11th goal.

TORONTO - It has taken him a dozen games, but James van Riemsdyk is finally getting used to seeing himself in the fabled blue and white of the Maple Leafs. If it feels like the Flyers and van Riemsdyk parted ways forever ago, you aren't wrong. He was dealt on June 23, not long after the NHL draft wrapped up in Pittsburgh. The NHL lockout left him in limbo. He wasn't allowed to wear the Maple Leafs logo, but he wanted to ditch his familiar Flyers equipment and start over. "A weird, kind of in-between feeling," van Riemsdyk said.

TWO TEAMS ARE still battling for Lord Stanley's mug, yet James van Riemsdyk already has made at least one trip to Darien, Conn., to hunt for an offseason residence. While not far, Darien is not exactly near the beach - and it's certainly not within close proximity to a lake stocked with bass or trout. Van Riemsdyk's goal is not to hang out with his buddies, to catch rays or check out women on the beach, or to pack on the pounds one Bud Light at a time. Van Riemsdyk's pilgrimage to Darien is to train for next season.

Flyers Notes NEWARK, N.J. - When Claude Giroux , the Flyers' diminutive center, was smacked into the boards by Boston's mammoth Zdeno Chara during Thursday's second period, James van Riemsdyk didn't hesitate. He went after Chara. "That," Flyers center Danny Briere said, "took a lot of guts. " Chara is 6-foot-9, 260 pounds. Van Riemsdyk is 6-3, 200. "I think those type of circumstances are really good for building a team," coach Peter Laviolette said before Saturday night's game against the New Jersey Devils.

WHEN CONTRACT negotiations between James van Riemsdyk and the Flyers started to heat up the past few weeks, van Riemsdyk had just one request for agent Alec Schall. He wanted a contract extension that wouldn't clog up the Flyers' salary cap down the road, in order to allow enough money to be spread around to keep the team competitive. Van Riemsdyk inked a 6-year, $25.5 million contract extension, which was completed on Monday but finally registered by the NHL yesterday. "I couldn't be happier," van Riemsdyk said on a conference call.

JVR had dreamed of his return, but his nightmare was coming true. James van Riemsdyk sat in the penalty box midway through the third period. He had held and he had hooked and he had drawn two minor penalties, and the Flyers had just cut his Maple Leafs' lead in half - into the first power play. He envisioned maybe winning the game himself; something dashing, down the left boards, late, giving the Flyers get a whiff of what they wasted. Instead, thanks to him, the Flyers whittled the lead to one. Worse, he had another 2 minutes to watch, and to wither.

PITTSBURGH - In a trade that was rumored since last season, the Flyers dealt left winger James van Riemsdyk to Toronto for rugged defenseman Luke Schenn on Saturday. Schenn, 22, will be reunited with his brother, Brayden, a 20-year-old Flyers center. We're pretty close," Luke Schenn said in a conference call with reporters. "It's surreal right now. It's hard to describe how cool this is. " The younger Schenn "couldn't believe it," Luke Schenn said. "He told me it was a dream come true.

As the Flyers inch closer to the midpoint in their grueling, 82-game march, coach Peter Laviolette looks at James van Riemsdyk's season in two distinct parts: from Nov. 18 until the present, and the first chunk of games prior to that. Van Riemsdyk's stats paint a clear enough picture, with just four assists and no goals to show for his first 15 games and nine goals and five assists in the 20 games since. On the ice, he looks like a totally different player. "He's skating," Laviolette said.

THE MOST important goal of James van Riemsdyk's professional life came at 17:12 of the first period of Game 7 last year against the Boston Bruins. His first playoff goal, it will always be remembered as the ignition switch for a Flyers comeback - down by 3-0 in games, down by 3-0 in Game 7 - that belongs now to history. It is a privilege to be involved in a forever kind of memory at such a young age - but it doesn't change the process. Win that game or lose it, score that goal or not score it, and van Riemsdyk's task this season was the same: to go about the business of trying to develop into an elite NHL player.