  (L-R)Michael Leighton, Antti Niemi. (Alex Urosevic/QMI Agency) 
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CHICAGO — On his way on to the ice for the first Stanley Cup final game of his life, Michael Leighton wound up awkwardly caught between the bench and the boards, all but stumbling his way on to the United Center ice.
That was how his night began.
It didn’t end any better.
Leighton started Game 1 of the final and unlike Roy Halladay he was anything but perfect for Philadelphia. Looking every bit the castoff goalie who had been waived and waived and waived some more, Leighton lasted all of 35 minutes and 18 seconds, 25 shots and five goals in
Game 1 before coach Peter Laviolette went to the bullpen. A quality start this wasn’t for the Flyers or for their shocking starting goalie.
“I’m over it,” said Leighton afterwards, trying to put a reasonable face on a situation that hardly looked reasonable. “There’s one or two (of the goals) I’d like to have back.”
Laviolette may view it differently: It was easy to wonder if Leighton could have stopped four of the five he allowed, easy to wonder if this Stanley Cup matchup of nobody goaltenders will mean more last-goal-win games — or to quote Glenn Healy: “First save wins.” — in the Stanley Cup final.
Game 1 ended with the Chicago Blackhawks coming from behind three times to beat the Flyers 6-5 in a game where it looked as though both teams were determined to lose. Leighton, who doesn’t end up as the losing goalie because Brian Boucher gave up just one goal, the sixth, played horribly, not only allowing five goals, but fighting almost any puck that was anywhere near the Flyers net.
He tripped and stumbled off the ice: He did the same on it.
“That wasn’t the kind of game I expected to see,” said Boucher, who faced 12 shots and played reasonably in the Philadelphia net for the final 24 minutes and two seconds, although he allowed the winning goal to Tomas Kopecky, which he had no chance on.
“It was a crazy game right from the start. I don’t think we’re going to see another game like that one.”
Now comes decision time for coach Laviolette. Who starts Game 2 for Philadelphia? He wasn’t saying last night. In fact, he wasn’t saying much of anything that mattered.
“I don’t know what he’s thinking?” Leighton said.
“After a game like that, I do know you need bad short-term memory,” Boucher said. “You just need to forget about it.”
The best goalies at the United Center Saturday were Ryan Miller, working for NBC, and Tony Esposito, working the room in the retired players’ box. There was even Healy and Kelly Hrudey and Kevin Weekes and John Garrett somewhere in the building working for various networks.
All of them more capable than what was seen Saturday night.
“Well, at least we’ve given you guys a storyline for tomorrow,” said Flyers’ winger Scott Hartnell of the goaltending intrigue. “Bottom line, we need to tighten up. They need to tighten up. We’ll see what happens after that.”
Adversity
In a way, the play of Leighton, the Flyers’ up-and-down scrambly effort relinquishing three leads, was the Flyers season in three short periods. They had to switch goalies. They had to face some adversity. They had some great moments, some awful moments, and in the end wound up as their own worst enemy. Chicago scored six goals and none of them came from the red-hot line of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien. That made the Flyers feel even worse about the defeat.
“It’s up to everybody to clean this up,” said Chris Pronger, who played more than 32 minutes, almost four more than anybody else, and was a plus-two on a night of minuses for Philadelphia. “They had four (on Leighton, actually five) and could have had four more. That’s on us, not him. We have to play a lot more defence.”
They have to get better goaltending. Expect Brian Boucher to start Game 2 and that’s not necessarily comforting. The Cup final is only one game old and already it is crisis time for the Flyers.
