Exhibition: Flyers vs Pens July 28th

[pilldoc]

Tues., July 28
Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia – NBCSN – 4 p.m. ET

 

Trying to get some normalcy back ......  Here is 1st game we can discuss....

[flyercanuck]

KILL THEM! CROSBY SUCKS! THE PENS BLOW! MALKENSTEIN IS UGLY! 

 

Man that felt good!

[mojo1917]

I think pgh is the other team no one wants to play. 

They're healthy now, that roster is pretty deep; good quality in the forwards and the top 2 D pairings are well above average.

I think they can be had- But this is a team to be reckoned with IMO

 

I still sports hate them too. 

[pilldoc]

46 minutes ago, mojo1917 said:

I think pgh is the other team no one wants to play. 

They're healthy now, that roster is pretty deep; good quality in the forwards and the top 2 D pairings are well above average.

I think they can be had- But this is a team to be reckoned with IMO

 

I still sports hate them too. 

I just want them to beat MTL.  I don’t want them even sniffing a chance to draft Alexis Lafrenière. Somehow I’m sure Buttman would make that happen. 
 

Pens beat the Habs then lose!!!

[OccamsRazor]

 

[Digityman]

This is tomorrow.  

Can you believe that?

[OccamsRazor]

Never had hockey in July before...

[pilldoc]

40 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

Never had hockey in July before...

 

bizzaro world for sure .......

[OccamsRazor]

11 minutes ago, pilldoc said:

 

bizzaro world for sure .......

 

I have to say i am praying for all that are involved health but i have to say i am very excited to watch some hockey. Asterisk or not.

[OccamsRazor]

So the team has been announced:

Forwards (17)

Andy Andreoff, No. 10
Nicolas Aube-Kubel, No. 62    
Connor Bunnaman, No. 82     
Sean Couturier, No. 14
Joel Farabee, No. 49
Morgan Frost, No. 48
Claude Giroux, No. 28
Derek Grant, No. 38
Kevin Hayes, No. 13
Travis Konecny, No. 11
Scott Laughton, No. 21
Oskar Lindblom, No. 23
Tyler Pitlick, No. 18
Michael Raffl, No. 12
Nate Thompson, No. 44
James van Riemsdyk, No. 25  
Jakub Voracek, No. 93   

Defensemen (10)

Justin Braun, No. 61
Mark Friedman, No. 59    
Shayne Gostisbehere, No. 53
Robert Hagg, No. 8
Philippe Myers, No. 5
Matt Niskanen, No. 15
Ivan Provorov, No. 9
Travis Sanheim, No. 6
Andy Welinski, No. 3
Egor Zamula, No. 54

Goalies (four)

Brian Elliott, No. 37
Carter Hart, No. 79
Alex Lyon, No. 34
Kirill Ustimenko, No. 67

 

Ready to watch!!!!!!!!!

[OccamsRazor]

For Tuesday's exhibition game, the Flyers and Penguins will each be permitted to start 13 forwards and seven defensemen.

 

Claude Giroux - Sean Couturier - Jakub Voracek
Scott Laughton - Kevin Hayes - Travis Konecny
James van Riemsdyk - Derek Grant - Tyler Pitlick
Joel Farabee/ Michael Raffl - Nate Thompson - Michael Raffl/ Nic Aube-Kubel

Ivan Provorov - Matt Niskanen
Travis Sanheim - Phil Myers
Robert Hägg - Justin Braun
Shayne Gostisbehere - Mark Friedman

Carter Hart
Brian Elliott

 

So i wonder who doesn't play??? I would guess Friedman on the blueline but at forward it gets trickier or who will be left out.

 

 

[AJgoal]

 

So we don't know who the two D that will sit are, but I would assume they'd be guys who are locks to play once the round robin starts - though AV said they would use the round robin as sort of a pre-season. Niskanen/Provorov might make sense, since they're set as a pair, they're not coming out of the lineup, and probably need the least tuning up. 

 

Forwards then are 

Giroux - Couturier - Voracek

Laughton - Hayes - Konecny

JVR - Grant - Pitlick

Raffl - Thompson - NAK - Farabee

[AlaskaFlyerFan]

Zamula must've had a good training camp to make the playoff roster right out of Junior!!

[flyercanuck]

9 minutes ago, AlaskaFlyerFan said:

Zamula must've had a good training camp to make the playoff roster right out of Junior!!

 

He's like the defensive version of NAK!

[OccamsRazor]

11 minutes ago, AlaskaFlyerFan said:

Zamula must've had a good training camp to make the playoff roster right out of Junior!!

 

And off of back surgery it's what cut his junior season short.

 

It's good foe the kids to get the experience as much as they can soak up.

[OccamsRazor]

Enjoy...

O’Connor’s Observations: Analyzing the Flyers’ roster and early Phase 4 thoughts

By Charlie O'Connor Jul 27, 2020

 

https://theathletic.com/1951821/2020/07/27/oconnors-observations-analyzing-the-flyers-roster-and-early-phase-4-thoughts/

 

The training camp portion of the Philadelphia Flyers’ return-to-play process is over. Now, it’s time for the actual hockey.

Saturday marked the final day of Phase 3. Sunday was travel day, as the team hopped on a flight and settled into its new home in Toronto, where it will remain as long as it keeps winning games and advancing in the postseason. But before the games can begin, the participants needed to be named. On Sunday, that’s what the Flyers did, announcing their 31-man roster for Phase 4 — the playing phase.

Who made the cut? Who stayed back in the Philadelphia area? And what considerations played into the organization’s decisions? It’s a special roster-focused edition of O’Connor’s Observations.

---

1. No major roster surprises

The Flyers’ 31-man roster for the Phase 4 bubble in Toronto had little in the way of surprises, mostly because the names that might have been earthshaking were teased days in advance.

Had general manager Chuck Fletcher not revealed last week that Oskar Lindblom was likely to make the roster, the 23-year-old’s appearance on the list would have been mind-blowing. And absent the effusive praise Fletcher and company heaped upon top defensive prospect Yegor Zamula during camp, his addition might have shocked as well. Instead, both players’ inclusion on the playoff roster largely elicited a “we knew that was coming” response from Flyers observers.

Still, the presence of a player who seven months ago was diagnosed with cancer and a 20-year-old prospect who has yet to appear in a professional game should turn some heads around the league. Beyond Lindblom and Zamula, though, the Flyers largely went with chalk picks. There was no “crazy” omission assumed to be a lock. There were the obligatory “reliable veteran” selections of the Andys, Andreoff and Welinski. Morgan Frost and Mark Friedman took up their expected spots. And the Flyers went with a 17 forward-10 defensemen-four goalie mix that keeps them sufficiently deep at each position, even with Lindblom unavailable to play for at least for the start of the tournament.

Carsen Twarynski, German Rubtsov, Tyler Wotherspoon and Nate Prosser were the final cuts, and only Twarynski seemed like a viable possibility for the final squad. Rubtsov’s offensive play disintegrated in the second half of the AHL season, and Prosser and Wotherspoon are more just good AHL blueliners than players any team would want to toss into NHL postseason action.

Consider the two-week training camp an unqualified success for the Flyers. There were no major injuries. None of the “favorites” for roster spots played poorly enough to lose their spots. And no one got sick. Now, it’s time for the real games.

2. Zamula earns his spot

Last Tuesday, I broke the “bubble” players into two groups: six players who felt like locks (Frost, Connor Bunnaman, Alex Lyon, Friedman, Welinski, Andreoff) and six whose cases were less clear-cut. Four of the latter group failed to make the team. Kirill Ustimenko did, but his potential inclusion was always going to be more about whether the Flyers decided to bring four goalies or stick with three, a strategic decision more than anything else. In other words, the only player in the latter group who traditionally “earned” his way onto the roster was Zamula.

He did it the old-fashioned way: by outplaying his competition. It’s not that Prosser and Wotherspoon were noticeably poor in practices and scrimmages; they just weren’t noticeable, period. Zamula, on the other hand, popped. He wasn’t mistake-free, but he flashed passing ability, elusiveness with the puck at the point, and the poise that is the hallmark of his skill set. If the goal was to take the 10 best defensemen in the organization to Toronto, then the team had to bring Zamula; he showed he was one of them over the past two weeks.

There’s another reason it made sense, despite Zamula’s youth and lack of experience. If the Flyers are dealing with enough absences on defense that the ninth or 10th player on the blue-line depth chart is forced into action, they’ll be in emergency mode — and in that situation, doesn’t it make sense to go with the higher-upside option? Wotherspoon or Prosser likely would avoid glaring mistakes if called into action, but the chances of them positively impacting the outcome of a game seems slim. Yes, Zamula could fall flat on his face if he plays. But he also has the talent to step in for Ivan Provorov or Travis Sanheim on the left side and actually have a chance of replacing a bit of what they bring to the table. Zamula is a high-variance injury-replacement option, and if the straits are so dire as to force the last defenseman on the depth chart into a game, take the risk of disaster for a better chance at glory.

3. Lindblom’s inspiring story continues

On Wednesday, Fletcher all but promised that Lindblom would be on the Phase 4 roster, but he came just short of calling it a certainty. On Sunday, any remaining doubt disappeared when Lindblom, medically cleared to return to the ice after seven months of successful cancer treatments, was on the list.

Lindblom didn’t travel with the Flyers to Toronto; he is in Sweden visiting family. But according to Fletcher, Lindblom will join the team in the “near future.” Once there, he’ll be able to work out, skate and practice with his teammates, with the goal of eventually pulling off a heartwarming comeback.

But when will that comeback happen? Fletcher notably did not rule out the possibility of Lindblom returning for the playoffs. There’s a reason he’s on the 31-man roster; the Flyers could have easily brought him along for moral support but not put him on the active roster, keeping the spot for a player who isn’t coming off cancer. But optimism about his status notwithstanding, it doesn’t make sense to view a Lindblom playoff return scenario to be anything close to an inevitability. We’re talking about a player who has barely been on the ice since December, whose body was ravaged by months of treatments and surgery. It’s going to take a while before Lindblom is close to being physically game-ready.

At the very least, Lindblom can use this time in the bubble to jumpstart his comeback and put himself in better position for 2020-21. But if the Flyers are playing into September and October in pursuit of the Stanley Cup, maybe it’s not completely bonkers to imagine their beloved left winger returning to action.

4. Twarynski the highest-profile cut

Twarynski knew he didn’t have his roster spot locked up; he said as much last weekend at the midpoint of camp. But considering his penchant for surprisingly impressive training camps — he stuck around much longer than expected in 2018 and successfully made the team out of camp in 2019 — it wasn’t ridiculous to assume Twarynski would again defy expectations and earn a spot.

Unfortunately for him, it appears he came up a bit short.

Twarynski didn’t have a terrible camp. He flashed his plus shot on occasion and looked far more like the keep-it-simple, north-south player from September than the merely fine player this season in the AHL after being sent down. However, it’s fair to note that the Flyers have seen this movie before with Twarynski: strong camp, then quickly falls back to earth. Especially after the team decided Lindblom would make the final roster, betting that Twarynski could carry over his strong camp to games this time just didn’t have the most favorable odds.

5. Farabee still battling for a lineup spot

Joel Farabee got first crack at the second-line left wing job in camp, and made a strong case for himself in the audition. But Saturday, the final day of camp, he received a reminder that his lineup spot is far from a given.

With Scott Laughton getting a look back at wing alongside Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny on Line 2, and Nate Thompson still holding his spot as 4C, Farabee found himself in a rotation with Nicolas Aubé-Kubel for the final fourth-line wing spot, and NAK appeared to be getting more of the reps. Suddenly, Farabee looked every bit the part of a 13th forward, at least in terms of his standing.

“I’m kind of a bubble guy right now,” he acknowledged Saturday after practice. “Just staying ready. If the team needs me, I’ll be ready to go.”

Few would disagree that Farabee is one of the 12 best Flyers forwards right now. But the realities of position- and role-related considerations don’t exactly work in his favor. If Laughton ends up playing the wing — likely on Line 2 with Hayes and Konecny, considering how effective the trio was at the end of the regular season — that means Thompson almost certainly has to be in the lineup as a center. And if Thompson comes in, someone has to come out. Players such as Aubé-Kubel, Michael Raffl and Tyler Pitlick did nothing during the season to warrant a demotion, and all three play more of a traditional “bottom-sixer” style than Farabee, which surely doesn’t help his case in the eyes of the coaches.

My view is that the best lineup includes Farabee. He was extremely impressive in camp with both Hayes and Derek Grant, and after four months off, the 20-year-old looks refreshed and ready to be an X-factor in the playoffs for Philadelphia. But if Saturday showed us anything, it’s that Farabee still has to earn his lineup spot through his work in the exhibition and round-robin games. He hasn’t won it yet.

6. Flyers go with four goalies

Carter Hart and Brian Elliott were obviously going to make the 31-man roster, and Lyon was a near-cinch as well. But it was unclear before Sunday whether Kirill Ustimenko would head to Toronto, giving the Flyers four netminders for the playoffs. Ultimately, Fletcher and company chose to bring the 21-year-old along.

Not every team brought four goalies. As Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston pointed out, there was almost a 50-50 split between teams that carried three available goalies on their rosters and clubs that opted for the extra insurance of a fourth. Boston, Calgary, Carolina, Chicago, Dallas, Florida, Minnesota, Montreal, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Winnipeg went the same four-goalie route as the Flyers, while the other 11 clubs chose to bring three netminders.

In a sense, the “three goalies or four?” debate is mostly just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; if you’re in a situation in the playoffs where your fourth goalie might get into a game, your season is essentially over anyway. And considering that Ustimenko spent the majority of 2019-20 in the ECHL, it’s fair to assume he’s not ready to serve as a postseason hero for the Flyers. Still, the team’s decision to add him shows it has at least a degree of confidence he wouldn’t be completely overmatched if forced to play, and that the Flyers chose a more “risk-averse” course from a lineup construction standpoint.

7. Therrien talks power play, Giroux experiment

With Alain Vigneault not on the ice and not available to talk Saturday — don’t worry, he was on the plane to Toronto — assistant coach Michel Therrien handled media duties, just as Mike Yeo did for a day earlier in camp. Most of the questions for Therrien were about the logistics of the end of camp, but he was also asked about the power play he oversees — specifically, why the unit began firing on all cylinders as the season was coming to a close. Therrien quickly launched into a discussion of one of the coaching staff’s most controversial strategies from 2019-20: the attempt to try Claude Giroux on the right side of the power-play formation rather than his usual left side, an experiment that was abandoned to positive effect late in the year.

“We tried G on his strong side, and he’s been (used) to (playing) on his forehand side, but we wanted to go through that process, about getting used to (playing) on the right side, too,” Therrien said. “We want to have different looks. It takes time to work on the different looks. It takes time for players to feel comfortable on different looks.”

It’s an intriguing argument. Essentially, Therrien appears to be saying the Flyers had a pretty good idea that it would be an adjustment for Giroux to set up shop on the right side for an extended stretch, and that the experiment might result in a short-term downgrade in the unit’s effectiveness. But according to Therrien, he was playing a longer game with the move. By giving Giroux lots of reps on the right side, the thinking goes, Giroux would be forced to become better in the unfamiliar spot, which would give Therrien another wrinkle to use mid-game or even mid-shift.

Giroux is better on the left side, which the coaching staff essentially acknowledged in February when it moved Giroux back there. And it’s pretty easy to argue that the Flyers waited too long to move Giroux back, especially because Philadelphia was still on the playoff bubble as late as early February. But based on Therrien’s comments, it sounds like the Flyers always intended to eventually get Giroux back in his “best” spot.

8. Will offenses or defenses have the early edge?

No one knows what the games this week will look like, considering the four-month layoff, absence of fans and general weirdness of the entire situation. But that doesn’t mean fans and players can’t theorize about the nature of play, especially in the round robin and early stages of the playoffs. How different will it be from “normal” hockey?

Justin Braun was asked if he felt that the defenses might start out the tournament a bit ahead of the creative scorers, considering the difficulty of recapturing the kind of unconscious chemistry needed to execute high-difficulty passing plays. Braun, a defensive-defenseman at heart, would benefit if defenses started a leg up on the offenses. But he’s not sure how it will play out.

“It can go either way,” he said. “Most of the time in the summer, when you’re playing pickup hockey, you’re focused all on offense. You’re not defending very hard. So I think getting that part of it defensively — ending plays and getting physical, that takes a little time, too. It’s good we have the exhibition game to get into that, too. But offensively, it’s going to be tough for those guys. We are checking tight to make those quick plays, know where guys are going to be. Everyone skates well, shuts space down really quick. It could got either way. It’s going to be a little difficult for both sides at the start.

9. Dave Scott addresses the possibility of fans at games in 2020-21

On Thursday, Comcast Spectacor CEO Dave Scott met with the media, and as the person in the organization who has essentially taken up the “Ed Snider role,” he has more theoretical power to shape the Flyers than most realize. So when he’s asked about the organization’s outlook on the possibility of fans in the stands at Wells Fargo Center games in 2020-21, it’s a good idea to pay attention.

“In terms of what it does financially, our idea was always to start with social distancing as we came back for the next season,” Scott said. “It hurts a little bit, but it’s not the end of the world. The goal is start the next season, at least have the games on television. Never really had the expectation by this fall or late this year, we’d really be in in a position to have fans in the building. But I think as we get into calendar ’21, we’ve got a lot of thoughts around social distancing and kind of ramping up from there as people feel safer. Hopefully we get a vaccination at some point here in the not so distant future.”

10. Flyers in a ‘sweet spot’ when it comes to expectations?

In terms of playoff experience, Matt Niskanen is the Flyers’ grizzled vet: 125 games over 10 separate playoff runs, including a magical 2018 postseason during which his Washington Capitals finally secured the Stanley Cup. Niskanen has been on different kinds of teams, including underdogs, teams expected to win and teams the pundits have given little chance. So what’s his read on this Flyers team, and the prevailing mentality in the locker room entering the playoffs?

“I’ve been on a couple where the feeling is, ‘I hope we do well. I hope we can maybe win a round,'” Niskanen said. “Then I’ve been on some teams where you’re expected to make the Final at the minimum. We’re probably somewhere in between. The sense I get (is) where we believe that we could do something, but I don’t think there’s a cloud hanging over us of the pressure that we have to win or bad things are going to happen. I think we’re in a great spot where we have potential to make some noise, and who knows what could happen. We believe in each other. But there’s not an overbearing weight of pressure. I think that’s a nice sweet spot to be in where we’ll see what we can do.”

Edited July 28, 2020 by OccamsRazor

[OccamsRazor]

What if Frost can steal the 3rd line center spot between JVR and NAK?

 

Bump Grant to the 4th with Laughton and Pitlick.

 

Giroux - Coots - Jake

Farabee - Hayes - TK

JVR - Frost - NAK

Laughton - Grant - Pitlick

 

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by OccamsRazor
Just a thought....bourbon talking aloud...

[AJgoal]

2 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

What if Frost can steal the 3rd line center spot between JVR and NAK?

 

Bump Grant to the 4th with Laughton and Pitlick.

 

Giroux - Coots - Voracek

Farabee - Hayes - TK

JVR - Frost - NAK

Laughton - Grant - Pitlick

 

 

 

I would certainly consider that, but it doesn't look like the coaches are at the moment. Anything can change in the round robin, but they seem content to pick from the 13 forwards playing tomorrow.

[OccamsRazor]

13 minutes ago, AJgoal said:

 

I would certainly consider that, but it doesn't look like the coaches are at the moment. Anything can change in the round robin, but they seem content to pick from the 13 forwards playing tomorrow.

 

Yeah they probably prefer more experience with Grant and Thompson in the line up.

[AJgoal]

Holy ****. It's game day. 

[Podein25]

14 minutes ago, AJgoal said:

Holy ****. It's game day. 

 

What's everybody drinking? 

 

I'm drinking, or will be soon at least, this double IPA from local Kilter brewing, called "Fog Machine" which I'm calling Freddy the Fog.

 

 

 

And we know what Fred's advice to the Flyers today would be:

 

Take the shortest route to the puck and arrive in ill humor motherfukcers!

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by Podein25

[OccamsRazor]

12 minutes ago, Podein25 said:

What's everybody drinking? 

 

 

 

 

Go Flyers!!!!!

 

I won't be watching live i'll be in the pool with some bourbon and will watch later while i am grilling and will post later tonight.

 

Enjoy your day.

[Podein25]

Just now, OccamsRazor said:

 

 

 

 

Go Flyers!!!!!

 

I won't be watching live i'll be in the pool with some bourbon and will watch later while i am grilling and will post later tonight.

 

Enjoy your day.

 

Noice!

 

You too bud.

 

(I hope no hard feelings between us on the politics stuff by the way. I consider you a friend).

 

Go Flyers!

[OccamsRazor]

3 minutes ago, Podein25 said:

(I hope no hard feelings between us on the politics stuff by the way. I consider you a friend).

 

Never. 

 

 

Now worries here i hate you all. Equally of course!!!

 

[Podein25]

@OccamsRazor

 

Do you or anybody else have a Stream?