A year ago at this time, the Hockey News predicted that the Flyers would win the Stanley Cup. After nearly making a farce of the prediction by coming within a shootout victory on the final day of the regular season of missing the playoffs, the Flyers came within two victories in the Finals of making the prediction come true.

This time around, THN predicts that the Flyers will finish second to Pittsburgh in the Atlantic Division and fourth in the Eastern Conference. The publication, which predicted the Vancouver Canucks as the 2010-11 Stanley Cup champion, mentioned Eastern Conference teams Washington, Pittsburgh, and Boston and Western Conference clubs Detroit and the defending champion Blackhawks as other potential champions when all is said and done.

Obviously, the doubts about the Flyers have more to do with goaltending than any other factor. But as far the prediction itself goes, I will say the same thing I said when the Flyers were chosen as the team to beat last year --- if I don't put much stock in pre-series predictions in the playoffs, I'm certainly not going to get bent out of shape by any predictions made before the start of the regular season.

Side note: Two Flyers players were listed in THN's preseason top 50 in the NHL. Chris Pronger was ranked 16th, Mike Richards came in 23rd.

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My first reaction to learning that the Flyers have made the Greenville Warriors (the former Johnstown Chiefs) their new affiliate in the ECHL: I guess goaltending prospect Nicola Riopel will be traveling south this year at some point.

Last season, Kris Moyotte (who also got into one AHL game with the Phantoms) and John Murray saw most of the goaltending duties for Johnstown. With Riopel currently blocked in Adirondack by Johan Backlund and Sergei Bobrovsky, he may start out the season in the ECHL in order to get playing time.

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A few quick-hit European preseason updates:

* Today at the first game of Clas Ohlsson Cup mini-tourney (a three-team single round-robin) in Leksand, Sweden, Simon Bertilsson scored a powerplay goal for Brynäs in an 8-3 victory over minor league team Mora. Bertilsson's goal at 15:15 of the second period proved to be the game winner. The defenseman was paired with ex-Flyer Lars Jonsson and was a plus-one for the game, playing over 20 minutes.

* After being named first star of the game in Skellefteå AIK's preseason opener, goaltender Jocke Eriksson sat out SAIK's 4-3 victory over Modo Hockey at the Umeå Hockey Festival in Umeå, Sweden in favor of veteran Andreas Hadelöv.

* Russian prospect Andrei Popov has had a strong preseason for KHL club Traktor Chelyabinsk and has been promoted from the fourth line to the second line according to Euroflyers.

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