Here is something to keep an eye an on when the regular season opens next month: Over the course of his NHL career to date, Flyers defenseman Matt Carle has typically had his best or second-best month of the season in the month of October.
This has been the case in three of his five full NHL seasons to date (not counting 2005-06 when he made his NHL debut in late March).
Carle has played 56 October games to date. He had recorded 4 goals and 30 assists for 34 points (.607 points per game) and boasts a plus-minus rating of +16. In every other month combined, he has averaged .390 points per game (130 points in 333 games, when you subtract Octobers) and is +35 over the 333 non-October games.
In his first full NHL season (2006-07 with San Jose), Carle scored 2 goals and 12 points in October en route to 11 goals and 42 points as a rookie. In his disappointing second NHL season, he had 5 points in 12 October games, tied for his most productive month of the campaign. Only in 2008-09 with Tampa prior to being traded to the Flyers did Carle have a subpar October, at least from a point-production perspective (1 point in 9 games).
In 2009-10, Carle got off to the best start of any season in his career, racking up 2 goals, 12 points and a plus-nine rating in 11 games. Although many people were quick to credit his fast start solely to be being paired with Chris Pronger, it was actually pretty consistent with his career pattern. Last season, Carle had four points (all assists) and a plus-four rating in 11 games in October.
Coming off a playoff run last spring that was disappointing both in terms of individual and team play -- and also in light of the fact that he is entering the final season of his contract and is slated to become an unrestricted free agent -- Carle should have plenty of motivation to get off to one of his characteristically strong starts come October.
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I was trying to come up with a list of players who had at least two stints as a Flyers player, broken up by time in another organization.
I am not including players who were originally drafted by the Flyers but did not suit up on the NHL team until many years later (such as Peter Forsberg). I'm also not including players who made their rookie debut with the Flyers, spent lengthy subsequent stints of a full season or more with Philly's AHL farm team and then later resurfaced with the big club again (examples would be Dan Kordic and Al Hill).
Instead, I am confining the list only to those who played in the NHL for the Flyers, got traded/released/left as a free agent/etc and then came back later on for a second-go around as a Flyer. This is an off-the-top-of-my-head list so please feel free to add anyone that I missed and their names will be added. Here goes:
Bernie Parent
Ron Hextall
Sean Burke
Michael Leighton
Brian Boucher
Rick MacLeish
Mark Recchi
Mikael Renberg
Rick Tocchet
Dave Brown
Craig Berube
Pete Peeters
Chris Therien
Steve Duchesne
Dan Quinn
Dmitri Yushkevich
Vaclav Prospal
Jim Vandermeer
Terry Murray
Jack McIlhargey
Todd Fedoruk
Ken Linseman
Kjell Samuelsson
Karl Dykhuis
Kerry Huffman
Kevin McCarthy
Moe Mantha
John Paddock
Peter White
Ed Hospodar
Larry Wright
Darren Rumble
Mike Maneluk
Mike Stothers
Boyd Kane
Eric Chouinard
Jesse Boulerice
Danny Syvret
Josh Gratton
Bill Sutherland
Can you think of any others?
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Phillyburbs ran a nice
article yesterday about the work of Franny Drummond, an airbrush artist who has designed many professional goalie masks including the new one that Ilya Bryzgalov will sport this season.
In case you've never seen it, Pete Anson's wonderful Flyershistory.com site includes a
goalie mask galleryfeaturing the majority of goaltenders who have suited up for more than a game or two as Flyers.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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