This year's Flyers' training camp -- both the rookie camp and full-squad portions -- promises to be one of the more interesting ones in recent years. There are definitely some jobs to be won, and a few of the youngsters will be trying to earn roster spots.
When rookie camp starts tomorrow, all eyes will be on Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier. However, they are not the only two players who are worth keeping an eye on during camp and the pre-season games.
Here are five others to watch who are on the rookie camp roster (older prospects such as Erik Gustafsson and Matt Read are not listed on the rookie camp roster):
Eric Wellwood: He had a strong camp as a rookie last year and saw some time with the big club during the season. There are a handful of Phantoms players on the bubble of making the NHL club at some point this season, of which the 21-year-old Wellwood and Zac Rinaldo are the youngest. Can Wellwood take the next step in his development this year?
Zac Rinaldo: Rinaldo is a player who needs to push the envelope in order to be effective, but he always walks the fine line between helping and hurting his club with his aggressiveness. The organization must see something in him, or he would not have been dressed in two Stanley Cup playoff games. Will he play a little more under control?
Oliver Lauridsen: The towering Dane (6-foot-6, 220 pounds, 22 years old) was a man against boys at the conditioning camp in July. He is entering his first full pro season. Is his upside closer to Kjell Samuelsson (a late bloomer who went on to play 800 plus games in the NHL) or David Printz (a marginal prospect who had a cup of coffee with the Flyers)?
Tye McGinn: McGinn showed power forward instincts and a nice touch around the net at rookie camp last year. Is the first-year pro a sleeper or a typical junior league overager who struggles at the minor league level?
Blake Kessel: Of all the prospect-aged non-roster invitees to the Flyers' training camp, the 22-year-old Kessel seems to have the best shot at earning an entry level contract (assuming the Flyers, who are maxed out on contracts, open up space). He had a good collegiate career as an offensive defenseman, has pro size and shoots right. The brother of Toronto's Phil Kessel was pursued by several other NHL organizations after failing to sign with the Islanders (who originally drafted him).
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The other day, the Daily News' Frank Seravalli posed the question of whether the late Brad McCrimmon
is worthy of induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
As much as I always liked and respected McCrimmon's play, the answer is no.
Don't get me wrong. The Beast was a legitimate shutdown defenseman in his prime in Philadelphia and Calgary and, as an older veteran, an ideal first partner for Nicklas Lidstrom and Chris Pronger. He and Mark Howe formed the best defensive pairing in Flyers franchise history -- by a country mile -- and McCrimmon absolutely pulled his weight in making the unit great. Prior to coming to Philadelphia, McCrimmon was an emerging talent on the Bruins, often playing with fellow youngster Ray Bourque, but suffered all the usual growing pains and inconsistencies of most young NHL defensemen (which continued into McCrimmon's first two seasons in Philly).
McCrimmon had a little bit of offensive ability in his prime. When opponents got too concerned about Howe and left the other side wide open, the Beast could burn them. But first and foremost, he was a defensive defenseman.
With very rare exceptions, such as Rod Langway or Scott Stevens (who had early-career big offensive years), defensive D simply don't make the Hall of Fame. As good as McCrimmon was in the mid-to-late 1980s, he was not quite the equal of Langway or Stevens. Howe, who was finally selected for the Hall this year, was the undisputed two-way star of the Flyers' blueline. McCrimmon was his more-than-capable partner on the top pairing but not the one that opposing teams or players talked about going up against before the game.
I do think that McCrimmon deserves a posthumous inclusion in the Flyers' Hall of Fame. The only demerit to his Flyers' years were the frequent contract squabbles and some personal issues that held him back a bit in the early going. But without the Beast, I don't think the Keenan era Flyers would have easily won their division three straight years and reached the Finals in two of three years.
With the tragic events of this past week, there may very well be a groundswell of support to induct McCrimmon into the Flyers' team Hall. If Jimmy Watson does not get his ridiculously overdue induction this year, I'm all in favor of it being McCrimmon.
As for the big Hall, it's a nice sentiment to discuss McCrimmon's candidacy, but the Beast has less chance of induction in Toronto than longtime Phillies' catcher Bob Boone has of getting enshrined in Cooperstown someday.
Both men played positions in their respective sports where defense is supposed to be the primary concern -- Boone was a seven-time Gold Glove winner behind the plate, McCrimmon was a high quality defensive defenseman. The reality is, however, that offensive stats are almost always what drives Hall of Fame candidacy.
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Tim Panaccio has a good
retrospective article today at CSN Philly looking back at the Flyers' reactions to 9-11 when it happened 10 years ago today.
Sept. 11, 2001 was my 31st birthday. I remember that it was a sunny, beautiful morning and I was enjoying the day until I heard the news about the first of the Twin Towers being hit shortly before I got to work.
At the time, I was as an assistant editor at Outpatient Surgery Magazine. As soon as I got in the office, my editor-in-chief (whose family had emigrated to the US from Bangladesh when she was very young) said to me "What's happening to our country?"
We spent the day in the office of our accounting manager, listening to the awful reports coming in on the radio. For some unknown reason, our boss kept us at the office until late afternoon although no one -- himself included -- was doing anything other than trying to keep up with the news and trying to desperately contact anyone we knew who lived in or around New York.
When I left work, my ex-wife, my mother, sister, and my late grandmother took me out to dinner for my birthday at Harry's Savoy in Wilmington. We all sat in virtual silence, along with the few other people who had come out, watching a television set with the latest news.
In terms of hockey memories related to 9-11, the one that will always stand out is the Flyers' preseason game being stopped midway because everyone wanted to hear the President's live address. Sadly, there was also a direct hockey connection to 9-11, as Boston Bruins' employees Ace Bailey and Mark Bavis were aboard the second plane that struck the Towers.
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