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Meltzer's Musings: 12/6/11

December 6, 2011, 9:50 AM ET [ Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Most of the analyses of the NHL realignment from a Flyers' standpoint have focused on the travel and schedule aspect. I prefer to look at it from a hockey standpoint.

My knee-jerk reaction is that the team's road to the Stanley Cup has gotten a bit harder, not easier simply because there will be a 4-in-7 shot of making the playoffs.

The Flyers are already a well-established playoff team. With the exception of the disastrous 2006-07 season, the club has made the playoffs every year since the lockout-shortened 1994-95 campaign. It's navigating the brutal road in the spring time that's the real challenge, and that challenge will get harder.

The playoffs are all about matchups and attrition. In the years where the Flyers have made runs to the Conference Finals (1995, 2000, 2004, 2008) or Cup Finals (1997,2010), they have had a matchup in the first and/or second round with a team they were especially well equipped to play against, and the series only went 4 or 5 games. In the meantime, teams that Philly may not have matched up as well against often got knocked off early, creating a favorable matchup later in the postseason.

Under the new format, the Flyers are virtually guaranteed to have extremely tough matchups in both the first and second rounds, especially now that the Washington Capitals have been added into the already tough current Atlantic Division. For the next several years, the Flyers figure to be playing some combination of the Penguins, Capitals and/or Rangers in the first two rounds. Right now, I don't see the Devils, Hurricanes or Islanders toppling one of the others (but you never know, especially this far in advance).

Yes, the Flyers could defeat -- or lose to -- any of the aforementioned teams in a best-of-seven series. But how much will the team that comes out of the former Atlantic have left in the tank by the time the Stanley Cup semifinals comes around?

Look, every team in the Flyers' new "conference" will be in the same boat. There are no excuses to be made. But winning the Stanley Cup is already an extremely tough proposition that requires no small amount of good luck in minimizing key injuries and getting the best possible matchups.

The task just got a bit harder for the Atlantic teams and perhaps a bit easier for the other eastern-based conference (the expanded Northeast Division and collapsed Southeast minus Washington).

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Today will be a very telling day on the injury front for the Flyers. NHL teams' injury reports should always be taken with a grain of salt. Players have a way of being "fine" right up until they are scratched and/or it is finally revealed that an injury was more serious than initially let on.

It's always best to just wait and see, and not put too much stock in what the team says.
By the end of today, the status of Andrej Meszaros, James van Riemsdyk and Brayden Schenn should be a bit clearer for tomorrow night's game in Buffalo.

The Flyers keep insisting that Meszaros is OK and will play tomorrow night. I'll feel a lot more confident in that pronouncement if he practices fully today and is OK.

With JVR (slight abdominal muscle tear but now practicing in full-contact practices), the team needs to proceed with caution, because that's the type of tricky injury that can end up worsening and ruining a player's season.

Hopefully Schenn is OK after the heavy hit he took in the Phoenix game. He did return to that game. The last thing the rookie needs is yet another injury-related setback in a half-season that's been filled with them.

Danny Briere also missed practice yesterday. It is supposed to be just a minor illness.

If the Flyers' injury report from yesterday proves accurate, all of the aforementioned players will practice today and play tomorrow night.

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