Tuesday Quick Hits
* Four current Flyers players were named yesterday to their respective national teams' preliminary rosters for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Come next month, there will be various meetings/orientation camps for the invited players on the long-list rosters. Final rosters will be determined in early 2014. It is not impossible there will end up being some players who were omitted from the original lists who wind up going to Sochi either as starters or roster alternates in case of injury.
Yesterday, Claude Giroux was named to Canada's preliminary roster, while Kimmo Timonen was on Finland's list and both Nicklas Grossmann and Erik Gustafsson made Sweden's list.
Barring injury, Giroux and Timonen are locks for the Olympics. Two additional Flyers, Mark Streit (Switzerland) and Jakub Voracek (Czech Republic), are also certain to be named to their national teams' Olympic rosters.If he shows he's healthy, Andrej Meszaros (Slovakia) is another Flyer who is likely to be in Sochi. However, Grossmann and Gustafsson may have a tough time cracking the final Swedish lineup.
Both Grossmann and Gustafsson currently figure to be victims of the roster numbers game. Tre Kronor's official preliminary roster currently has a pool of 16 defensemen from which to choose, and there a lot of good ones who won't make the final cut. The list will be down to seven or eight.
Grossmann, whose game is better suited for the smaller rinks of North America, will only go if the team wants a strictly defensive defenseman to add size and penalty killing in certain games. Gustafsson led gold medalist Sweden in ice time at the 2013 World Championships and was not on the ice for a single opposition even-strength goal during the entire 10-game tournament. Things like that carry weight with the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation selection process -- at least as much weight as a player's NHL accomplishments -- but the competition for Olympic spots is tougher than for spots at the Worlds.
At the World Championships earlier this year, current Flyers Wayne Simmonds (Canada), Matt Read (Canada), Luke Schenn (Canada) and now-former Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov (Russia) participated. So did Oliver Lauridsen (Denmark) and Flyers prospects Marcel Noebels (Germany) and Cal Heeter (Team USA third-string goaltender, did not dress for any games). None are likely to be in Sochi.
Team Canada has an extremely deep pool of forwards and defensemen from which to choose -- so deep, in fact, that some All-Star caliber players such as Dallas Stars center Jamie Benn got omitted from the preliminary roster. As such, it was not surprising that none among Simmonds, Read or Schenn made the Canadian list.
Bryzgalov's snub was a little more surprising but not shocking. Host country Russia named a pool of five goaltenders -- NHLers Sergei Bobrovsky, Semyon Varlamov and Evgeni Nabokov and KHL goalies Konstantin Barulin and Vasily Koshechkin -- to its preliminary roster. That means Bryzgalov's chances of Olympic participation are virtually nil.
As with so many things involving Bryzgalov, there is a lot of rumor and innuendo to sort through along with on-ice considerations when trying to get to the bottom of why he was left off Russia's long list.
Let's start with the concrete stuff: on-ice issues. The Russian Hockey Federation could not care less about the Flyers' defensive problems and how much of Bryzgalov's inconsistency in Philly was due to subpar play in front of him and how much was the goalie's responsibility. They DO care that Bryzgalov, who started three games at the World Championships, did not play well in two starts against Team USA. Then again, Varlamov played no better at the Worlds than Bryzgalov, and is the less accomplished (but considerably younger) of the two goalies.
Did the fact that Bryzgalov is still without a pro team for next season come into play in his omission? It's hard to say for sure, but I don't think it would. Team Russia's orientation camp isn't until late August and there is plenty of time for Bryzgalov to sign with a team either in North America or Europe. He will play somewhere. The question is where.
Goaltending legend Vladislav Tretiak publicly came to Bryzgalov's defense last year when the netminder was taking a media and fan beating within Russia for his early struggles and sparing use by CSKA Moscow during the NHL lockout. Bryzgalov was a frequent scratch in favor of former NHL goaltender Rastislav Stana, and did not play well when he was used until his final few starts before the end of the NHL lockout.
Now we get to the convoluted stuff that is shrouded in rumor: the status of Bryzgalov's relationship with the Russian Hockey Federation.
There was a lot of weirdness with Bryz both during his stint with CSKA and leading up to the World Championships. Bryzgalov vehemently denied rumors that he told the Russian Hockey Federation the only way he'd go to the World Championships was if he was the primary starting goaltender. Federation officials also publicly corroborated that Bryzgalov made no such demand.
At the same time, Vezina Trophy winning goalie Sergei Bobrovsky was at first named to Russia's World Championship roster and then removed, with Russian hockey officials saying that the player was exhausted from a season split between the KHL during the lockout and the NHL afterward. Former Flyers goaltender Bobrovsky denied that he was too tired to play at the Worlds but did not point any fingers publicly at Bryzgalov. In fact, Bobrovsky made statements defending Bryzgalov after the latter was bought out by the Flyers. During their time together in Philly, however, the two goalies appeared to have a distant and competitive relationship with one another.
Now let's go back a few months earlier. Last December, the annual Channel One Cup tournament in Russia -- which part of the IIHF-sanctioned Euro Hockey Tour and a preparatory tournament for the World Championships -- had a mini-controversy involving Bryzgalov. Bryz was initially on Team Russia's roster for the tournament. He withdrew from participation. Sergei Fedorov said that Bryzgalov was dealing with the flu, and was unable to play in the tourney while recuperating from the high fever.
On the same day that Fedorov said Bryzgalov was too sick to participate in the Channel One Cup, Bryzgalov filmed the "cosmonaut training" segment (which became an instant Youtube hit, with widely circulated screen caps of Bryz in his space suit) for a Russian television network. While Bryzgalov may very have been legitimately feeling lousy and running a fever, there was some embarrassment created for the Russian Hockey Federation by a prominent player withdrawing from a national team tournament in Russia and doing something completely non-hockey related that drew some public attention away from the national team's gold medal at the Channel One tourney.
Again, so much of this is steeped in rumors and the sole reasons why Bryzgalov got omitted from the preliminary Olympic roster could be because he didn't fare particularly well against lesser competition at the 2013 Worlds, did not play much better for most of his KHL stint with CSKA and because he's still unsigned. I tend to think, however, that there is more to it than just that.
There just as easily could have been list of six goalies in the pool, with Bryzgalov on the list as a courtesy (even if the Federation doesn't want him in Sochi). The fact he got omitted seems like a slap in the face, and suggests there was at least a semblance of truth to all of the non-Flyers-related controversies with Bryzgalov that made their way into the Russian media over the last year. Let's put it this way: If Bryzgalov was on rock solid ground with the Russian Hockey Federation decision-makers, he'd have made the list of five or it would have been extended to a list of six.
* It is expected that the New Jersey Devils will officially announce today that they have signed former Flyers right wing Jaromir Jagr to a one-year contract. According to a
report in iSport by highly respected Czech journalist Zdenek Janda, the final hold-up in Jagr's deal with New Jersey was that he wanted to wait until the very last moment to see if he could work something out with the Flyers instead. Janda, who served as Jagr's editor for a blog the player wrote for iSport, said that while Jagr himself has not spoken about his contract situation or negotiations, sources close to the player said he was waiting on the Flyers but the lack of open salary cap space and an obvious lineup spot in Philly ultimately made the Devils the only viable destination.
* Over on Eric Engels'
Canadiens blog here on HockeyBuzz, there is a discussion of Montreal-based rumors of a potential trade sending Wayne Simmonds from the Flyers to Montreal. Eric is dubious about Philly making any such move, and I agree with him. The only way realistic Simmonds would get traded in the near future is if the Flyers were able to acquire a first-pairing caliber defenseman in the deal.
*********
Former Flyers forward Ian Laperriere, now the organization's Director of Player Development, will be participating in the Ironman Mont-Tremblant: North American Championship on August 18. Apart from competing in the triatholon, Lappy is raising funds for a variety of charitable causes: the IRONMAN Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, the National Pancreatic Cancer Foundation and Go4theGoal Foundation- Tunes4Teens. Laperriere has set a $10,000 fundraising goal. For more information or to make a donation,
click here.
Kindle users: Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information
click here.
Click below to follow me on Twitter:
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»