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Meltzer's Musings: Friday Quick Hits, Team of the 2000s Reader Poll

August 2, 2013, 6:35 AM ET [507 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Friday Quick Hits

* Nearly every year at training camp and during the preseason, there is at least one player who makes a surprise push for an opening night roster spot. For instance, two years ago, Harry Zolnierczyk ended up being one of the final cuts before the start of the season and wound up dressing in 37 regular season games for the Flyers. No one would have predicted that in August.

Last season, the abbreviated training camp and lack of preseason games after the lockout made it tough for anyone on the roster bubble to get much of a look before the regular season schedule got underway. However, Tye McGinn was sufficiently impressive in the AHL to get an invite to training camp and went on to dress in 18 games for the big club.

Who will be this year's training camp surprise? Based on his late season play for the Flyers last year, I'll go with defenseman Oliver Lauridsen. As long as Nicklas Grossmann is healthy, I don't think Lauridsen will make the club out of camp (barring other injuries). However, I do think the Great Dane will be around until the final cut or two are made.

If Lauridsen doesn't qualify as a darkhorse because he started 15 games in the NHL last season, my pick as a potential pleasant surprise in camp is second-season forward Marcel Noebels. I don't think he'll make the team even if he has a very strong camp but what he might do is work his way up several spots on the depth chart for his first NHL call-up.

Here's a way-out-in-left-field name: Although I don't think he's NHL-ready, and only had nine games in the AHL after being signed to an entry-level contract last season, 21-year-old Brandon Alderson has a lot of the tools that NHL teams look for in a bottom six forward. He's a big guy who keeps things simple and plays a responsible all-around game. I'm not bold enough to predict that he'll last deep into camp this year but he's the type of player who is rarely on any team's "top prospect" list yet goes on to be a pro for longer than many of the people ranked above him.


* What is your earliest Flyers memory? When did you attend a live game for the first time?

My earliest Flyers memory is listening to a game from the 1973-74 playoffs on the car radio. I was already getting bitten by the hockey bug at age 3 but, of course, really didn't know the game yet or understand the terminology. Specifically, I recall Gene Hart describing a routine play in which "Clarke gets broken up at the blueline." Alarmed, I asked my mother if the other team had just broken Bobby Clarke, because I had a mental image of my hockey hero being shattered into a million pieces that crumbled to the ice, ala a Warner Brothers cartoon. She reassured me that Clarke was just fine. Sure enough, he was.

My first live hockey game was not a Flyers game. In fact, even though I was a diehard fan as a child, I did not get to my first Flyers game until a 1979 game against Hartford -- yes, I saw Gordie and Mark Howe at my first Spectrum game. My first live game was in 1975-76, when the Philadelphia Firebirds took on the Erie Blades in an NAHL match at the Civic Center. I ended up becoming a big Firebirds as well as Flyers fan. My favorite Firebird was Gordie Brooks, probably because he scored a hat trick in the first game I attended.

* It was 28 years ago today that Bill Barber officially announced his retirement as an active player to begin a career in coaching and scouting. The decision was a foregone conclusion because Barber hadn't played in over a year due to chronic knee problems. His Hall of Fame career was unofficially over at age 32, and he had not been a healthy player for a few years leading up to that point. Even in decline, in 1982-83, Barber posted a 27-goal, 60 point season in 66 games and still managed 22 goals and 54 points in 63 games during his final NHL season. A lot of younger, healthier players would gladly have taken that!

I don't know if it can be said that a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee was an underrated player, but if any such caliber player fit that description, it was Barber. In the Flyers' pantheon, there is Bobby and Bernie and then there's everyone's else; including their teammate Barber. Over the years, I have seen some folks wonder why Barber is in the Hockey Hall of Fame when he scored "only" 420 goals and 883 points in 903 games. That mostly comes from people who never saw him play.

Barber was one of the most complete players I have ever seen, and was easily one of the top two or three left wingers in the NHL for much of the 1970s. The consistency of his scoring production only tells a fraction of the story -- when healthy, he could be penned (not just penciled) in before the start of the season for about 35 goals in an average year and 42-plus in one of his big years. He was also very solid defensively, had off-the-charts natural instincts and was unselfish almost to a fault. Barber legitimately never knew or cared how many goals or assists he had in a season. He most certainly knew how many games the team had won or lost. He was a coach's dream.

As an NHL coach himself, I think Barber sometimes reflected his own instinctual mentality and work ethic as a player, and some of the players he coached couldn't understand or relate. For instance, I remember him being criticized by his Flyers players for not practicing the power play, but that's a direct reflection of something he appreciated during the Fred Shero era. Shero was a "systems coach" in many ways, but he largely let his offensively talented players use their own creativity on the man advantage.

Barber always burned with a quiet intensity as a player. People talk about how much Clarke hated to lose -- and that's absolutely true -- but Barber was cut from the same cloth in that way. As a player, he didn't say much, preferring to lead by example. As coach, he was a tough-love, yell-and-scream type at times (especially behind closed doors) but he always defended his players to the hilt in public and never outwardly showed anyone up on the bench by getting in their face for everyone to see.

Perhaps Barber was simply a better AHL head coach than NHL head coach. Apart from coaching the Phantoms to a Calder Cup, I think he helped some of his young players get better even if they thought he was harsh on them at the time. For instance, I don't think Vaclav Prospal would have made the NHL at all, much less played 1,000-plus games, if he wasn't pushed so hard by Barber. Ditto Ruslan Fedotenko.

It should also be noted that Barber won a Jack Adams Award in his first season behind the bench for the Flyers. Things may have soured in his second year as Flyers coach, but he had to have something going for him to coax a 100-point season out of the time in a year where John LeClair only played 16 games, Eric Desjardins had uncharacteristic struggles at times and the bottom end of the starting blueline featured players like Chris McAllister and Michal Sykora as semi-regulars.

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Fan Poll: Flyers Team of the 2000s

Over the next week, I will be compiling a Flyers' team of the 2000s. This team will be comprised ONLY of players who suited up for the team from the 2000-01 season until the current day.

In the first reader poll, we'll be selecting the top three centers. There will be a run-off election next week for the fourth line selection. We'll do top three wingers tomorrow, defensemen on Sunday and goalies next Monday.




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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.


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