POST-PRACTICE UPDATE (1:15 p.m. EST)
The Philadelphia Flyers returned to the Skate Zone in Voorhees today for an 11 a.m. practice. With the team completing their six-game road trip with a game in Newark tomorrow, followed by a home game on Wednesday, it was a short session. From start to finish, the full-ice practice lasted about half an hour.
The team practiced with mostly the same forward lines and defense pairings as in Saturday night's 5-3 win in Phoenix. The big news, however, was that Michael Raffl participated in full and is likely to return to the lineup tomorrow night in New Jersey. The Austrian left winger, who says that he has had no headaches or other concussion symptoms since the morning after the injury, is meeting with a doctor later this afternoon. If he gets clearance to play, look for Raffl to return to the lineup tomorrow.
Raffl skated on the fourth line today, with Steve Downie staying on the top line. There is a good chance, however, that Raffl will quickly return to Claude Giroux's line.
Today's lines:
Steve Downie - Claude Giroux - Jakub Voracek
Scott Hartnell - Brayden Schenn - Wayne Simmonds
Zac Rinaldo - Sean Couturier - Vincent Lecavalier
Michael Raffl/Jay Rosehill - Chris Vandevelde - Adam Hall
Kimmo Timonen - Braydon Coburn
Nicklas Grossmann - Mark Streit
Andrej Meszaros - Luke Schenn
Hal Gill - Erik Gustafsson
Steve Mason / Ray Emery
Additionally, Erik Gustafsson (sprained knee) participated fully in practice today. Afterward, he said that he felt pretty good but was still about 10 to 15 percent away from realistically being ready to play in a game.
Matt Read (upper body) did not participate in practice today. There was no update on his status as of this writing.
There was no hint of whether Steve Mason or Ray Emery would get the start in goal tomorrow night. However, with back-to-back games and with Emery having recorded a 1-0 shutout win in New Jersey earlier this season, I would not be surprised if Emery gets the Devils match and Mason plays against the Canadiens on Wednesday.
VIDEO:
Craig Berube on the 4-1-0 western road swing, playing New Jersey and the play of Vincent Lecavalier since returning to the lineup.
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FLYERS WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP WRAPUP
The 2013-14 World Junior Championships wrapped up yesterday in Malmö, Sweden. Congratulations go out to the scrappy underdog Finnish team that got hot at just the right time to capture a surprise gold medal.
The host Swedes settled for silver after a hard-fought 3-2 loss in the gold medal game. Team Canada, which never quite clicked in the tournament against the medal contending teams with the exception of Team USA, dropped the bronze medal game to Russia, 2-1.
The Flyers had five participating players in tournament. Before giving my take on their individual performances, I will first say that players' offensive totals in IIHF tournaments can often been skewed, either favorably or unfavorably depending on the player's role (which may differ from his use on his junior club team and/or a projected NHL role).
In a short tourney, point totals can also be skewed based on whether the player racks up a few multi-point games against the relegation round bound (i.e. weak sister) opponents in the round robin preliminary round.
Over the years, I have learned to look at things other than point totals on which to base my opinion of a player's performance. The Under 20 World Championship is, of course, a prestigious and high-profile event but the tourney is still just a five-to-seven game sampling of someone's abilities.
Scott Laughton (Canada): People's offensive expectations for the Flyers' 2012 first-round pick may be been too high before this tournament. He is having a prolific offensive season in the Ontario Hockey League, and was named captain of the Canadian team. However, his role on this team was not primarily an offensive one.
Laughton was cast in more of a third-line shutdown center role -- which is his most likely eventual role at the pro level as well. As such, I was not all that bent out of shape that he produced no goals and just one assist in seven tourney games.
In terms of overall play -- presence on the walls, winning faceoffs, breaking up scoring chances, hemming opposing teams in deep, creating some hard-working scoring chances and shots on goal -- I thought Laughton was pretty decent. I was hoping he'd make a little more impact in swinging momentum in Canada's favor when the team energy level needed a boost, but he often was not on the ice in situations where I thought his particular skill set would be best used.
Robert Hägg (Sweden): Although Hägg's skill set suggests that of a two-way defenseman with above-average offensive upside, he was deployed in mostly a shutdown defensive role in the tournament along with Robin Norell.
That was not a surprise, because Hägg was used the same way in the Lake Placid preparatory tournament over the summer. Right after that, he had a dynamic offensive preseason for Modo before what has thus far been an uneven SHL reason for him. Hägg, who scored one goal in the WJC, did not get much power play time in this tournament.
Overall, I thought Hägg played quite well in the tournament. He took a few bad penalties, and he got beaten defensively a few times (most notably by Rasmus Ristolainen in the gold medal game). However, when you look at the overall body of his work in the WJC, I thought he defended well and moved the puck extremely well. He also showed a bit of physical edge that could be translated to the smaller rink.
The seven-game sampling, in my opinion, is reasonably reflective of what I've seen in his Modo games this season: a player with all of the physical tools to become a top-three NHL defenseman someday but who is still very raw. Hägg has barely scratched the surface of his abilities at both ends of the ice and is still trying to figure out exactly what he game should be. The process with him could be a frustrating one at times but the upside is very high if he can get through the learning curve.
Taylor Leier (Canada): Leier is having a tremendous Western Hockey League season for Portland, but was expected to play more of a checking role at the WJC. That is also likely closer to what his pro role will be, at least at the NHL level (at the AHL level, I think he may produce at a decent offensive clip). However, I did not think Leier played very well in his assigned role in Malmö -- an unpleasant surprise both because he'd performed similar duties in Portland as his main role earlier in his junior career and because he is seemingly a well-suited player for the bigger rink.
Simply being named to the team over higher-profile candidates was a nice accomplishment for Leier, and seven games of limited ice time does not make or break a career. He still projects as a versatile role player with both grit and speed. As far as the tournament itself goes, though, Leier came out on the wrong end of too many shifts that were the crux of why Team Canada took him in the first place.
Valeri Vasiliev (Russia): As with Hägg in the SHL, Vasiliev already plays regularly at the professional level as a third-pairing KHL defenseman for Spartak Moscow. He played the same role in the WJC that he does thus far in Russia -- that of a supporting cast defensive defenseman with a bit of a physical edge and decent mobility.
In the four KHL games I've seen Vasiliev play this season, his main weakness seemed to be getting himself out position. I thought he was a little more conservative in the Team Russia WJC games I watched. He had a couple good games and a couple so-so ones.
In terms of long-term upside to come over the NHL, which he has said to the Russian media that he'd like to do in a couple years, the physical part of the challenge will be two-fold. He still needs to add muscle to play the style he needs to play. I also think he needs to do a little better job at keeping the play in front of him. I like his first-pass ability and second-effort competitiveness (with Hägg, I'd like to see a little more competitiveness at times).
Anthony Stolarz (USA): The good news on the Flyers' 2012 second pick is that he dressed for every game in the tournament and got the benefit of being part of the Under-20 national team's (ultimately unsuccessful) drive to repeat its 2012-13 gold medal run. The bad news is that, as expected before the tournament, it was Jon Gillies who got all of the meaningful starts. Stolarz did get one start, and recorded a shutout against in Germany. However, he only saw 15 shots for the game, and was never really tested in a match where Team USA spent most of the game with the puck in the German end of the ice (53-15 shot advantage) and racked up an 8-0 win on the scoreboard.
Stolarz has already come a long way since the 2012 Draft. The decision to leave college hockey to play for London in the OHL has been a beneficial one for him. He still has an equally long way to go before he's ready to challenge for an NHL job. As with most every goalie his size, it takes a lot of time and coaching to get those long limbs in synch and squared consistently, without leaving some holes.
What I can say about Stolarz is that he's obviously a bright young man and every coach I've spoken with about him says that he has a strong work ethic along with the raw tools and tremendous size. He's going to be a work in progress for several years to come, but he has NHL starting goaltender upside if the process is managed successfully.
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FLYERS PRACTICE REPORT 1-6-14
The Flyers will hold practice today at 11 a.m. at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. I will have a post-practice report this afternoon.
On a side note, it is nice to be back in Philly after the holidays. I will be here for the duration of the season. The practice reports and videos will again be a regular feature of the blog as they were before Thanksgiving and the Flyers pair of six-game road trips after Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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