* At 4:00 p.m. today, the National Hockey League will officially release its full regular-season schedule of 1,230 games. Yesterday, the NHL announced the home openers for all teams. The Flyers will begin their regular season on October 8 with a road game against the Boston Bruins. The next night, the Flyers have their home opener against the New Jersey Devils.
* A couple of people on the HB message boards and Twitter have asked me if I would be in favor of the Flyers signing local product T.J. Brennan as an unrestricted free agent this summer. As a potential seventh NHL defenseman option or as a signing for the newly relocated Lehigh Valley Phantoms with recall potential, it is an intriguing possibility. I would not want to go into next season penciling him into an NHL lineup but I do think the 25-year-old deserves a chance to compete for a roster spot. Whether that will be in Philadelphia or elsewhere, I have no idea.
The Willingboro native, who got his start with the Junior Flyers before playing major junior hockey in the QMJHL, lit up the AHL offensively this past season. The knock on the former Sabres second-round pick has always been his defensively play, but Toronto Marlies head coach Steve Spott spent much of the year telling anyone who will listen that he trusts Brennan defensively and all the player really lacked was an NHL opportunity.
With that said, when a defenseman is drafted as high as Brennan was (31st overall), skates well with a decent-sized frame (6-foot-1, 215 pounds) and has a bomb of a shot like Brennan's, there is usually a legitimate reason why he's only dressed in 40 NHL games after five pro seasons. He's even produced a respectable number of points -- which will always his main role -- in his NHL cups of coffee, potting four goals and adding seven assists in the 40 games.
If Lindy Ruff, Kevin Dineen or Randy Carlyle felt Brennan could at least hold his own defensively at the NHL level, I would think he'd have gotten a longer look with the Sabres, Panthers or Maple Leafs. On the other hand, the learning curve for a defenseman is lengthier than for a forward, so it is also possible that it has only been in the last year or that Brennan's overall game has emerged to the level that Spott
described to the National Post and others.
My view is that Brennan would be a low-risk signing for the Flyers or other NHL club. Brennan played this past season for Toronto on a one-way contract for $600,000. Whatever NHL team signs him as an unrestricted free agent this summer will sign Brennan to another one-way deal that is still low enough to entirely take off the salary cap come the regular season if he is waived and assigned back to the AHL. Remember there are no recall waivers anymore under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, so he could be called up in-season.
* Wayne Stephenson passed away two years ago today. Shortly after his passing, I wrote a
special retrospective on the former Canadian Olympian and longtime backup to Bernie Parent for the International Ice Hockey Federation's official site.
* Flyers alumni birthdays: Ilya Bryzgalov turns 34 today. Darroll Powe turns 29. Roger Pelletier, a defenseman who played briefly for the Flyers' inaugural team of 1967-68, turns 69.
* Over the next week, my blogs will continue to heavily focus on the upcoming 2014 Draft, along with analyzing any Flyers-related news. Then the focus will shift to free agency season, starting with a blog bout the pros and cons of teams aggressively diving into the unrestricted free agent pool and of bargain hunting after the inevitable shift from a seller's to buyer's market.
One area where patience may pay off for the Flyers is the UFA market for a potential backup goaltender for Steve Mason. The UFA supply exceeds the demand, so there is good potential to find a bargain by not being early to market. The Flyers spend $1.65 million last season on Ray Emery.
Apart from incumbent backup Emery (who still could wind up being re-signed), the impending UFA pool currently includes the likes of established backups Thomas Greiss, Al Montoya, Curtis McIlhinney, Justin Peters, reclamation project Devan Dubnyk and elder statesmen former starter types such as J-S Giguere and Evgeni Nabokov. The market may grow by one more now that Anders Lindbäck will not be tendered a qualifying offer by the Lightning and can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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