MELTZER'S MUSINGS: JANUARY 24
1) Although their scheduled Saturday evening game against the New York Islanders at Barclays Center in Brooklyn was postponed due to the heavy winter storm that hit the eastern U.S. throughout the day, the Philadelphia Flyers made it to the arena in time for what would have been their morning skate. When the team learned of the game's cancellation, head coach
Dave Hakstol turned the morning skate into a full, up-tempo practice.
The Flyers returned to the Delaware Valley after their practice. The team will hold practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ on Sunday morning at 11:30 a.m. ET. On Monday night, the Flyers will host the Boston Bruins at the Wells Fargo Center (7:00 p.m. ET).
The Flyers' activities of the last 24 hours are reminiscent of a response former Flyers head coach Ken Hitchcock once gave in the winter of 2003 when asked about a practice held despite a snowstorm-related state of emergency.
"It would be very disappointing if hockey players could not get around during the winter," Hitchcock said.
2) Although coaches rarely like to put "numbers" on their lineup combinations, there is nevertheless a pecking order for where each unit falls on the depth chart. In the Flyers' case, however, the team basically has a fourth line A and a fourth line B rather than a bonafide "third" line. The A unit is the
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare line with
Chris VandeVelde and
Ryan White. When that line plays effectively, the team is usually OK. It's when both this line and the
Scott Laughton line are struggling within the same game that the Flyers are in trouble.
Why are the Flyers 29th in scoring? One reason is that is wasn't until after Thanksgiving that the second line -- the
Sean Couturier unit in its various combinations -- started putting pucks in the net with any regularity to go along with their generally very strong puck possession differentials. With very little offensive output from the bottom six forwards and the team not really having a bonafide third scoring line, everything fell on the
Claude Giroux line and the first power play unit until the Couturier line finally started potting some goals and the callup of rookie
Shayne Gostisbehere added a genuine goal-scoring threat from the back end.
Ideally, the members of the Bellemare line would not be regularly carrying 13 to 14 minutes of ice team a game (i.e., being the default third line). For instance,
Chris VandeVelde logs an average 14:00 of ice time per game because he is a mainstay on the penalty kill as well as even strength. That is too much ice time for someone who has chipped in seven points in 45 games and whose entire line sometimes finds itself overmatched in "shutdown" duties. The Bellemare line is most ideally suited to being an energy line at even strength and being part of the penalty kill (especially Bellemare, who is one of the club's best penalty killers).
What prevents the more ideal deployment of the Bellemare line is that there has not been an effective alternative found to arranging the bottom six forwards.
3) In a similar context, one of the most frequently asked questions by fans the last couple weeks has been when recently acquired forward
Jordan Weal will get into the lineup, and why veteran
R.J. Umberger continues to be in the lineup despite contributing very little offensive output (six assists in 30 games, no goals in his last 48 games dating back to Jan. 27, 2015).
Hakstol does not seem to be in a rush to play Weal, and has more or less said all along that the young forward will have to be patient, practice well and wait until there is a spot in the lineup where the coach feels its benecificial to play him. As for Umberger, the coach has said he likes the structured nature of the 11-season NHL veteran's game.
While Hakstol inevitably chooses his words very carefully to the media and does not expand in detail on hs thoughts, I suspect his reasoning for continually playing Umberger falls along these lines:
* Umberger plays a simple north-south game and does not take a lot of chances with the puck when he has it. The coach is not particularly looking for offense out of the 11th or 12th forwards on his ice time depth chart. The role Umberger is asked to play at this stage of his career is a thankless and difficult one because ice time is limited. Weal, while he showed himself to be defensively responsible at the AHL level, is more of an offensive-minded player than Umberger is at this stage of his career. Perhaps Hakstol sees Weal's fit as one of playing with skill players, although one could also argue that Scott Laughton has shown flashes of NHL skill and speed and Matt Read has actually come around offensively since his one-game healthy scratching.
*The Flyers already have their share of average-sized or undersized forwards in the mix, and Weal is yet another one. Umberger is 6-foot-2, 215 pounds. While he's never been overly aggressive, he does not shy away from contact, either. He's been credited with 47 hits in 30 games while averaging 9:58 of ice time. Except for one careless and ill-timed high sticking double minor, he has not hurt the club with bad penalties. At one point of his career, Umberger was also an above-average skater. He's lost some of that ability as injuries and wear-and-tear have piled up in his 30s but, when healthy, is not not a skating liability. While he has not skated as well in recent months as he did in training camp and the first game of the regular season -- for a little while, he looked like he'd turned back the clock a few years -- Umberger still gets around well enough in the coach's estimation to be a fourth-line winger.
* Although Weal can play both center and wing, Hakstol may view Weal as more ideally suited to playing in the middle. In terms of playing wing, Hakstol may prefer veterans Umberger and Read accompanying second-year pro Laughton rather than have an NHL rookie and a player with 80 career games of NHL experience on the same line.
Do I agree with this reasoning? Not neccessarily, but I understand it.
Personally, I do not think there's anything to lose by trying some different looks to the bottom six of the forward lineup, although I'm not very confident that there's a clear-cut upgrade to be found from within this season. The team put forth a very good stretch of hockey over 27 games until their stumbles in the last two games -- and even those games were within reach to take away at least one point -- so I understand why Hakstol has basically stayed with the same combinations. I do not think it would make a big difference (positively or negatively) to swap in Weal in the bottom six and swap out someone else for a few games.
The current roster more or less is what it is, no matter how you arrange the personnel. In the bigger picture, looking at the mix both up front and on the blueline, I think the Flyers are actually overachieving a bit this season. They'll need to climb back on the horse and manage an ongoing tough schedule into -- and immediately after -- the All-Star break to stay within striking distance of a playoff spot.
Since this same group put together a generally strong two months of hockey, they are capable of continuing to overachieve but there are going to be nights like Thursday in Pittsburgh -- no Couturier, playing for the fourth time in six nights, getting into some mismatches -- where things are going to look ugly and they'll have to parlay a strong start, a strong finish and solid goaltending into a way to be in position to get points.
In the bigger short-range picture, could Weal wind up being part of that overachievement? Sure. Is he likely to be a big individual difference maker in his likely role? Probably not, but it would be nice to see him get a look in a few games.
4) Due to the inclement weather, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms game in Hershey scheduled for Saturday was postponed. That announcement came on Friday night. The game will be made up on Monday. Frankly, the NHL should have done the same thing on Friday for the Flyers-Islanders game to spare the teams the travel. It was already a virtual certainty by that point that this region of the country was going to get clobbered by heavy snow and high winds over the weekend.
5) On Friday night, the Reading Royals were slated to hold a "Flyers Affiliation Night," featuring the Royals players wearing special Flyers-themed jerseys and appearances by
Bernie Parent and
Lauren Hart among other activities. The game went on as scheduled and the Royals players did don the commemorative jerseys but the Affliliation Night itself was posponed until their March 25 game at Santander Arena against the Manchester Monarchs. The players will again wear the special jerseys -- replicas of which are available to the public -- and the rest of the planned Affiliation Night events will take place on that night. In the meantime, the Royals scheduled game for today against the Elmira Jackals has been postponed due to the snow cleanup operations in the area. The game will be rescheduled for March 29.
6) Saturday was a collectively productive night for the Flyers prospects in the CHL leagues. Here's a rundown:
*Leading the way in the OHL was
Travis Konecny's two-goal, two-assist game in the Sarnia Sting's 6-5 win over the Peterborough Petes. Since his trade to the Sting, Konecny has racked up 15 points (seven goals, eight assists) in eight games.
* Over in the WHL,
Radel Fazleev racked up four assists and
Travis Sanheim chipped in a power play assist in the Calgary Hitmen's 6-2 win over the Swift Current Broncos. Sanheim has points in 10 straight games (two goals, 12 assists, 14 points). Flyers 2015 first-round pick
Ivan Provorov played a dominant two-way game in the Brandon Wheat Kings' 6-2 win over the Saskatoon Blades on Saturday, including a pair of assists.
* In the QMJHL,
Nicolas Aube-Kubel racked up two goals and an assist in the Val'd-Or Foreurs' 6-2 romp over the Victoriaville Tigers. Aube-Kubel has posted at least one point in 24 of his last 25 games, including nine games in a row in January. Over his last 25 games, Aube-Kubel has compiled 19 goals, 25 assists and 44 points. He's also plus-26 at even strength. Meanwhile, 2015 fourth-round pick
Samuel Dove-McFalls is finally back in the Saint John Sea Dogs' lineup after missing two-plus months after knee surgery. On Saturday, he won 12 of 19 faceoffs in his team's 7-5 win over the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.
**************
Countdown to Flyers Alumni Game in Reading
In celebration of nearly a half-century of Flyers hockey, the Flyers Alumni Association is bringing together players representing every decade of franchise history for a special Orange vs. Black intrasquad Alumni game on Feb. 5, 2016 at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be held at the Santander Arena in Reading, PA, home of the Philadelphia Flyers' ECHL affiliate, the Reading Royals.
Confirmed playing participants include Hockey Hall of Famers
Bob Clarke and
Mark Howe, recent Flyers stars
Danny Briere and
Kimmo Timonen, Flyers Hall of Fame inducteee
Joe Watson, longtime fan favorite
Bob "the Hound" Kelly as well as the likes of
Paul Holmgren, mid-1980s captain
Dave Poulin and defenseman
Brad Marsh.
Full playing rosters will be announced as a week of the game. Marsh, who jointly serves both as the Flyers Director of Community Development as well as the Flyers Alumni Association president, said on Wednesday by way of a hint, "We've actually got more skill guys coming than plugger types."
The six coaches of the two sides will be Hockey Hall of Fame inductee
Bill Barber, Flyers Hall of Famers
Brian Propp,
Rick MacLeish and
Dave "the Hammer" Schultz as well as
Bill Clement and
Don "Big Bird" Saleski. Clement will also be answering questions fans submit on social media.
Tickets for the Alumni game start at $12. The game has already sold out. However, a select number of single-seat tickets have been released to meet the high demand and even those are limited in quantity. Less than 100 single-seat tickets remain. All premium packages are complete sell-outs. A post-game VIP meet-and-greet with all of the Alumni was an almost instant sell-out. A youth hockey skills clinic run by the Alumni and a pre-game dinner buffet have also sold out.
For more ticket information on the game itself,
click here.
On Friday, Marsh traveled to Reading in order to do a local school visit on behalf of the Flyers and the Alumni and to take part in the since-rescheduled Affiliation Night at the Royals' game. That morning, he appeared on the WEEU Morning Show to talk about the Alumni Game and Affiliation Night. To listen to the segment,
click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»