This is the kind of stuff you like to “hear” in a training camp.
Jimmy Dowd, who is trying to play on his ninth, different hockey team in 14 years �" that’s a lot my friends _ comes in and thanks Flyers’ general manager Paul Holmgren for a chance to play.
And then says to him, ‘By the way, I’m gonna make this team.’
Homer’s reaction?
“It’s encouraging, I like it.”
Dowd is going to push R.J. Umberger, among others, for a roster spot.
Denis Gauthier looks chiseled. No flab. All lean muscle. I remember Eagles’ linebacker coach Joe Vitt once telling me that he saw the Flyers in 1996 and thought they were “scary dudes.”
“Those guys can play for me,” he said, looking at Eric Lindros.
That’s what I see in Gauthier in this camp. Looks like a linebacker.
“I knew my job was gonna be tougher to keep with all the changes being made and you guys media talking about me as a salary dump,” Gauthier told me in an empty dressing room late this afternoon. “I took it to heart.”
But he can still play defense? And can he did it without running guys and running himself all over the ice and getting in trouble, and throwing reckless body check that saw him get a concussion in pre-season last year and injure his shoulder the year before and … well, if you know “Goats”, you know what I’m talking about here.
“I realize I had to adapt to the higher level of skating and playing,” he said. “I can’t be quite as reckless as before, but I can’t take the edge off my game. I have to pick my spots.”
I said this before and say it again. I can’t see the Flyers keeping Gauthier as a seventh d-man at $2.1 million. He has to make the top six. Now, Mike Rathje makes $3.5 million. But that’s assuming he makes this team and his bad back and the fact he just started skating for the first time since last fall makes Rathje a long shot to come off the LTI report.
To me, Gauthier is the bubble guy on the defense. The Flyers will likely showcase him well in pre-season in case he’s their seventh. If he looks good and there’s no room for him here, they can trade him.
Gauthier says he wants to stay here “badly.” He reminded me he gave up unrestricted free agency in 2006 by signing a three-year extension under then GM Bob Clarke in March of 2005.
That was Clarke. This is Holmgren. The defense has changed. The entire team has changed. The priorities on the blue have changed. It’s all new now.
“They’re trying to make [cap] room, I understand that,” Gauthier said. “When I signed that extension, I planned on being here three years and I want to be here three years. Hopefully, they’re committed to me for that time. But I understand it’s a business, too.”
Gauthier has clearly surpass Alexandre Picard and Randy Jones for the No. 6 spot. Should be an interesting battle.
**
Danny Briere said he felt “rusty” on the ice with Simon Gagne and Mike Knuble but he enjoyed himself. He smiled the entire day. Even when being interviewed by the French-Canadian media. Which is saying something, eh?
“I had a hard time catching the first couple of passes,” Briere admitted. “For the first day, it was better than I thought with Mike and Simon. You can’t evaluate just one day. But I was happy we were able to find ourselves on the ice.”
Coach John Stevens was pleased with what he saw in the scrimmage, a 0-0 tie.
“He and Gags [Gagne] are always talking on the bench, on the ice,” Stevens said. “You can see they are trying to fast track the chemistry. Gags reads people well and gets open. Danny has great vision. We’re gonna take a long look at them. No reason they can’t have success together.”
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Those skin tight new Reebok sweaters are soooo tight that the Flyers are ordering them two sizes larger for most of their players.
**
Two scrimmages, lots of passion, no fights and best of all, no injuries. Good first day.
**
Back with a vengeance.
That's one of the marketing slogans the Flyers have thrown out for the season as training camp officially opens today at Skate Zone.
Ok, I will try to quantify the feeling in camp as to anticipation after last year's total meltdown: a [Hockey]buzz! Really, it’s everywhere in camp. I don’t think there has been this much anticipation of a season since 1996 �" deep in the heart of the Lindros Era _ when the Flyers vacated the Spectrum for their new home across the parking lot.
That Lindros-led team under Terry Murray seemed destined for the Cup. They made the Final only to be swept by Detroit. That’s the last time I felt this kind of buzz around the Flyers.
“It’s exciting seeing all the faces finally coming together,” Danny Briere said. “I am going to spend more time with these guys this season than my own family.”
I admit, I can feel a difference and I’ve been doing this what 12 years straight now?
“I sense a real excitement here,” said GM Paul Holmgren. “I sense it amongst our players, as well. I think the players who were here last year obviously have a bad taste in their mouth from what happened.
“They want to do something about it. The new guys coming in obviously feel that and want to turn things around, too. Right now, yeah, it's been high. The anticipation level, the excitement level, I think everybody's anxiously awaiting our training camp just to see how we do.”
No one expects this team to win the Cup or even get that far. It still puzzles me why so many of my colleagues don’t even think the Flyers are good enough to make the playoffs. This says otherwise.
“Our motto, coming into this season, is we’ve got be willing to earn it,” coach John Stevens replied when I told him so many people outside of Philly have this team failing again.
“Willing to earn the respect of the league again. We really haven’t done anything yet to earn the right to be a playoff team. That is why we’re anxious for training camp.
“We have to be willing to put the work in and earn the respect to be a good team in this league. At the end of what matters is the fans, the people in this room and our community and we can be a playoff team and want to get to work to prove we can be.”
Personally, I am convinced management won’t accept failure this season. Stevens’ has a short leash. If this team struggled through an entire month October, I don’t think Comcast boss Peter Luukko will hesitate to go to assistant Jack McIlhargey. There’s a reason why McIlhargey and Joey Mullen are here.
Stevens is not the paranoid type to look over his shoulder, yet I think he is smart enough to realize his replacements for failure are already in line. Ed Moran of the Daily News pressed Stevens this week on the issue of having to raise his “own” game behind the bench and Moran is dead-on.
“I haven’t really done anything at the NHL level,” Stevens admitted. “I love to coach, love to work for this organization, love the tradition that is here and I want nothing more than to come in here and prove we can be a good team again. I’m excited to get going and work with this group. I have a lot to prove.”
The foremost questions I have coming into camp:
Who makes the final six on defense? Does Denis Gauthier become a salary cap victim? He looks like Rocky. Carved and chiseled and fit to make the team. But will he? Does it get ugly if Mike Rathje insists he is healthy the Flyers insist he has to remain on LTI? Or does Rathje get waived?
The team wants to leave itself about $2.5 million under the cap in the event we get to December and Peter Forsberg �" yep, Foppa _ shows up at Stevens door with skates in hand and say, ‘I’m healthy enough to play.’
“He’s gotta be healthy, that’s the first priority and then we’ll talk,” someone told me.
Translation: healthy and accepting $1 million or less could see Foppa return. But that’s down the road. Still, it’s why Rathje’s $3.5 million can not come off LTI and back onto the cap.
Offensively, I want to see Danny Briere between Simon Gagne and Mike Knuble. Want to see that unit stay together and work. Stevens’ other lines are different, to start camp, from mine, but I would like to see Jeff Carter centering Scottie Upshall and Scott Hartnell.
I know Marty Biron is going to show people he is a No. 1 goalie again. I still can’t understand why so many writers outside the area say Biron is no better than a No. 2 on many clubs.
Was Cam Ward pegged as a No. 1 going into camp the year the Hurricanes won the Cup? I don’t think so.
This is a year of redemption for the Flyers. And the vets feel it.
“I was embarrassed for three months,” Derian Hatcher told me, recounting how he couldn’t go shopping without feeling people were looking at him and muttering under their breath. “I had a hard time going out in public. I had a hard time going to my son’s hockey games, standing there, knowing there’s someone looking at you.
“I had a hell of a time doing that. I didn’t even enjoy walking into Starbucks for a coffee. That’s how I am. I was definitely embarrassed.
“I don’t say this very often. I hate preseason. But I think this year, there’s going to be a little more of a focus on [what we look like] because of what happened last year. It’s about winning games and winning them the right way.”
Camp opens today. Statements need to be made.
“It’s a great situation to be in,” Jason Smith said. “Everyone wants to come here and do well. I come here with a new life, a new energy, and with guys who have been here before, just fit in and try to become a well-tuned team and get going.”
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