UPDATE 4:00 PM
Flyers roster for tonight (they will have to scratch one goalie, one forward, and one defenseman but these are the available players who made the trip).
GOALTENDING
Michael Leighton - starter
Sergei Bobrovsky
Jason Bacashihua
FORWARDS
James van Riemsdyk, Harry Zolnierczyk, Zac Rinaldo, Eric Wellwood, Sean Couturier, Claude Giroux, Max Talbot, Ben Holmstrom, Wayne Simmonds, Danny Briere, Andreas Nodl, Scott Hartnell, Mike Testwuide, Tyler Brown
DEFENSE
Matt Carle, Marc-Andre Bourdon, Oliver Lauridsen, Blake Kessel, Andrej Meszaros, Kimmo Timonen, Andreas Lilja, Braydon Coburn .
UPDATE 1:30 PM
Red Wings starting lineup
Valtteri Filppula – Henrik Zetterberg – Johan Franzen
Justin Abdelkader – Darren Helm – Todd Bertuzzi
Gustav Nyquist – Joakim Andersson – Willie Coetzee
Tomas Jurco – Brent Raedeke – Francis Pare
Nicklas Lidstrom – Ian White
Jonathan Ericsson – Jakub Kindl
Brian Lashoff – Doug Janik
Ty Conklin
[Jordan Pearce]
UPDATE 10:30 AM
The Flyers have officially confirmed to Tim Panaccio that they cannot sign Tomas Hyka to an entry-level contract, because the CBA officially precludes it due to his status of having played in Europe last season. He will go back into 2012 Entry Draft.
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The Flyers will play their third exhibition game in as many nights when they take on the Detroit Red Wings tonight in the Philadelphia team's annual pre-season "home" game at the John Lebatt Centre in London, Ontario (which is partially owned and fully operated by Comcast Spectacor subsidiary Global Spectrum).
I will post tonight's rosters/lineups when they become available later today.
******
Last night, the Flyers slogged through a 4-2 loss to the Maple Leafs at the Wells Fargo Center. The game had a few exciting moments but was a pretty sloppy affair on the whole. Following are some notes and observations:
*
"Hykamania is running wild" (Hockeyology's Russ Cohen coined the Hulk Hogan inspired slogan last night). Undrafted training camp invite Tomas Hyka continued to impress. The 18-year-old Czech scored a nice goal on a breakaway and also drew a powerplay for the Flyers. On the goal, Hyka came out of the penalty box and took a perfect lead pass in stride from Matt Read. Displaying some deft east-west movement, Hyka got Jonas Gustavsson moving and tucked the puck past him. He then launched into a goal celebration in which he exalted the crowd to cheer louder, ala the Hulkster.
Yesterday, Anthony San Filippo
detailed the whole story behind Hyka receiving a call from Paul Holmgren to play last night while en route to rejoining the QMJHL's Gatineau Olympiques. The Flyers' GM strongly implied to the media that the club has strong interest in signing Hyka to an entry level contract (which would be the only way the club can secure his NHL rights because he was undrafted in June and would otherwise go back into the draft in 2012).
But are the Flyers permitted under the CBA to sign Hyka? The answer is unclear as of this morning. There is a
very detailed blog over at Broad Street Hockey today examining Hyka's signing eligibility status as an undrafted 18-year-old against the rules spelled out in the NHL-NHLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement.
In a nutshell, the issue comes down to this from a CBA perspective: If Hyka is classified as a European player because he played in the Czech Extraliga and U20 leagues last year, he is NOT eligible to be signed to an NHL entry level contract this year under the letter of the law in the CBA. That's because he was not drafted. A teenaged European-affiliated prospect must enter the NHL via the entry draft.
However, if he can be classified as a North American player, because he now plays for Gatineau (has played 2 games), he is eligible to be signed to an entry level contract on the same basis that San Jose
signed undrafted 18-year-old J.P. Anderson last year and the Flyers themselves previously signed Tyler Hostetter. For eligibility purposes, the CBA looks at where a player played the previous year.
Further complicating matters here is the death of the NHL-IIHF transfer agreement a few years ago, which was in existence at the time the CBA was created. The NHL now ignores the CBA when it comes to the rights of players drafted out of countries in which the national federation has not struck its own transfer arrangement with the NHL. That's why the Flyers still own the rights to Czech goaltender Jakub Kovar despite the fact he was drafted in 2006 and, yet, the Flyers lost the rights to 2009-drafted Swedish goaltender Joacim Eriksson. Sweden has a transfer agreement with the NHL, the Czechs do not.
How might this apply to Hyka? As I see it (and this is strictly my own speculation at this point), if the NHL and NHLPA simply overlook the CBA about the teams' signing rights to drafted Czech-affiliated players, what would prevent them from bending the rules in similar fashion when it comes to signing undrafted Czech players off a training camp invite? I suspect that the league would look the other way in this case, unless other NHL teams raised a protest.
If Hyka is NOT classified as a North American player for signing purposes, that opens up a different can of worms. The 18-year-old would then become eligible for AHL play right away, because the age restriction (which applies to CHL affiliated players only) would not apply. Hyka would have to agree to a straight-up minor league contract if the AHL entry system allows him to do so. Of course, if his commitment to Gatineau is binding, he would be prohibited from AHL play until he's 20.
It would make no sense for Hyka to be "Euro affiliated" for his NHL contract purposes and "CHL affiliated" for AHL contracting purposes, thereby excluding him from both leagues this year. But this would hardly be the first rule in hockey that makes no sense.
At any rate, the Flyers could have saved themselves a big headache sorting out all these rules if they had just gone ahead and drafted Hyka in the 7th round of the June draft, rather than enforcer Derek Mathers. They could have invited Mathers to camp as an undrafted project , owned Hyka's rights indefinitely (because he was definitely classified as Czech-affiliated at that point) and signed hm if they saw fit.
* There is zero doubt in my mind that Jody Shelley will get a long suspension from Brendan Shanahan for his boarding of Darryl Boyce last night. Shelley may not have a "dirty player" reputation beyond being a fighter, but he does have a rap sheet of five previous NHL suspensions, including two within the same month last season (the first for a hit from behind, the second for a sucker punch).
* Danny Briere was one of the few Flyers returning veterans who looked sharp and alert in last night's game. Claude Giroux has never had a good preseason in his NHL career to date, and it was clear from his play last night that he wishes it was already the regular season. Newcomer Jakub Voracek had some nice stickhandling sequences and created a few scoring chances, but was also guilty of some sloppy play.
* Brayden Schenn and Matt Read had some very nice shifts for the club last night.
* Peter Laviolette did a lot of experimentation last night, including putting Andreas Nodl on the point on the power play at one juncture and using Erik Gustafsson as a power play forward at another (Gustafsson scored the Flyers' second goal by tapping in the rebound of a shot that hit the post).
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