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Flyers Preseason Gameday: 9/27/16 vs. NYI, Flyers Split Squads Blanked

September 27, 2016, 8:20 AM ET [202 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
One night after split squads consisting mostly of junior prospects and Lehigh Valley Phantoms players got shut out on the road both by the New Jersey Devils (2-0) and New York Islanders (3-0),the Philadelphia Flyers will play their first home game of the preseason as they host the Islanders at the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday night.

Game time is 7:00 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on TCN Philadelphia.

While it is never a good feeling to get shut out even in the preseason, especially twice on the same night by two different teams, Monday's games were more like prospect games plus a few NHL players than what one would find even in a typical preseason game.

Due to the World Cup of Hockey, the Flyers remain without Claude Giroux, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Mark Streit. Although Jakub Voracek, Michal Neuvirth, Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Couturier are now with the Flyers after the eliminations of Team Czech Republic and Team North America from the tournament, none were available to play on Monday.

Additionally, none among Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn, Michael Raffl, Matt Read, Dale Weise, Chris VandeVelde, Boyd Gordon, Radko Gudas, Nick Schultz, Andrew MacDonald or Steve Mason were on the trips to Newark and Brooklyn.

On Monday, the Flyers had 10 players -- Connor Bunnaman, Anthony Salinitri, Alex Lyon, Roman Lyubimov, Philippe Myers, Reece Willcox, Pascal Laberge, Carsen Twarynski, Steven Swavely, and Mark Zengerle -- who were making their first-ever appearance in an NHL preseason game. They also had numerous other players with scant or no NHL in-season experience.

Primarily, the split-squad games were a chance to get a look at some prospects in extensive ice time, none more extensive than the massive 28:48 on 28 shifts that Flyers 2015 first-round pick Ivan Provorov impressively handled in Newark. Flyers coach Dave Hakstol told the Flyers' website after the game that he had not intended to play anyone -- including Provorov -- so much in the first outing of the preseason but the player handled it with aplomb. Provorov was paired with Brandon Manning, who played on right defense.

Both the games in New Jersey and against the Islanders were scoreless deadlocks for much of the game. The Devils forged ahead late in the second period on a Nick Lappin goal and Lappin later added an empty netter. In the Islanders game, the match was a 0-0 deadlock until the third period when Shane Prince, Joshua Ho-Sang and Michael Dal Colle (empty net) scored.

In Newark, rookie Alex Lyon played impressively in his Flyers preseason debut, stopping 29 of 30 shots including an Andy Greene breakaway early in the game. In Brooklyn, third-year pro Anthony Stolarz turned back 33 of 35 shots (including 24 of 24 through the first 40 minutes).

Nick Cousins stirred things up in the third period of the Islanders game, fighting Ryan Strome
and then Prince. Flyers 2014 first-round pick Travis Sanheim skated 19:44 of ice time (2:32 on the power play) while 2013 first-rounder Samuel Morin played 19:29 (2:17 on the penalty kill).

In the Newark game, 2015 first-round pick Travis Konecny skated on a line with new Phantoms forward Andy Miele at center and Flyers forward Scott Laughton on left wing.



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