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QUICK HITS: AUGUST 31, 2017
1) Flyers general manager Ron Hextall sat down with Courier Post beat writer Dave Isaac to discuss his outlook as training camp approaches. Part one of the interview is now online. No new ground was broken apart from Hextall saying he has inquiries out to a couple of potential tryout players.
2) In regard to bringing in tryout players, Hextall is in a tough spot. On the one hand, he wants to have roster spots available for young defensemen -- with Samuel Morin, Robert Hägg, second-year pro Travis Sanheim and first-year pro Philippe Myers the leading contenders -- to earn spots. On the other hand, Hextall said that he won't bring in a veteran tryout player for its own sake. It would have to be a player whom he feels could help the club and play a fairly high number of games if he makes the team.
This combination probably doesn't compute unless Brandon Manning (who currently figures to be the seventh defenseman on the depth) is playing for his job at camp or if the Flyers wind up carrying eight defensemen again. The latter option is something Hextall has said he prefers to avoid.
While a tryout player is free to sign with any team, it is more typical for players to try out for teams with whom they see an opportunity to earn a contract and spend the season. It is not clear if the Flyers are a good fit for a vet to try out given the priority of seeing first if the youngsters are ready to stake down NHL jobs.
3) As expected, Hextall vehemently denied that second overall draftee Nolan Patrick is a virtual lock for an NHL roster spot this season. As with every young player, including Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny last season, the GM said that Patrick has to prove he is ready for the NHL based on his training camp and preseason performance. Hextall also noted that the roster is stocked with players who can play center -- veterans Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Valterri Filppula and Jori Lehterä plus young vet Scott Laughton and Mike Vecchione -- and does not have to be locked into Patrick being in the NHL this season at all costs.
Hextall told Isaac that he would not consider it a disappointment if Patrick wound up assigned back to Brandon. The GM said he is focused on the long-term future with the player's development to become an NHL impact player as he matures.
While Hextall is very much a believer in the big picture and does not make decisions based on fan sentiment or pundit opinions, it still seems that Patrick will be a Flyer in 2017-18. All evidence points to him being NHL-ready now:
* He averaged 1.39 points per game in the Western League last year even while missing considerable time and never feeling close to 100 percent healthy.
* He will turn 19 on Sept. 19 and only missed the age cutoff for 2016 Draft eligibility by four days.
* He is at roughly the same point in his development path as Provorov and Konecny were at this time last year.
* He already has three-plus seasons of major junior hockey under his belt but is still too young for AHL eligibility.
When all of the factors are weighed, and also taking into account the Flyers' undeniable need for more scoring prowess (especially following the trade that sent Brayden Schenn to St. Louis), the most logical course of big picture action seems to be to have Patrick in the NHL lineup even if he has a decent-but-unspectacular training camp. There will be growing pains and bumps in the road, no doubt, but the important part will be whether he is a more advanced player by the end of the season.
If Patrick does go back to junior hockey, playing for Team Canada in the World Junior Championships and having a healthy season would be his prime motivators. As a player who has already been a 100-point player in the WHL and produced at about the same prorated pace last year, the Western League really isn't much of a challenge for Patrick at this point. He is probably ready to find his way as a pro even if he isn't an instant NHL star as a rookie.
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FLYERS TOP 25 IN THE LAST 25 YEARS: CHRIS PRONGER
His time as an active player for the Philadelphia Flyers lasted less than two-and-a-half seasons and he was only a healthy player the first year, but when Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Chris Pronger was in the lineup, the team was capable of greatness. The blueline one-two punch of Pronger (along with partner Matt Carle) and Kimmo Timonen (with partner Braydon Coburn) was one of the best in the NHL.
When Pronger was abruptly taken out of the mix due to Post-Concussion Syndrome, the Flyers became a more fragile and vulnerable team. If Pronger had been available and healthy in the 2012 postseason, the club may have been better able to tactically cope with the New Jersey Devils in the second round.
Without Pronger, the club's window for winning the Stanley Cup effectively closed after 2011-12. That realization was the impetus for the massive offer sheet to which the Flyers signed restricted free agent Shea Weber in July 2012, only for the Nashville Predators to match.
It is hard to overstate how much Pronger meant to the Flyers lineup. Even in his mid-30s with a lot of mileage on his body, Pronger was still a game-changer.
An offensive force who also brought an intimidating physical presence and an ability to get under opponents' skin, the 6-foot-5, 210-pound Pronger became one of the top players of his era. In 1,167 games with the Whalers, St. Louis Blues, Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Ducks and Flyers, Pronger had 157 goals and 698 points. In 173 Stanley Cup Playoff games, he had 26 goals and 121 points.
For his Flyers career, Pronger produced 92 points (15 goals, 77 assists) a plus-30 rating and 133 penalty minutes in 145 regular season games. He dressed in 26 playoff games, contributing 19 points (four goals, 15 assists), a plus-two rating and 40 penalty minutes.
Pronger was 34 years old when the Flyers acquired him from Anaheim on June 26, 2009. The Flyers traded power forward Joffrey Lupul, their 2009 and 2010 first-round picks and a conditional third-round pick to the Ducks to land the superstar defenseman. Philadelphia also acquired minor-league forward Ryan Dangle in the deal.
On July 7, 2009, Pronger, who had one season remaining on his contract, signed a seven-season extension with the Flyers. He turned 35 on Oct. 10, 2009.
Immediately emerging as a hard-driving team leader, Pronger delivered as advertised in his first season. In the regular season, he played in all 82 games, posting 55 points (10 goals, 45 assists), a plus-22 rating and 79 penalty minutes while playing a key role in all manpower situations. Pronger anchored the top pairing, with Carle as his usual partner.
Befitting his vital importance to the team, Pronger won both the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the Flyers most valuable player of the 2009-10 season as well as the Barry Ashbee Trophy as the top defenseman. On a league-wide level, he finished fifth in the Norris Trophy race (including two first-place votes) for the NHL's best defenseman. He previously won the 1999-2000 Norris Trophy as a member of the Blues.
After earning a playoff berth on the final day of the regular season, the Flyers came within two victories of winning the Stanley Cup in the 2010 playoffs. Pronger was a big reason for the club's deep run in the spring even apart from his stats: four goals and 18 points in 23 games, plus-five rating, 48 credited hits,71 blocked shots, and an average 29:03 of ice time per game.
Pronger wasn't always beloved by Flyers teammates but he commanded everyone's respect because he also held himself to the highest of standards. He never minded being the bad cop, but was also balanced off by good cop types such as the upbeat Danny Briere. The dynamic worked. What really mattered, though, was the way the veteran superstar delivered once the puck was dropped.
As a day-to-day bonus to the team, the calculating Pronger's frequent verbal sparring matches with reporters -- more commonly in a joking manner, but occasionally heated -- took pressure off the less verbose players on the team. Pronger enjoyed gaining the upper hand in these give-and-take exchanges. Combined with Briere's soothing positivism, Scott Hartnell's jokester persona and Kimmo Timonen's combination of bluntness and underlying dry humor, the Flyers veterans enabled more reluctant younger teammates to slip out of the room or at least to minimize the time they spent in front of the media.
Unfortunately, after 2009-10, Pronger was never able to stay healthy again for the Flyers. The Flyers' third pairing was a weak spot in 2009-10, but was upgraded in the offseason with the additions of Andrej Meszaros and Sean O'Donnell. Unfortunately, the projected starting six was rarely together.
During the 2010-11 season, offseason arthroscopic knee surgery, an in-season broken foot (requiring surgery), broken hand (also requiring surgery) and herniated disc in his back limited to 50 regular season games and just three playoff games. After the season, he underwent back surgery.
Named the Flyers' new captain, Pronger felt better entering the 2011-12 season and produced 11 points in 12 games. Sadly, they would be the final games of his career. On Oct. 24, 2011, Pronger suffered a serious injury when he was accidentally struck by a high stick by Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mikhail Grabovski on the follow-through of a shot.
Pronger suffered an ocular concussion and was bedridden for four days. Even so, he toughed it out. He missed only six games before returning to the ice skate 25:22 in a 2-1 road loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 9, 2011. Pronger did not feel right but kept playing through Nov. 19. Finally, his post-concussion symptoms became too severe to continue.
The defenseman was soon shut down for the rest of the season. The symptoms continued and Pronger was unable to resume his on-ice career although he technically remained under Flyers contract. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015.
On June 27, 2015, in a move that had salary cap benefits for both teams, the Flyers traded the remainder of Pronger's contract plus defensive defenseman Nicklas Grossmann to the Phoenix Coyotes for forward Sam Gagner and a conditional 2016 fourth-round draft pick. The move gave the Flyers cap relief and helped the Coyotes get to the cap floor.
In order to make the Pronger portion of the trade budget-neutral for Arizona in terms of real-dollar expenditure, the Flyers picked up an equivalent portion of Grossmann's salary to the NHL minimum salary owed to Pronger by that stage of his contract.
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TODAY IN FLYERS HISTORY: AUGUST 31
1) On August 31, 1978, the Flyers playing career of veteran defenseman Joe Watson came to an end. A member of the Flyers' inaugural team, a two-time Stanley Cup winner and two-time NHL All-Star Game selection, Watson was 35 years old. With first-round pick Behn Wilson arriving and the departing Fred Shero replaced as head coach by Bob McCammon, the Flyers roster was in transition.
Flyers general manager Keith Allen gave Watson a choice. He could either finish out his playing days as a Flyer if he would accept a greatly reduced playing role or he could be traded to a team of his choosing where he figured to get more playing time. Watson gave it thought and then asked for a trade to the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Penguins; two lower-echelon clubs where he stood to get regular playing time while also serving as a mentor to younger players.
Allen obliged. Watson's contract was sold to the Rockies. Unfortunately, he only played 16 games for Colorado before suffered a career ending leg injury caused by awkward fall into the boards on a dangerous hit by St. Louis Blues forward Wayne Babych.
Following his retirement, Watson returned to the Flyers' fold in 1979 as a scout and training camp instructor. In many different job capacities, he's been part of the organization ever since.
2) Today in Flyers History: On August 31, 1995, veteran defenseman Kjell Samuelsson signed on for a second tour of duty with the Flyers. The Flyers signed the hulking 36-year-old to a two-year contract, quickly filling a vacancy on the starting blueline left by the trade of Dmitri Yushkevich the previous day.
The 6-foot-6 Samuelsson was played by head coach Terry Murray on a towering pairing with 6-foot-5 second-year pro Chris Therien. The pairing clicked. Samuelsson posted a robust plus-20 rating in 75 games and was among the team's penalty killing stalwarts. Therien was plus-16.
Midway through the 1996-97 season, Therien was moved to the top pairing with Eric Desjardins (who previously played with former Montreal teammate Kevin Haller before Haller was traded by the Flyers in the deal that brought Paul Coffey to Philadelphia).
The 1995-96 season was the last healthy one of Samuelsson's career. A former two-time winner of the Barry Ashbee Trophy, "Sammy" underwent neck surgery in Jan. 1997 and was limited to 34 regular season games. Rusty and still far from 100 percent, he returned to play in five playoff games; the clinching game of the Eastern Conference Final against the Rangers and all four games of the Flyers loss to Detroit in the Stanley Cup Final.
Samuelsson re-upped for one year in the summer of 1997 but was no longer the same caliber of shutdown defenseman he had been in his best years in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. He dressed in 49 regular season games and one playoff match in 1997-98.
He retired after finishing up his NHL career with the woeful 1998-99 Tampa Bay Lightning, for whom Samuelsson dressed in 46 games. In 2000-01, after a year of getting his feet wet in the coaching ranks as an assistant with the ECHL's Trenton Titans, the Flyers hired Samuelsson as an assistant coach with the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms. He has been a coach in the organization ever since, including a stint (2006-07) as the Phantoms' head coach.
Since 2013, Samuelsson has served as a Flyers Development Coach, working one-on-one with Flyers defense prospects. He has put in particularly extensive work with Samuel Morin, Robert Hägg and Travis Sanheim, among others.
3) Last but not least, today marks 21 years since the opening of the Wells Fargo Center (then called the CoreStates Center). The new arena officially opened on August 31, 1996, with a World Cup of Hockey preliminary round game between Team USA and Team Canada. Fittingly, Flyers left winger John LeClair scored the first goal to give Team USA a 1-0 lead. Team USA went on prevail, 5-3.
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