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Meltzer's Musings: 10/5/11 |
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None of the moves the Flyers made yesterday can be classified as a complete shock. However, I did not think the club was going to waive Blair Betts. During yesterday's practice, in fact, Betts skated in his normal 4th line center spot.
When general manager Paul Holmgren addressed the media in the SkateZone lockerroom, he implied that Betts would be gone from the team even if he clears waivers at noon today. Holmgren said that he had just "had a difficult conversation" with the veteran forward, and admitted that the play of Matt Read and Sean Couturier in penalty killing situations during the preseason -- as well as the signing of Max Talbot -- had factored into the decision to waive Betts.
If it were my call to make, I would have kept Betts around. He's still a good faceoff man (better than Talbot or the 18-year-old Couturier) and makes few mistakes. Plus, he's only making $700,000 on the cap, so the club is not really saving that much money by jettisoning him from the roster. The only financial advantage is that it gets the club $700 K closer to not needing to dip into the forthcoming Ian Laperriere LTIR allowance (which only applies if the team is otherwise over the cap).
Overall, Holmgren said that the team's waivers of three players (Betts, Matt Walker and Oskars Bartulis) as well as the decisions to send waiver-exempt Brayden Schenn, Erik Gustafsson and Harry Zolnierczyk to the Phantoms would give the team "more flexibility" today after the waiver period ends. He also said not to "read too much" into the waivers, and all but said that either Walker or Bartulis would be with the Flyers on opening night.
Holmgren did not believe that any of the waived players will be claimed.
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Matt Walker did not practice yesterday. He also had a "maintenance day" on Sunday, so it's likely that he's nursing some sort of undisclosed minor injury and it's totally unrelated to him being waived. Both Betts and Bartulis practiced with the team yesterday.
In the lockerroom after practice, Peter Laviolette strongly implied that he expected Walker to be in his opening night lineup in Boston, paired with Braydon Coburn.
Asked about the decision to (at least temporarily) separate Coburn from Kimmo Timonen after two-plus seasons as a regular pairing, Laviolette said, "Well, it's a comfort thing. Defensemen get used to playing one side or the other. Walker, well..."
Laviolette paused for a second, and then continued.
"He had a good camp and he is a righthanded shot. That's not to say we won't see Coby and Kimmo together again at some point."
What was very interesting about this statement is that Laviolette did not add something to his statement along the lines of "Whether it's Walker or [Andreas] Lilja or Bartulis out there with Coby in Boston, we've got a lot of faith in any of them."
Is it reading too much into the coach's words to say that he considers Walker (if he clears waivers) to be the team's opening night sixth defenseman, with Lilja as the spare? We'll find out soon enough.
Then again, if Walker has made the team, why even bother with the risk of waivers in the first place? Yes, I know, it gives the club more flexibility. Perhaps there is a trade out there, although Holmgren made the typically pessimistic public assessment that GMs make when asked if there are any deals close to being made.
Right now, if the Flyers send Walker and Bartulis down, the club will only have the minimum six defensemen with no injury replacement available. That's another reason to suspect that the club plans to keep one of the waived defensemen around, with Walker being the first preference.
Erik Gustafsson, who is waiver exempt, must have learned of his demotion to the Phantoms well ahead of practice. Not only was he not on the ice, his nameplate had been removed from his locker and his gear was gone, no doubt en route to Glens Falls.
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CapGeek deserves major credit for immediately picking up on the fact that, due to the bonus structure of his entry level contract, Brayden Schenn's salary cap hit drops from $3.11 million to $1.7 million if he spends even one day of the season in the minors. Obviously, that was the single biggest incentive for the Flyers to send him to the Phantoms.
I still think there is a hockey justification to having Schenn spend at least the first 10 games (Couturier's trial period in the NHL). Apart from his shoulder injury -- which kept him off the ice yesterday after he was shooting pucks gingerly over the weekend -- there is the fact that the rookie needs to get a little more assertive and confident offensively.
I'll reiterate what I've said the last few days: If Claude Giroux benefited from roughly a half-season in the NHL and San Jose's Logan Couture needed slightly over the equivalent of a half-season (spread over parts of two seasons), what's wrong with having Schenn join a Phantoms team that could actually use him right away on its top line and top power play unit? At minimum, it would not hurt the player and, at maximum, it could help him become a better NHL contributor by the stretch drive.
Of course, the waiver of Betts strongly suggests that Schenn's "absence" is going to be very brief. Both he (on the third line) and Couturier (starting out on the fourth) could both be in the October lineup. That's a lot of youth, especially with a third rookie, 25-year-old Matt Read, also in the lineup.
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With Couturier now a lock for the opening night lineup, the club may soon need to address its reserve list problem. The Flyers are still at the maximum 50 contracts on the reserve list. Couturier can play up to 10 NHL games this season without counting against the list but would have to be added once he plays any NHL games beyond that.
I suppose that's another reason why the club waived Betts. If they can get another club to claim him (or Walker or Bartulis), the team will officially be at 49 contract and can add Couturier if his play merits it.
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Kimmo Timonen is not one to mince words or sugar-coat his opinions. Therefore, it means more coming from him than it would from most players when he said yesterday, "This year was the best training camp I've seen in my five years here."
The veteran defenseman said that the tempo of the practices were almost uniformly very high and the meetings were productive. He also looks forward to the challenge of his new defensive partnership with Andrej Meszaros after pairing almost exclusively with Coburn dating back to the latter part of the 2007-08 season.
"When you play together all the time, you know each others' tendencies," said Timonen. "With Mez, we've spent a little more time talking about playing 3-on-2 rushes, breakouts and those sorts of things. It's an adjustment and maybe a little bit of a change in some of the details, but you get used to the change pretty fast."
Unlike the forward units, which have been massively overhauled, the Flyers defense corps has largely remained in tact (with the exception of the departure of Sean O'Donnell). Timonen believes that this will help in the team-wide process of getting used to the new personnel, which also includes a new starting goalie in Ilya Bryzgalov.
"I think it helps a little bit in terms of the system, because we [the defense] have already been playing it as a unit. It makes the communication a little better at this stage. There are still adjustments to make but we know the approach that Peter wants, so hopefully it comes along a little faster," he said.
Timonen was asked about the perception that there is less tension and more unity in the locker room. He looked up to make direct eye contact with the writers.
"I know there's been a lot of talk about that. I didn't think there was any problem with the room before. You guys said there was, but that was totally false. I did not have a problem with it. We are here to win, and when we don't, people have things to say."
He was then asked whether he feels the atmosphere is at least more relaxed and happy. Timonen grinned.
"We haven't played any games yet, and we haven't lost any games yet, so we'll see how the mood changes when we go through some adversity," he said.
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Chris Therien made some interesting comments yesterday about the secrecy that many NHL coaches have about revealing their line combinations ahead of time and the reluctance that some have about practicing the power play.
"Here's how I see it," Therien said. "The other coach knows your personnel, at least the main guys, and he's going to know what your lines are within a few minutes of the start of the game, anyway. It's really no big secret what you're going to do on your power play. So, if it was me coaching, I wouldn't care if other people saw us practicing the power play. You're really not giving too much away. Besides, any other NHL coach is going to recognize what you're doing, anyway. So I never saw the need to make it like it's some huge secret."
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Today on the Flyers' official site, there will be a mini season-preview article written by yours truly. The piece focuses on four pivotal players and key factors heading into the season. When it goes online, I will post the link both here and on Twitter.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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