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Meltzer's Musings: Blueline Balance and Roster Battles

September 3, 2013, 12:08 PM ET [146 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
For a team with a defense corps that has been harshly maligned in the last few years, the Philadelphia Flyers have a lot of roster stability and decent depth heading into training camp. Barring injuries, there are five players who are locks to be in the starting lineup come opening night of the 2013-14 season: Kimmo Timonen, Luke Schenn, Braydon Coburn, Mark Streit and Nicklas Grossmann.

In the meantime, there is a host of candidates for the sixth starting spot and the reserve role. The hopefuls include oft-injured veteran starter Andrej Meszaros, mobile but undersized Swedish defenseman Erik Gustafsson, veteran Bruno Gervais, concussion-threatened Marc-Andre Bourdon and potential NHL rookies Oliver Lauridsen, Brandon Manning, Matt Konan and Mark Alt.

Apart from injuries and inconsistent defensive support from forwards, the Flyers biggest defense problem last season was an imbalance of puck movers on the blueline (not enough of them) and stay-at-home types. This issue played into the team's problems in executing Peter Laviolette's up-tempo system. The team had issues with breakouts and turnovers, which played into the club's ipoor five-on-five goal differential.

Has the problem been solved? It remains to be seen.

The acquisition of Streit should help to some degree. The veteran's primary value is as a power play trigger man but he is also an adept outlet passer. However, Streit is neither blazingly fast nor is he more than average as a coverage defender.

Gustafsson could be another piece of the puck-moving puzzle. He played very well in the final 10 games of the NHL season, while logging over 23 minutes per game. That strong performance carried over to the 2013 IIHF World Championships, where Gustafsson led gold medalist Sweden in ice time and was not out for an opposing even-strength goal the entire tournament.

Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette recently talked up Gustafsson's chances of taking on a full-time NHL role this season. The coach said that Gustafsson's late-season NHL play and performance at the World Championships was one of the most hopeful signs that the club took into the offseason.

Where does that leave Meszaros? That's a good question. The Flyers are currently over the salary cap ceiling, and cannot place Chris Pronger on long-term injured reserve until the day that the opening-night roster is set. The club will either need to move out a veteran defenseman in trade or else pare down some salary from the forward corps.

Laviolette has also recently talked up Meszaros' return to the team. The coach has noted that the Slovak won the Barry Ashbee Trophy as the team's top defenseman in 2010-11, and missed him during his frequent injury-related absences of the past two years.

Within the last two summers, Meszaros has undergone four different surgeries: wrist, back, Achilles tendon repair and rotator cuff.

Meszaros had wrist surgery in the summer of 2011. He did not miss any game action at the start of the 2011-12 season, but it may have contributed to a slow start. Later, he missed the stretch drive and all but one playoff game after undergoing back surgery.

Last summer, while working out in his native Slovakia, Meszaros suffered a torn Achilles tendon. He returned for the start of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 NHL season in January. Unfortunately, in the third game of the regular season, Meszaros sustained a separated shoulder. He missed a month of action. Shortly after he was back in the lineup, the Flyers lost Meszaros for the remainder of the season. Meszaros was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, necessitating another round of surgery.

Meszaros has rehabbed diligently over the summer and is said to now be healthy. His contract carries a $4 million cap hit and expires after the season, and does not have a no-trade clause. Both Coburn and Grossmann have partial no-trades in their contracts, which enables them to have say in where they could be traded.

I do not expect Meszaros (or another D-man) to be traded until the tail end of camp. First of all, he needs to prove he's healthy before a trade is even feasible. Finding a trade taker for Meszaros could necessitate Philadelphia including an additional asset and/or eating a portion of his cap hit this season. The healthier he is, the more attractive he is to NHL teams looking to add a veteran starter with an expiring contract.

Secondly, having him on-hand during the preseason gives the team some options, at least from a strictly hockey perspective. In fact, Meszaros could still wind up on the team in the event there is another injury elsewhere on the blueline during camp and/or Gustafsson has a shaky camp and plays himself out of the starting mix.

In particular, there is still reason for concern about Grossmann's own ability to stay healthy. He is coming off a season-ending concussion; the big Swede's second concussion in two seasons. Grossmann also has a past history of knee injuries.

Assuming Grossmann and the others stay healthy and Gustafsson has a reasonably good preseason, however, I just don't see where Meszaros would fit into the starting lineup. Streit is a different style player than Meszaros -- smaller, much less physical, a little more consistent as a strict offensive D but also the lesser defensive player -- but his ideal usage on the Flyers is not all that different than the minutes Meszaros typically played. Both are ideally third-pairing five-on-five defenseman who can still average about 20 overall minutes per game.

When Meszaros was at his best in Philly, he was getting a lot of offensive zone starts and his five-on-five minutes were generally shielded from opposing teams' top offensive lines. Well, that is also the ideal way to use Streit. I'm not sure if Laviolette would be wild about the idea of pairing the two players as a unit so, even if things were to wok out that Meszaros is still a Flyer come opening night, I'd think they'd play on different pairings.

Ideally, I think the Flyers' opening night pairings will look something like this: Timonen-Schenn, Coburn-Streit, and Grossmann-Gustafsson. I would think that Gervais is the most likely to open the year as the seventh defenseman, assuming he's fully recovered from the torn abdominal muscle he suffered in the latter part of last season.

Gustafsson is no longer waiver exempt. If he plays himself out of a top-six role OR if the club keeps Meszaros and finds another method of cap compliance, it is possible that Gustafsson could start out as the number seven. If so, that would put Gervais on the waiver wire and a possible AHL exile (his NHL salary falls below the threshold in which any cap hit would count against the Flyers' cap figure).

Bourdon's post-concussion symptoms have largely dissipated after a lengthy struggle following his third concussion in less than a calendar year. However, he still has periodic headaches and is not yet medically cleared to play. For this reason, I think he could still wind up starting out of the year on IR and, if all goes well, spend a short rehab stint with the Phantoms. In order to be sent to the Phantoms for a lengthier stint, he would need to clear waivers (given his health concerns, I would think he'd clear). If Bourdon can show he's healthy, and avoid further setbacks when he resumes playing, he could eventually get back into the mix for a spot on the big club.

Lauridsen, Manning, Konan and Alt are all likely to be returned to the Phantoms. They are in the callup mix for the season and could rise or fall on the depth chart in camp.

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