LOCKER CLEAN OUT DAY (7:00 p.m. EDT)

The Flyers players, coach Craig Berube, team chairman Ed Snider and general manager Paul Holmgren all had media availability sessions early this evening at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. Here are excerpts of some of the major issues discussed:

Paul Holmgren's future: Ed Snider Session

Q: Paul Holmgren is the leader of your hockey club. Will he have a different title next year?
A: "We’re going to all sit down and it’s going to be up to Paul."

Q: So in your mind if your team needs a team president, he’s the guy who signs off on that?
A: We’re in the process of analyzing everybody’s title.

Q: Will Paul still be making the decisions regardless of what his title is?
A: He’ll be the head of hockey operations.

Q: On Ron Hextall becoming the GM in the future.
A: That’s why he was brought in. He didn’t come in to stay assistant GM forever, but that doesn’t mean tomorrow. But I’ve got to sit down with Paul.

Q: What would you prefer?
A: It’s really Paul’s call. All I have to do is endorse it. If I don’t agree with it, then we have a behind-closed-door discussion.

Paul Holmgren's future: Paul Holmgren Session

Q: Paul, Ed Snider said Ron Hextall was brought in to be the GM of the team someday, and he hinted that you would be moved upstairs at some point to be president. Do you want to be the GM next year?
A: "Yes. I’m the one who brought Hexy back. He’s an excellent resource in our organization. He’s a tremendous hockey man and I have no question that he’s ready to be a general manager at any point. We’ll see where that goes, but I’m certainly not in any position today where I want to change chairs."

Q: Have you given yourself a timetable?
A: "Do you think I look 70? I still feel pretty good."

Q: He said there’s a team looking at changes in the organization.
A: "Rather than continue to debate what we’re debating here, we’re going through our end of the year stuff with our hockey team. I’m sure there will be days here along the way that we can talk about other things, but today’s not the day to talk about that stuff."

Q: There are other teams that need GMs. If they come calling, do you let Ron go if he wants to, or how does that work?
A: "Well, I don’t have to if I don’t want to. If that were the case, to me is that the right thing to do? Yeah. You can always say no, I refuse to give you permission to talk to my employee. There’s no law that says you have to give it to them. To me, if and when that happens, somebody wants to talk to Ron Hextall about a general manager’s opening, yeah. No problem."

Q: Has anyone contacted you so far?
A: "That’s something for the other teams to say. I’m not going to tip my hand one way or the other."

Q: Do you enjoy this job as much as you did when you started?
A: "Hockey has been my life and my passion for a long time. Do I enjoy it as much? Absolutely."


Kimmo Timonen's future: Kimmo Timonen session

Q: Does the series loss impact your decision on whether you want to try to come back next year or not?

A: "I’ve been thinking about this a long time and I’m going to take a few weeks here and see how I feel. I feel, like injury-wise, I’m in pretty good shape. It’s not like I can say I ‘okay I have to go do this surgery’ and that kind of stuff, but I’m going to take my time here and see. You have to be motivated to work out, get into shape, go through those 82 games again, and for myself, I put the highest standard for where I want to be when I play the game. I have to think about if I can still be there and if I find that I can be there, then I don’t see why I’m not coming back."

Q: So if you do decide you want to go through this again, do you look at this as there’s a possibility it won’t be in Philadelphia for another year or how do you approach that?

A: "No, this is my place. If I get back, this is where I want to be. I like our team. I like the team moving forward because we can get some young guys, young forwards, who can be faster, I won’t get any younger, that’s for sure, and probably not faster but I feel like I can still help the team. But again, I want to take my time and see if I can get to the level that I want to be."

Q: Your coach says he wants you back, does that play into your decision at all?

A: "Well I wanted to know. I talked to Homer yesterday and I asked him if he wants me back and the same with Chief, and they feel like I should get back and that’s always a good sign. I think, personally, it’s my decision and if I feel like I can still do this. It feels hard now because it’s going to be another 10 months to get the point where we were and it’s a long way so we’ll see. I can’t really tell anything else but probably two, three, or four weeks…”

Q: So you don’t set a firm deadline for yourself for when you want to make up your mind?

A: “No, no.”

Q: There are a number of players around the league who are 39 and 40, and still in the league playing well. Is there something now about the way is coached/played that allows that to take place? Is there such a structure in place now that guys, even at an advanced age in their sport, can hang a long time?

A: "I think the guys, if you look at the guys my age or older, you keep yourself in better shape and you know what it takes to play this game with these young guys and that’s probably the biggest thing. If you look at guys like Teemu Selänne, who’s in really good shape, and works hard, and that for me, moving forward, I have to really see if I can do that. You really have to work hard to get back into shape and play with these young guys. So that’s why I’m going to take my time. I’ll probably start working out in a few weeks and see if I still like it and we go from there or if I’d like to do something else. We’ll see.”

Q: What does your family want you to do?

A: “No matter what we’re going to do, we’re going to stay here for a couple more years and really figure out what we’re going to do as a family. My kids are older, my son is 15, and I’m sure he wants to stay here. He’s been here all of his life, so I don’t see him going back to Finland or somewhere else so we’ll see. But we’re going to stick around here for a couple more years at least.”

Q: Have you ever felt this way before heading into a summer? Is this year just different because your contract is up? Why stop and make a decision now? What was your thought process at the end of last season?

A: “Well, in the last season was obviously a lockout so I didn’t want to end my career playing 50 games and not make the playoffs. This year coming in, I wanted to make the playoffs and play well and we made the playoffs but exited in the first round and still missing the Stanley Cup. That’s something that’ still in my mind. Let’s put it this way, if I won the Stanley Cup earlier I probably wouldn’t be here and talk to you guys, I would say ‘okay, that’s it’. But I haven’t won it. That’s the only thing that keeps the hopes up. It’s not money, it’s not anything else - it’s the Stanley Cup.”

Q: Will you speak with friends who've been in similar positions in deciding whether to continue their career; guys like Sami Kapanen, for instance?

A: "Actually, I have already spoken with a lot of guys. They told me that if I still feel the passion to play, I should keep going. So I will see how i feel in a few weeks."

Q: This is a salary-capped world… are you looking for a set number?

A: “No, I’m not."


INJURIES/SURGERIES

* Apart from Nicklas Grossmann (ankle tendon repair), there are a handful of other Flyers players who have or need surgery.

* Steve Downie had surgery on one ear and will have surgery in the summer on the other ear to improve his hearing and balance.

* Michael Raffl needs minor left elbow surgery to clean out bone chips.

* Sean Couturier has a suspected sports hernia -- an official diagnosis and potential recommendation for surgery is pending. The issue had been bothering him since January but, according to Paul Holmgren, was not severe enough to shut the player down and was handled through maintenance.

* Wayne Simmonds has a "possible knee issue", according to Holmgren. The player himself said he was fine apart from normal "bumps and bruises."

* Steve Mason said that he felt concussion symptoms the day before Game 3. He felt OK after the morning skate on the day of Game 3 and talked with Craig Berube. The player had concussion symptoms return the next morning but they disappeared the following day and he has felt fine since then. Apart from headaches, the main issue was neck soreness.

* Berube said that part of the reason why Ray Emery started Game 3 was that he didn't want his goalies to be uncertain the day before as to who was playing. With Mason's status still up in the air, he made the decision to go with Emery and to have Cal Heeter back up. When Mason felt OK the next day, the coach talked to the player and decided to have Mason serve as the backup in Game 3.

Team Needs, Player Evaluations and Contracts

* These will be addressed in upcoming blogs. One of the more interesting revelations was that there have been contract talks since last summer with impending restricted free agent Brayden Schenn.

World Championship Participation

* Brayden Schenn (Canada), Erik Gustafsson (Sweden) and Oliver Lauridsen (Denmark) will be representing their countries at the World Championships. Mark Streit (Switzerland) will not be playing.

* Matt Read (Canada) represented Canada last year, along with Simmonds, Claude Giroux and Luke Schenn. According to Paul Holmgren, Read has not as yet been asked to join Canada this year but it's possible he could be added to the roster at a later date. Steve Mason said Canada has selected its three goalies and he's not among them.

* There is no doubt that Jakub Voracek (Czech Republic) was invited. However, it appears that he declined the invitation.

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FRIDAY QUICK HITS

* At five o'clock today, the Flyers' players will clean out their lockers for the summer. Paul Holmgren will address the media one hour later. I will have a full blog update later today.

* Flyers captain Claude Giroux is a Hart Trophy finalist this season in a field that also includes Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby and Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf. Finishing in the top three of the NHL's Most Valuable Player vote is a well-deserved honor for any player.

I do not think Giroux won the Hart this time around. His slow start to the regular season after a late-summer hand injury probably cost him an Olympic spot. For the same reason, I also think he finished third in the Hart Trophy balloting. With that said, over the final five months of the season, there was no better or more valuable player in the National Hockey League than Giroux. As long as he stays healthy, Giroux will make future pushes for Most Valuable Player honors.

Crosby is the likely winner of the award, with Getzlaf second. Crosby is the NHL's most recognizable player, the only one in the NHL to hit the 100-point plateau this season and plays for a 109-point team that had the Metropolitan Division all but sewn up before the Olympics.

Getzlaf's candidacy is hurt a bit by playing out in the Pacific and getting less exposure. Nevertheless, he is an elite playmaker and a leader on an Anaheim team that took the top spot in the Western Conference; the deeper of the NHL's two Conferences.

* Another Giroux-related thought: After twice spurning an eventual Hart Trophy finalist for the Olympics, I wonder if Hockey Canada had the audacity to ask Giroux if he wants to play in the World Championships. Giroux did so for Canada last summer, along with Wayne Simmonds, Matt Read and Luke Schenn.

* Flyers prospect Valeri Vasiliev, a seventh-round pick in 2012, will be staying in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) after signing a two-year contract with Avangard Omsk. The player, who opted out of his KHL contract with Spartak Moscow after the 2013-14 season, had been mulling over a move to North America for next season. At the time, Holmgren said the Flyers were undecided about whether to bring him over now.

* Congratulations go out to former Flyers coach Mike Keenan for coaching Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the KHL's Gagarin Cup. Keenan becomes the first person to coach both a Stanley Cup champion and a titlist in the top Russian-based league.

* In tomorrow's blog, I will talk about three things that went right and three things that went wrong with the Flyers' 2013-14 season. One hint: This team still needs to get better at even strength and continues to have strong combined special teams. On Sunday, I will address what I think are the team's most pressing personnel needs in the offseason. Next week, I will start writing individual player evaluations for the season.