|
Meltzer's Musings: Emery On Tryout, Couturier, Prospects |
|
|
|
|
|
EMERY BROUGHT IN ON TRYOUT
With the Philadelphia Flyers fighting to get into the playoffs and three sets of back-to-back games over their seven remaining matches -- including a season-closing four-in-five gauntlet -- number one goaltender Steve Mason will likely continue to handle a heavy workload.
Ideally, if Michal Neuvirth were able to play, Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol could divide the workload by giving Mason five starts and feel comfortable giving two to Neuvirth without worrying about a drop-off in goal.
The Flyers don't have an ideal situation, though. Neuvirth is out for the rest of the regular season with a torn meniscus. The only other alternative is rookie Anthony Stolarz, who has yet to play an NHL regular season game and would have to make his NHL debut under massive pressure to excel immediately and with little margin for error. Journeyman veteran backup Jason LaBarbera was signed over the summer to be the Flyers' third-string option but he's injured, too, and has had a so-so AHL season overall.
Looking for a little more depth, the Flyers have invited a familiar face -- two-stint former Flyers netminder Ray Emery -- to join the team on a tryout basis. He will be at the morning skate tomorrow.
"Ray happened to be available and was willing to come in on a tryout. He's going to stay with the Flyers. Basically, he is an insurance policy given how thin we've gotten with the two injury," Hextall said.
"In terms of Mase and Stolie, this really doesn't change anything. It just adds a layer of depth for us. [Stolarz remaining the number two goalie] is the plan. He's been good in practice. This is just let's add a depth guy. If, God forbid, someone gets injured, we're scrambling. This just gives us a guy in-house who can be on the ice, can practice and be sharp if need be. This is not a reflection at all of Stolie. It's just so that we have third guy, because we truly don't have one. I've been working on this a few days, looking at who was available. Ray made sense."
Emery was not re-signed by the Flyers after last season. He had a preseason tryout with the Tampa Bay Lightning but was not offered a contract. He's had a pair of American Hockey League look-sees this season, and was not retained. He's also played in Germany for Adler Mannheim and fared just OK. But he is nothing if not a competitor, has plenty of big game experience and has a good working relationship with Mason and the other Flyers.
Hextall noted that Emery was still in playing shape, having recently finished his season in Germany.
According to Hextall, Neuvirth's recovery is on schedule from his lower body injury (suspected to be a left knee meniscus issue). He should resume skating in the next five or six days. Being available to play before the end of the regular season is "a stretch" according to Hextall.
Mason insists he feels fine to play every game if need be but even if he does, how much will be left by April 10? It's not really a matter of how many total games Mason has played this year -- which would be 55 if he gets all seven games -- it's how tightly packed they've been leading up to that final 4-in-5.
************
COUTURIER ON THE UPSWING AGAIN
For good reason, there has been a lot of recent attention paid to the play of Brayden Schenn over the last few months. He ranks among the NHL scoring leaders since January 1. With 38 points in his last 39 games (17 goals, 21 assists), Schenn has climbed into second place on the Flyers scoring charts.
The offensive part of Sean Couturier's game has gotten less attention. That is because he has had two lengthy goal droughts this season and has a modest 10 tallies on the season. Since a large part of the casual observer base worries mostly about goals, the critics have crawled out of the woodwork again to gripe that Couturier should not a second-line center.
While Couturier is and will always be a player whose value is measured in multiple areas and not just points, it should be pointed out that he has been racking up assists at a very healthy clip ever since the end of December. Injuries got in the way.
Prior to getting injured twice and missing the last four games of January and then nine games in February, Couturier was in the best sustained two-way groove of his NHL career. Apart from continuing to pull down the toughest defensive responsibilities (from an analytics standpoint, at least) of any forward in the entire NHL, he was also producing regularly in chipping in points offensively. Just as important, he was dominant in cycling pucks to retain possession and very difficult to take off the puck.
Over a 16-game span leading up to the second injury, Couturier posted 16 points. From late December to early January, he had a stretch of three goals in four games. Add that to the what he brought to a variety of different game situations and his strong work in contributing to why the Flyers have ranked in the top one-third of the league for much of the season in fewest five-on-five goals against and you had a player who was quietly putting a case together for mention in the Selke Trophy race on a leaguewide basis and for the Bobby Clarke Trophy in terms of the Flyers team awards.
Since his return, Couturier has not been quite as effective on a shift-in and shift-out basis. Previously, whenever the Flyers needed a stabilizing shift or one to continue momentum other lines established on the previous shift, Couturier delivered time and time again.
It wasn't as close to automatic since his return. Some of it was the challenge of jumping back into the lineup in the latter part of a season. Part of it also has been some personnel juggling on his line, necessitated by other injuries and by streaks and slumps. It has taken him several weeks to start getting back to where he was before the injuries but there are signs that things are all coming together for him again in all aspects of the game.
In logging 22:15 of ice time against Winnipeg, Couturier went 15-for-24 (63 percent) on faceoffs. Although he was caught flat-footed on Mark Scheifele's breakaway goal, the Flyers sent him out to help contain the dangerous Scheifele and Blake Wheeler in overtime and he did a good job of helping the team get through those shifts so they could get Claude Giroux's trio back out on the attack.
The Flyers' recent surge in penalty killing is due to a lot of things they are doing well. They're taking many fewer penalties, which has helped to conserve energy. The goaltending has been strong. The penalty killing position players have also done a good job at getting in the passing lanes, disrupting entries, clearing pucks and blocking shots as needed. As one of the team's most trusted penalty killers, a share of credit goes to Couturier as well as his teammates.
Oh, and for those who are hyper-focused on point production, Couturier has 11 points in his last 12 games. Ten of the points are assists, but so what? It's not really about which player scores 'em, it's about which team scores them and their ability to spread the wealth. For instance, Mark Streit's goal that opened the scoring on Monday would not have been possible without an excellent setup by Couturier.
Couturier finally scored his 10th goal of the season late in Saturday's game in Arizona. He attempted five shots on Tuesday, putting two on net. It would be nice if he could get on a mini-run and bag a few goals by the end of the regular season -- it would only help the team's cause in any given game when they're all critical at this juncture.
Even if he's not scoring them, though, as long as he's doing all the other things he contributes to the club, Couturier will be a difference-maker for the Flyers.
************
PROSPECT UPDATES
With the Flyers having played such a busy schedule and being in a dogfight for a wildcard playoff berth, I haven't had much opportunity of late to blog about the Flyers' top prospects. Most of it has been confined to Twitter postings on nights of games for Philadelphia prospects.
I plan to rectify that, however. On April 4th and 5th, the Flyers have back-to-back open nights on the game schedule for the final time during the regular season. The plan is to use the April 5th blog to devote solely to prospect coverage after the April 4th blog is solely focused on the current NHL team.
There's a lot of prospect information to discuss the CHL playoffs (with a focus on the injured Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Radel Fazleev and Nicolas Aube-Kubel), the Phantoms (Oskar Lindblom's play while on late-season ATO, Samuel Morin, Taylor Leier, Robert Hägg, Reece Willcox and Danick Martel being the focus players), and the Flyers collegiate players; all of whom excluding Matej Tomek (who hasn't played in a single game in 2015-16) are now done for the season after the elimination of Michigan (Cooper Marody) and Harvard (Merrick Madsen).
Over the Flyers' official website, I recently wrote profile pieces on two of the European league players in the system: Czech prospect David Kase and Russian draftee Mikhail Vorobyov with commentary from Ron Hextall on Kase's progress and Russia-based Flyers scout Ken Hoodikoff discussing Vorobyov's 2015-16 season.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»