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Meltzer's Musings: Flyers Back to Work, WJC, Phantoms, Alumni Weekend |
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MELTZER'S MUSINGS: DECEMBER 27, 2016
1) The Philadelphia Flyers return to practice on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. ET at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ. The team then departs for St. Louis. The Flyers take on the Blues on Wedneday.
2) Two Flyers-affiliated players were selected as the Player of the Game in their teams' respective first matches at the 2016-17 World Junior Championships in Montreal.
Team Sweden goaltender Felix Sandström turned back 21 of 22 shots, including a pair of outstanding saves, in the Junior Crowns' 6-1 win over Denmark on Monday. Returning from a punctured lung that threatened his participation in the tournament, waterbug forward David Kase took Player of the Game honors in the Czech Republic's 2-1 win against Finland.
Additionally, Team Canada defenseman Philippe Myers enjoyed an outstanding overall game in Monday's 5-3 victory over Team Russia, including an outstanding setup of Tyson Jost on the game's first goal. Mikhail Vorobyov later earned a primary assist on a third period power play goal as Russia drew back within 4-2.
Team Sweden defenseman David Bernhardt collected an assist and moved the puck efficiently in Sweden's win over Denmark in the first game of the day. Flyers 2016 first-round pick German Rubtsov (Russia) and sixth-round Tanner Laczynski (Team USA, a 6-1 victor over Latvia) were also in action on Monday.
Highly touted Team Canada goaltender Carter Hart had a rough WJC debut. He went very long stretches without seeing any shots -- 17 for the game, including just four in the second period and nine through the first 40 minutes -- which is often tougher on a goaltender than a game where he is busy with a lot of mostly routine shots. The third Team Russia goal was one Hart normally would stop.
Tuesday's games: Czech Republic (Kase) vs. Switzerland, Russia (Rubtsov, Vorobyov) vs. Latvia, Denmark vs. Finland, Canada (Myers, Hart may be the backup) vs.Slovakia (Matej Tomek is likely to be the backup).
3) The Lehigh Valley Phantoms saw their five-game winning streak come to an end as they dropped a 5-2 decision to the Hershey Bears at the PPL Center in Allentown on Monday evening. The Phantoms enjoyed a strong first period, and took a 1-0 lead to the locker room, but Hershey took over the game in the second period and never looked back.
Phantoms captain Colin McDonald (power play) and Andy Miele scored in a losing cause. Alex Lyon stopped 25 of 30 shots for Lehigh Valley. The defense pairing of Travis Sanheim and Samuel Morin had a rough night, going minus-three and getting into some costly penalty trouble. However, Sanheim did set up the McDonald power play goal that opened the scoring. Later, Reece Willcox and Nicolas Aube-Kubel collected assists for the Phantoms.
4) Tickets are virtually sold out to the Flyers Alumni's 50th Anniversary game against the Pittsburgh Penguins Alumni at the Wells Fargo Center on January 14. Only single seats remain at this point and even those are down to about 25 still remaining per the Wells Fargo Center's ticket availability map. As noted last week, this game will be the final time that Bob Clarke and Bill Barber don a Flyers jersey in any sort of playing capacity.
Additionally, tickets are going fast to the Golden Anniversary Reception at the Sugar House Casino on January 13. This is fans' chance to meet upwards of 50 Flyers Alumni spanning every decade of franchise history -- including Bob Clarke, Bill Barber, Reggie Leach, Bernie Parent, Mark Howe, Tim Kerr, Brian Propp, Dave Poulin, Eric Lindros, John LeClair, Mikael Renberg, Eric Desjardins, Danny Briere and many more -- in one shot.
Another neat aspect of the Alumni weekend is a 50th anniversary reunion of the surviving members of the inaugural Flyers team of 1967-68. The original Flyers will also be part of the meet-and-greet festivities. The full list of attendees will be released in the next couple days but among those confirmed to be attending are Parent, Joe Watson, Doug Favell and Forbes Kennedy.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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