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Quick Hits: Rookie Camp, Roster Battles, World Cup |
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QUICK HITS: SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
1) The Philadelphia Flyers will hold a rookies' practice at 10 a.m. this morning before the prospects head off to Long Island for the Rookies Game against the New York Islanders' rookies this evening. My understanding is that there will be no stream online of this year's game, either on the Flyers' or Islanders' website.
The Flyers lineup combinations figure to be approximately like this:
Tyrell Goulbourne - Danick Martel - Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Connor Bunnaman - Anthony Salinitri - Travis Konecny
Samuel Dove-McFalls - Pascal Laberge - Steve Swaveley
Carsen Twarynski - Radel Fazleev - Roman Lyubimov
Samuel Morin - Travis Sanheim
Ivan Provorov - Brennan Menell (or Philippe Myers)
Garrett McFadden - Reece Willcox
Alex Lyon/ Carter Hart
2) Flyers defense prospect Philippe Myers declared himself healthy and ready to play after yesterday's practice during the Rookie Camp. A free agent signing last year after going unselected in the 2015 NHL Draft, Myers took a quantum leap in his development during the 2015-16 season. The player underwent offseason groin surgery and spent most of the summer rehabbing but says he is now ready to roll.
3) The more I look at the Flyers' training camp roster, the more I get a sense that fourth line forward Chris VandeVelde -- a fixture in the starting lineup most of the last two seasons -- could be pushed for his spot in the lineup this season (if not for opening night)
So could Matt Read unless he regains his form of 2013-14 and previously. Read, who was a healthy scratch twice last season for the first time of his career at any level of hockey, has two more seasons of his contract to go at a $3.6 million cap hit. That's fine if he gets back to producing in the neighborhood of 20 goals on top of killing penalties and being positionally sound defensively. As more of a checking specialist, which more or less is how his role at 5-on-5 evolved as last season progressed, that's too much cap hit.
The conundrum with Read right now is that I don't think he'll be waived for purposes of AHL assignment (which is fairly minimal cap relief, anyway) but I also think his trade value is considerably lower than what it was two years ago when he was one of the NHL's most underrated two-way players.
However, neither general manager Ron Hextall nor head coach Dave Hakstol (and, for that matter, Hakstol's predecessor Craig Berube) are believers in a player's contract dictating that he has a spot in the lineup. If Vincent Lecavalier and R.J. Umberger could find themselves on outside of the lineup on a regular basis, so, too, could Read.
Third year pro Taylor Leier is knocking on the door of an NHL spot. Russian import Roman Lyubimov is trying to make a roster push right away and said yesterday that his aim is to play the same shutdown forward role he played in the KHL. A sleeper name is former Florida Panthers forward Corban Knight, whom the Flyers quietly signed to an American Hockey League contract over the summer (which could be converted into a two-way NHL contract if he impresses in camp).
4) Lyubimov spoke yesterday through the translation of Flyers skating coach Slava Kouznetsov, but answered the occasional easy-to-answer question in English. The young player's English comprehension is already sound, if rudimentary. He just doesn't feel comfortable enough yet in his grasp of English to respond. I suspect, much like Flyers prospect Radel Fazleev (who quickly grew fluent in English to the point where it seemed like he'd been speaking the language for many years) or like early 2000s Czech forward Tomas Divisek, Lyubimov will be doing interviews in English sooner rather than later.
5) The Wednesday lineup of World Cup of Hockey Games are as follows: At 3 p.m., Shayne Gostisbehere, Sean Couturier and the rest of Team North America face a virtual must-win game against Sweden. The game will be televised on ESPN. Later, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Mark Streit and the rest of Team Europe take on Team Canada (with or without Claude Giroux) at 8 p.m. on ESPN2.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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