MUSINGS AND QUICK HITS: JANUARY 15, 2018
1) After taking an off-day on Sunday, the Flyers return to practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees on Monday, starting at 10:30 a.m. ET. On Tuesday, the Flyers head to Manhattan to take on the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. It will be the first meeting of the season between the Metro Division teams.
2) Unlike the season series against the New Jersey Devils, which finally started on Saturday and will wrap up exactly one month later (Feb. 13), the Flyers season series will be evenly spread out over the Flyers remaining schedule this season. After tomorrow night's game, there's one game in February (Feb. 18 matinee at MSG), one in March (March 22 at Wells Fargo Center) and one in April (late afternoon game at Wells Fargo Center on April 7).
3) Presumably, Shayne Gostisbehere has recovered by now from the illness that kept him out of practice on Friday and out of Saturday's game in Newark. If so, that means Travis Sanheim didn't get much of a chance to work himself off the scratch list and back into the lineup.
The way that Saturday's game went -- with the Flyers taking seven penalties and the first power play unit making quick work of Philly's two opportunities, as well as the Flyers protecting a lead in the third period -- likely had much more to do with the fact that Sanheim skated just nine shifts and just 6:02 of ice time than the fact he was on the ice for a New Jersey goal where he had nothing to do with the goal being scored. Even so, it's virtually impossible for a young player who is being asked to work on specific defensive aspects of his game (read-and-react situations, stick-on-puck work, better control of gaps) to show he's making those adjustments successfully.
While I understand the reasoning for the current starting six being arranged as it is, and also acknowledge that Sanheim's own-zone play needs work, I share the belief that he's now been sitting out for a little too long. If the rookie isn't going to be starting regularly for the Flyers in the second half of the season then he's better off taking one step backwards to hopefully take two steps ahead next year; in other words, putting in another half-season with the Phantoms in the AHL and then hopefully parlaying that into a bigger NHL role next year.
Sanheim isn't fragile. His confidence isn't going to be shattered by being scratched or getting modest ice time. Neither will hurt him in the long run. Even so, a young player learns more by playing than by too-frequently riding the pine. If he's not part of the equation (barring injury) within the starting six, he's better off going back to the Phantoms and having someone such as Mark Alt serve as the Flyers' seventh defenseman.
The Flyers' mantra with young players is for them to do what they do well but also to work on harnessing it into structure and NHL-caliber work away from the puck. From day one, the Flyers have tried to get Sanheim away from the way he played (largely by necessity, due to a lack of forward depth) in the WHL with the Calgary Hitmen. They don't want him to be a rover, nor to lead rushes up the ice.
That's understandable given the nature of the NHL, but it's also something that Sanheim does very well. I wouldn't mind seeing him just take off with the puck, for example, when he catches the other team in a line change.
When the Flyers are up ice, he has been given a bit of leeway to traverse the offensive zone within reason. He's gambled and lost a few times and also lost some mid-boards puck battles he'll likely start to win in the future. However, Sanheim has been given virtually zero power play time this season even when the Flyers second power play unit 4F/1D setup clearly was ineffective and they eventually went to a 3F/2D to simply things, with Brandon Manning as the second defenseman in addition to unit regular Ivan Provorov.
With both Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim, regular power play duty (on the second unit, since no changes will -- or should -- be made on the first unit) is almost like a carrot that was being dangled as a future reward for improved two-way play at five-on-five. If the second unit had been better than it's been most of the season, it would be a little easier to get on board with arrangement. When PP2 has been as ineffective as it has been most of the season, to not take a long look at a couple of players whose core competencies include an ability to create chances on the power play is a bit frustrating.
Long-term, Sanheim still has a very high upside. The growing pains he's going through as an NHL rookie are all normal, including being scratched periodically and sitting in third periods of close games. However, the question also has to be asked whether having him sit five straight games, barely get time to break a sweat when he does back into the lineup and then return to the scratch list is the best thing for him short-term.
4) The Lehigh Valley Phantoms completed a home-and-home sweep of the Hershey Bears on Sunday with an exhilarating 2-1 overtime win in Hershey on the heels of a less entertaining but satisfying and equally vital 2-1 regulation win in Allentown the previous night.
In Sunday's well-played game, there were all sorts of chances in crunch time and overtime, capped off by T.J. Brennan scoring the winning goal on the power play at 0:44 of OT.
Earlier rookie left winger Oskar Lindblom came within a whisker of scoring a spectacular would-be goal but the puck went off the left post and stayed out. Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who stepped up big for the Phantoms over the weekend, tallied the Phantoms lone goal in regulation. Both winning goalie Alex Lyon (28 saves, yielded only a Chris Bourque goal late in the first period) and Hershey's Pheonix Copley (30 saves on 32 shots) played well.
The Phantoms bounced back very well from a terrible performance -- one of their worst of the season -- over the final 35 minutes of Friday's game against Springfield. Based on points, the Phantoms (23-12-5, 51 points) are in first place in the AHL's brutally tough Atlantic Division. However, the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins (23-10-3, 49 points) are in first place based on points percentage as they hold four games in the Phantoms. The Providence Bruins, who got upended on Sunday by Springfield, are in third place with a 22-12-4 record, but hold two games in hand over the Phantoms.
Next up for the Phantoms is a road game in Wilkes Barre on Wednesday. That will be followed by the 2018 Outdoor Classic against the Bears at Hersheypark Stadium on Saturday.
5) With Samuel Morin having battled a nagging recurring injury for much of this season, it was pre-planned for him to only play Saturday's home game against Hershey and to hold him out of Sunday's rematch as he re-acclimates himself to the lineup after missing all but one game since Dec. 1. There was no reinjury in this case.
6) The injury news isn't as good for Phantoms left winger Danick Martel. The player underwent surgery on Sunday and will be out indefinitely. It is believed that Martel sustained a broken jaw from the vicious aerial hit that Hershey's Colby Williams delivered in Saturday's game in Allentown.
7) QMJHL: In a Sunday game pitting two Flyers prospects against each other, German Rubtsov's Acadie-Bathurst Titan prevailed over Pascal Laberge's Quebec Remparts, 3-1. Laberge opened the scoring with a nifty individual effort goal, cutting in front from the right boards and scoring on the backhand. Rubtsov later responded with a pair of goals for the Titan.
With a two-point game, Rubtsov moved slightly above the even one-point-per-game average he'd carried with both Chicoutimi and Acadie-Bathurst. Combined, he now has 11 goals, 20 assists and 31 points in 30 games. As with his World Junior Championship showing for Team Russia, it's not as much as would be hoped offensively for an undeniably talented player but it isn't terrible. He's still a defensively responsible player even when he's not scoring. It would be great if he were having an equivalent draft-plus-two season to the way Morgan Frost is shredding the Ontario Hockey League as a draft-plus-one, but every player has to be judged on his own merits. There's still plenty of upside to Rubtsov.
With Laberge, who is already signed to an entry-level contract (as are Rubtsov and Frost), he needs to pick up the pace in various aspects of his game. He shows flashes, such as the lovely goal he scored on Sunday, but needs much more consistency on both sides of the puck.
8) WHL: The offensively potent Portland Winterhawks managed the rare feat of putting three pucks past Carter Hart on Sunday but the Everett Silvertips still prevailed via shootout, 4-3. Hart stopped 24 of 27 shots, including a pair of OT saves, before going 3-for-4 in the shootout as sniper Kieffer Bellows (who also had a goal and an assist in regulation) was the lone Winterhawk to solve him in the shootout.