Quick Hits: June 21, 2020
1) Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported on Saturday that the National Hockey has set several key target dates related to the fourth and final phase of the league's return-to-play plan. The information has not yet been officially announced by the league or the NHLPA. According to Brooks:
* Phase 3 (formal training camps) will run at teams' training facilities from July 10 to 23 or 24. At that point teams will travel to their assigned hub city to continue training until the start of Phase 4.
* The two hub cities will be officially named within the next week. It has been widely speculated that Las Vegas and a Canadian city will be the locations. On Friday, the Canadian government cleared a path for the NHL to locate its games in a Canadian city. It is even still possible that both hub cities will be located in Canada.
* Phase 4 is slated to start on July 30. All remaining 24 teams that will continue on to Phase 4 will play one exhibition game apiece before the start of the postseason. Thereafter, teams would begin their three-game seeding robin-robins or best-of-five qualification round series.
* NHL rosters will be set at 30 players for Phase 4. This excludes depth goaltenders, enabling teams to carry as many as they wish. In this week's Therien's Take on the Flyers' website, Chris Therien wrote that he felt an active roster expansion to 27 players would be sufficient if goalies are not counted against the numbers. Thirty is a very generous number with goalies excluded.
All of this is contingent on a final, formalized agreement between the NHL and NHLPA, including Covid-19 related prevention, testing, and reaction procedures in the event of positive tests during Phase 4. Given that 11 players leaguewide have tested positive to date during Phase 2, these final sets of procedures are the biggest remaining hurdle. The final NHLPA end of the agreement will be made by its executive committee but there are some in the union's broader membership constituency who have questions and concerns about how Phase 4 will proceed (especially in the event of multiple positive tests during the playoffs).
2) ICYMI: The Flyers website features an article on how the goaltending workload may have to be adjusted -- not just by the Flyers, but by every NHL team -- in the early portion of Phase 4. Before the NHL pause on March 12, Carter Hart had begun to see an increased workload on the road and appeared to be on a path to becoming the go-to starter for the playoffs.
Due to the stoppage and the need for teams to have two game-ready and reasonably sharp goalies available (and a third who is sharp enough to step in if there's an injury), the teams in the round-robin side might need to split their goalies' work -- two starts to one -- before their conference quarterfinal series begins. It would be a big surprise if there is not a midgame goalie change by every team in their one exhibition tuneup.
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3) Today in Flyers History: June 21, 1988
During the 1987-88 season, the Flyers traded hard-nosed workhorse AHL defenseman (and periodic NHL injury callup) Mike Stothers to the Toronto Maple Leafs. After the season, on June 21, the Leafs returned Stothers to the Flyers in exchange for reacquiring veteran defenseman Bill Root. The Flyers had acquired Root from St. Louis for future considerations (cash) during the season when they were riddled with injuries on the blueline.
Stothers, who dressed in 30 career NHL games (12 with the Flyers, 18 with Toronto), did not receive any additional NHL recalls to the Flyers during his second playing stint in the organization. He remained with the Hershey Bears (then the Flyers' AHL farm team) for the rest of his playing career.
In 1991-92, Stothers began a transition to a coaching career when he served as a playing assistant coach -- he was still a lineup regular, dressing in 70 games for Mike Eaves' team -- and then retired after the season to become a full-time assistant coach for the Bears. After the Flyers changed affiliations to name the newly created Philadelphia Phantoms as their new AHL club and primary tenant of the Spectrum after the opening of the CoreStates Center (now Wells Fargo Center), Stothers came along to continue to work with head coach Bill Barber.
Stothers was an assistant coach on the Phantoms' Calder Cup championship team in 1997-98 and later joined Barber as an NHL assistant coach with the Flyers during Barber's tenure as Flyers head coach. Stothers then moved on to his own head coaching opportunities in junior hockey and, eventually in the AHL.
Stothers, who coached the LA Kings-affiliated Machester Monarchs to the Calder Cup championship in 2014-15 and reached the Western Conference Final the following year with the newly created Ontario Reign, was recently fired by the organization after five years behind the bench with the Monarchs/Reign. He is not expected to be unemployed for long.