Quick Hits: March 29, 2019
1) The Flyers held a very light optional practice on Thursday. Six players were on the ice: defensemen Andrew MacDonald and Sam Morin, forwards Corban Knight and Justin Bailey and goaltenders Cam Talbot and Brian Elliott. On Friday, the club will have a full (but likely brief) practice before flying to Raleigh for Saturday's game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
2) Talbot will get the start in goal for the Flyers on Saturday, per interim head coach Scott Gordon. It will be just the second start and third appearance for Talbot since he was acquired from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Anthony Stolarz.
Why has Talbot, an impending unrestricted free agent, played so infrequently after waiving his no-trade clause to come to the Flyers? Gordon said that it was simply how the circumstances played out.
Gordon noted that Brian Elliott returned from IR to perform well in relief of Carter Hart in games against Tampa Bay and Montreal (the latter being the game in which Hart sprained his ankle in warmups but tried to play through it) before Talbot's visa was in place and he had an opportunity to get into a practice. Elliott then started and won the Stadium Series game and went on a pretty good run for a couple weeks while Hart was out.
Hart then returned from injury. After needing about half a game to get back to form -- a game which, in my opinion, should have been targeted as the one against the Ottawa Senators rather than against the Washington Capitals -- Hart has gone back to looking liking like a bonafide NHL No. 1 goaltender even at the tender age of 20.
Now that there are five games left in the season with the team's playoff chances minuscule -- but not yet mathematically impossible with the "tragic number" still at 2 entering Friday -- Talbot will get a couple of the remaining games. Gordon said he's not yet sure how many, nor has he decided on his starter for Sunday's home game against the Rangers. One would suspect it would be Hart for the latter game, especially if Philly is still not yet mathematically eliminated after Saturday.
Talbot admitted earlier this week that he had expected to play more than he has, but said that he still is very much interested in re-signing with the Flyers. He said that he feels his time here has been beneficial in terms of getting situated in the Philadelphia area, getting to know teammates, coaches, etc.
3) As is common among many head coaches, Gordon defers to assistant coach Rick Wilson when it comes to setting defense pairings within the course of a game and calling up the next defensemen to go out. Gordon said that, with the way the whistles and puck possession developed in OT on Tuesday, an initial plan to get Philippe Myers in for a shift ended up not happening.
In the case of Shayne Gostisbehere, normally an OT rotation regular, the player did not see the ice again after a puck management miscue on a tying goal by Toronto midway through the period. Gordon did not publicly delve much into Ghost's game on Wednesday. He was used sparingly at 5-on-5 use after the first period (3:26 in the second period, 4:22 in third with 1:21 of it on the power play), except to say it was just how the situation played out that night in Wilson's rotation. Mostly, he directed it back instead to how well Sanheim played all night including OT.
4) The Flyers may once again dress seven defensemen for at least one game this weekend. Samuel Morin, who has spent the season rehabbing a torn ACL and dressed in his first NHL game of the campaign (he had a two-game AHL conditioning assignment with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms) dressed in the Toronto game. He skated 8:09 of ice time across 13 shifts, and things went well overall.
"It was awesome. Obviously, it was fun getting back in to it. I didnβt play as many minutes as I did in Allentown when I was down there. But it was great, like the pace was so much better. I think I was following it pretty good," Morin said.
5) In his soft-spoken way, Sanheim is a very honest and self-aware player. He said on Tuesday of this week that he is now a much more confident player than he was as a rookie in the first half of last season. He just goes out and plays. If there's a mistake or a mini-slump, he said, he knows he will bounce back and be fine.
The player acknowledged that the entire team -- himself included -- could play a couple notches better shift-in and shift-out than in some of the team's recent games during its 2-5-0 stretch that preceded the Toronto game. Then he went out and delivered a big-time all-around performance on Thursday.
6) Brian Elliott is the Philadelphia chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association's nominee for the 2018-19 Masterton Trophy. It is the second time he has been put up as a leaguewide nominee, having been chosen by the St. Louis media as the Blues' nominee during the 2014-15 season.
Elliott's NHL story is very much one built of perseverance and dedication to the game. He was an unheralded (9th round, 291st overall) draft pick by Ottawa in 2003, who played four years of collegiate hockey at Wisconsin. He was a backup goalie (to Flyers draftee Bernd Bruckler) his freshman and sophomore seasons before getting a chance to play regularly,
Elliott worked his way up through the AHL to earn NHL playing time in Ottawa before he was traded to Colorado for Craig Anderson. Things did not work out at all in his brief time with the Avalanche, and the team declined to tender him a qualifying offer. Now an unrestricted free agent, he signed a two-way contract with the Blues (with zero guarantees of an NHL job).
In St. Louis, Elliott thrived. He won a Jennings Trophy in tandem with Jaroslav Halak and, by his final year with the Blues, was the primary starter on a team that reached the Western Conference Finals. After a down year in Calgary following a trade to the Flames, Elliott signed his current two-year deal with the Flyers.
When he's been healthy, Elliott has done a commendable overall job for the team the past two seasons. However, "when healthy" is the operative phrase. He missed most of the second half of last season and was still not genuinely healthy (he was placed on a maintenance plan in order to be able to return and delay a second surgical procedure) when he returned at the tail end of the season and struggled in the playoffs.
This season has gone much the same as last. Elliott's overall body of work when physically able to play has been decent, and was a step up from most of the revolving door of goalies even prior to Hart's recall and quick emergence at the NHL level. However, Elliott's health issues this season, along with those of the serially injured Michal Neuvirth, were not unpredictable.
There was a whole lot of hard work that went into Elliott getting back into the lineup again this season; a similar process to last year, except that there was more time left this season at the point when he went down. Elliott has said that, while the physical part of the rehab and return are grueling, the hardest part is the mental challenge: being able to trust his body again and let the muscle memory take over after enduring months where all he could do was be a cheerleader for the team from the sidelines.
It is for his work ethic and persistence not just in Philly but also over the course of his hockey career than Elliott has become a two-time nominee for the Masterton. While he's unlikely to win or be named a finalist -- Robin Lehner is the consensus front-runner to win this year -- Elliott was a worthy player to be put up for consideration. For more click here.