MELTZER'S MUSINGS: NOVEMBER 10, 2016
1) After an optional practice on Wednesday, the Flyers return to full practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ, on Thursday in preparation for a weekend back-to-back set that will see the team on the road on Friday to take on the improved Toronto Maple Leafs (5-5-3) and home on Saturday to host a Minnesota Wild team (6-4-1) that has points in seven of its last 10 games despite back-to-back losses in the last two games.
The Flyers made a pair of roster moves yesterday, assigning both Scott Laughton and Roman Lyubimov to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The first move was expected with Laughton coming back from injury and a numbers game at forward. The latter was a bit of a surprise, given that Dave Hakstol had seemed rather happy with Lyubimov's play in most of the 11 games in which he's played. However, the player was quickly recalled on Thursday.
One thing the Flyers would like to accomplish is get Nick Cousins, who has been a healthy scratch three times in the first 13 games, back into the lineup. My feeling on Cousins is that if he was just a little bigger and/or a little faster, he'd be someone who was a fixture in the lineup but, despite playing well overall, is instead someone who is always playing for his lineup spot at this stage of his NHL career.
When people ask why Chris VandeVelde is a fixture in the lineup, it has nothing to do with the University of North Dakota ties between the player and Hakstol. During the 2014-15 season, Hakstol predecessor Craig Berube also came to place similar trust in the player. The reason that VandeVelde has been a fixture for the last two-plus seasons is that his coaches cite that he's a big guy who is a decent skater, backchecks, battles on the walls and makes safe plays most of the time when he does get a puck touch. Like it or dislike it (and cite all the puck possession stats in the world), but that is the rationale.
Are there better versions of those assets out there -- guys with some more offense/ puck skill to their games? Yes, and part of the Flyers continuing to climb to the next level will be to develop depth lines on par with the top contenders. But VandeVelde really isn't different from a lot of teams' fourth line forwards and, like it or not, they often tend to be at a bit of an advantage in staying in the lineup over smallish, primarily offensive players.
Cousins has improved by leaps and bounds in his all-around game over the last few years but he had a long road to travel in his skating, discipline and defensive awareness to get to the NHL in the first place. He's still more of an offensive player in terms of his skill set and his ideal usage but he's adequate enough in the other areas of the game where he can play in or out of the top nine up front without being a liability.
Here's the thing about Cousins, though: Every year, he seems to improve. His first pro year, where he landed pretty deep in the doghouse, was an eye-opener for him. Ever since, he's improved steadily. There is still opportunity for him to solidify his NHL lineup spot with the Flyers as an every-game starter or close to one. In the meantime, Laughton has to work himself back into another such opportunity now that he's healthy.
2) Speaking of smallish offensive forwards, Jordan Weal is not unsurprisingly off to a hot start in the AHL with the Phantoms, racking up 12 points in the team's first nine games. Unfortunately for Weal, who could not find a role in Los Angeles or thus far with the Flyers and passed through waivers unclaimed, his is the classic dilemma of what to do with skilled NHL-AHL tweeners.
Weal falls within that profile of what in baseball are sometimes called quad-A players, meaning they fell in the cracks between being good enough offensively to play at a level above the top minor league (the AHL in hockey's case) but are also not quite at the level of impact offensive players at the top level. Most tend to be a bit undersized, shifty but not blazing fast and perhaps adequate defensively but not diversified enough to play roles other than scoring.
With the exception of players who are simply elite talents (the Patrick Kanes and Johnny Gaudreaus) it can still be hard for the smallish skill guys break through the glass ceiling, but it is not impossible. To me, Richard Park, who eventually carved out a 738-game NHL career as a role player, is kind of the poster child (although he was a very good skater) for the smallish guy who was stuck between being an impact guy at the top minor league level and a role player in the NHL level. Eventually, he pushed through and made it as the latter.
All that is within Weal's control right now is how he plays for the Phantoms. Thus far, he's been quite good.
3) The Phantoms have been feeling their way through the early season, posting a 5-3-1 record to date. Somewhat akin to their parent club, Lehigh Valley has been scoring a lot of goals (3.89 per game) but also yielding a few too many. However, the team did shut out Hartford last week behind a 33-save performance by Anthony Stolarz and then held Providence to two goals (27 more saves from Stolarz) before having to rally from a 4-2 deficit in the third period and to get a 40-save effort from Stolarz to beat Springfield, 6-4.
The Phantoms' roster is filled to overflowing with talent, and even more so now that Laughton has been assigned to the American Hockey League club. However, one thing that bears watching all season is how the balance is struck between a "win now" mentality -- there's a very good veteran core -- and the even more important big-picture task of developing the many good prospects on hand into NHL-ready players.
While fans have a tendency to jump too soon to conclusions -- already there is grumbling among a segment of the fanbase that the veterans are the ones who get the ice time in most of the key situations -- that really should not be a surprise to anyone at this early stage of trying to the young players to work on specific things (for example, Travis Sanheim's play without the puck and Nicolas Aube-Kubel's shift-in and shift-out focus) and to set the bar high for ice time.
The Flyers signed the likes of defensemen T.J. Brennan (three goals, 10 points) and Will O'Neill (seven assists) or forwards Greg Carey (six goals, two assists), Andy Miele (one goal, six assists) for the Phantoms with a plan of having those players in prominent roles for the American League club. They are also still working to develop their young defense corps in particular (rookie Sanheim, second-year pro Samuel Morin, third-year Robert Hà¤gg, etc) as well as young forwards like Taylor Leier, Aube-Kubel and Radel Fazleev for certain projected NHL roles.
It takes time to strike that balance, especially with so much new personnel and players filtering down from the big club at least for the short term. Just as important, nothing is going to be just handed to the young players when there are so many quality vets on that roster. That was by the design of Hextall and assistant Flyers' general manager Chris Pryor. See how things develop over the course of the season at the one quarter, halfway and stretch drive marks. Drawing any conclusions this early about how well the plan is taking hold is pointless.
3) The other day, I took a lunch meeting with Brad Marsh, who concurrently serves as the Flyers Alumni Association president and the Flyers director of community development. We were discussing some of the plans around the upcoming 50th Anniversary Flyers Alumni Game against the Pittsburgh Penguins Alumni on January 14 as well as the remaining Heritage Nights. I am not at liberty to spoil some of the surprises before these announcements go public but suffice to say that:
* At the Alumni Game, it is going to be very special to have the three best forward units in franchise history -- the LBC line, the trio of Brian Propp, Dave Poulin and Tim Kerr, and the original Legion of Doom-- as fully intact lines, which did not even happen for the Winter Classic event at Citizens Bank Park a few years ago because neither Kerr nor Mikael Renberg were available to attend. This particular facet of the special event is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that will almost certainly not be repeated in the future. If you miss this one chance to see the three franchise-shaping trios together as teammates on the ice, there won't be another one.
* The Alumni Game festivities will have more around them than the game itself. There is another big attraction coming for the fans who have supported the organization for 50 seasons. I will leave it at that for now.
* The upcoming Heritage Nights will have a lot of different touches to them that will be different than the circle of Flyers' Hall of Famers from the first ceremony night.
4) Lastly, today marks the 31st anniversary of the fatal car crash that took Pelle Lindbergh's life.