PHANTOMS HAVE HAD A BUSY OFFSEASON
When the Lehigh Valley Phantoms take to the ice for the 2015-16 season, the Philadelphia Flyers' AHL affiliate will have a much different look than the squad the team iced a year ago. General manager Ron Hextall has added a lot of veteran talent to the lineup, and the 2015-16 Phantoms have the on-paper look of being a Calder Cup playoff team.
If so, new head coach Scott Gordon's club will end a drought of six straight seasons of missing the playoffs. The dubious streak dates back to the 2009-10 season; the first year after the closure of the Spectrum necessitated the Flyers to relocate their farm team from Philadelphia to Glens Falls, NY.
The 2015-16 Phantoms will have a host of new faces; many of whom have previous NHL-level experience and could be potential short-term NHL replacement players if the Flyers have injuries. Up front, the club has added Aaron Palushaj, Colin McDonald, Tim Brent, Chris Conner and Chris Porter. Veteran defenseman Davis Drewiske has been added to the blueline mix, while Jason LaBarbera will split time in goal with second-year pro Antony Stolarz.
The Phantoms, who often struggled offensively late year, hope that they get an offensive boost from Danick Martel in his first full pro season. Second-year forward returnees include Scott Laughton (unless he cracks the Flyers' NHL roster, which is a possibility) and Taylor Leier. Nick Cousins remains on hand unless he moves up to the NHL. Other youngsters in the lineup include Cole Bardreau and Tyrell Goulbourne. The 2015-16 season marks a fresh start -- but perhaps a final chance -- for third-year pro Petr Straka. Rookie signee Pavel Padakin is a fourth-line hopeful.
Veteran forward Brett Hextall remains an unrestricted free agent. There may not be a roster spot available for the 27-year-old right winger. It is not Ron Hextall's style to force an opening specifically to re-sign his son but Brett played reasonably well in a supporting cast role last season.
The Phantoms blueline is also crowded, and will become even more so if the Flyers send Brandon Manning to the American Hockey League and/or if rookie Samuel Morin does not crack the NHL roster and starts his pro career at the AHL level. Second-year pro defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere and Robert Hà¤gg are back, along with third-year pro Mark Alt. The Flyers also hope to get AHL playing time for Swiss import defenseman Christian Marti.
The numbers game could make it tough for second-year defenseman Jesper Pettersson to find regular playing time early in the season. The AHL-contracted Nick Luukko could be bound for the ECHL's Reading Royals.
Shortly after the Flyers hired Gordon to coach the Phantoms in replacement of Terry Murray (whose contract expired and opted to join the Buffalo Sabres as an NHL assistant coach after the Flyers decided to retain their entire 2014-15 assistant coaching staff), the organization announced that Riley Cote will remain as a Phantoms assistant coach. The organization indicated that it hopes to add a second full-time assistant in Lehigh Valley but no one has been officially hired to date.
TODAY IN FLYERS HISTORY FROM FlyersAlumni.org
1967: The first-year expansion Flyers hire Frank Lewis as their equipment manager and assistant trainer.
2005: The Flyers sign Simon Gagne to a one-year contract extension. They also extend the contracts of Kim Johnsson, Branko Radivojevic and Patrick Sharp by one season. Under the terms of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and NHLPA, two-time Barry Ashbee Trophy winning defenseman Johnsson is eligible to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2005-06 season. Salary cap issues and concussion problems ultimately hasten Johnsson's departure the next summer.
2010: Riley Cote announces his retirement as an active player. He becomes the assistant coach of the AHL's Adirondack Phantoms.
2013: Jody Shelley announces his retirement as an active player.
Flyers Alumni Birthdays
Longtime Flyers center Rod Brind'Amour, who played 633 regular season games for the team, celebrates his 45th birthday today. The Flyers coveted Brind'Amour and Teemu Selà¤nne in the 1988 NHL Draft but general manager Bob Clarke was unable to work a trade to move up into the top 10 of the selection order. The team wound up taking power forward hopeful Claude Boivin with the 14th overall pick.
Brind'Amour unexpectedly became available in trade in 1991, by which time Russ Farwell had taken over the Flyers' general manager post. After a promising NHL rookie season for the St. Louis Blues in 1989-90, he had a tough second season. For whatever reason, the Blues lost faith in the player.
Farwell pounced on the opportunity. On Sept. 22, 1991, Philadelphia dealt team captain Ron Sutter and sturdy defensive defenseman Murray Baron to the Blues. In return the Flyers obtained Brind'Amour and offensively skilled but one-dimensional forward Dan Quinn.
The deal quickly turned out to be one of the best trades of an otherwise dark era in Flyers hockey.
Brind'Amour earned a spot in the 1992 NHL All-Star Game, which was played at the Philadelphia Spectrum. That year, he scored 33 goals and 77 points in 80 games and won the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the team's MVP.
The Flyers valued Brind'Amour so highly that they made him untouchable in any of the various trade packages being discussed with the Quebec Nordiques for the rights to Eric Lindros. The Nords asked, but Farwell's answer was always no when it came to including either Recchi or Brind'Amour in a multi-piece deal for Lindros. Everyone else was available.
The Flyers' vision of building around a Lindros and Brind'Amour tandem ultimately contributed to the Flyers reluctantly parting with top prospect Peter Forsberg in the Lindros trade. For Philly, it ultimately came down to whether they preferred to wait for Forsberg, who did not plan to come over to North America for at least another year, or to have the services of a Lindros and Brind'Amour one-two punch at center right away.
Ultimately, Forsberg made his NHL debut for the Quebec Nordiques in the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season. Brind'Amour would spend much of his Flyers career being mentioned in a variety of trade rumors but he always ended up staying put until he was finally traded in January 2000.
Lindros' arrival in Philadelphia put an end to Brind'Amour's brief stint as the team's first line center. However, for the rest of his tenure in Philly, Brind'Amour became one of the NHL's best second-line forwards and he typically moved up to the top line whenever Lindros missed time with injuries. Brind'Amour went on to set a Flyers' iron man streak of 484 consecutive games played.
In his third season with the Flyers, Brind'Amour enjoyed his career-best offensive season. That year, he compiled 35 goals and 97 points while primarily centering a line with Kevin Dineen and assorted left wingers. Although never known as a gifted goal scorer, Brind'Amour had four seasons in Philly in which he scored 33 or more goals.
One of the physically strongest players in the NHL, the muscular Brind'Amour also gained a reputation as one of the league's top two-way centers and top faceoff men. He occasionally shifted to left wing during his Flyers years, but clearly preferred to play center.
The Flyers made heavy use of Brind'Amour in all game situations. He could be called upon to kill penalties or protect narrow leads late in games in addition to serving on the power play and being used in the offensive zone. Perhaps the crowning moments of his Flyers came in the clinching game of the 1997 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Brind'Amour sent the crowd in a frenzy and put the Flyers firmly in control of Game Five by scoring two shorthanded goals on the same penalty kill.
Brind'Amour produced a 24-goal, 74-point season in 1998-99, which proved to be his final full season in Philadelphia. His iron man streak came to an end the following season, as a fractured foot suffered before the start of the 1999-2000 season required surgery and kept him out of the line for the first 34 games of the season.
On January 23, 2000, the Flyers traded the 29-year-old Brind'Amour to Carolina in the deal that brought Keith Primeau to Philly. The trade also sent goaltending prospect Jean-Marc Pelletier and a 2000 second-round pick (Argis Saviels) to Carolina and a 2000 fifth-round pick (later traded to the New York Islanders, Kristofer Ottosson) to the Flyers. Previously, there was a rumored trade that would have sent Lindros instead of Brind'Amour to Carolina. The alleged return would have been Primeau, first-round picks in 2000 and 2001 and the rights to Jeff Heerama.
Brind'Amour spent the remainder of his career with the Hurricanes and went on to capture a Stanley Cup as the Canes captain on the Peter Laviolette-coached 2005-06 team. After a rough start to their player-coach relationship, Brind'Amour eventually bonded with Laviolette.
For many years, Brind'Amour was one of the NHL's most underrated players because he so frequently (and understandably) took a backseat to Lindros in his Philly days. It was only in his final couple years in Carolina that people leaguewide started to realize just how good his career was in many different aspects of the game. Perhaps above all else, Brind'Amour will be remembered as one of the game's best faceoff men of his era and for his almost freakish level of physical fitness.
With the impending inductions of Brind'Amour to the Flyers Hall of Fame, Mark Recchi becomes the most prominent Flyers player of the 1990s who is still awaiting selection.
Brind'Amour, born Aug. 9, 1970 in Ottawa, shares a birthday with two other Flyers Alumni: forwards Harvey Bennett (1952) and Andy Brickley (1961).
Harvey Bennett is part of a hockey family. His father, Harvey Bennett Sr., was an NHL goaltender for the Boston Bruins in the 1940s. Older brother Curt Bennett had a successful and lengthy NHL career for several teams, including back-to-back 30-goal seasons for the Atlanta Flames in 1974-75 and 1975-76. Younger brother Bill Bennett played briefly for the Bruins and Hartford Whalers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Nephew Mac Bennett is currently a defense prospect in the Montreal Canadiens system.
Harvey, who was born and raised in Rhode Island, attended Boston College before turning pro. He played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals before the Flyers acquired him from the Caps in a cash transaction on Nov. 26, 1976. He started 51 games for Fred Shero's Flyers during the 1976-77 season, registering 12 goals and 20 points but posting a minus-nine rating for a team that went 48-16-16 with a 323-213 goals for/against differential. Bennett started four games in the 1977 playoffs for the Flyers but did not record a point.
Bennett opened the 1977-78 season with the Flyers, dressing in the first two games and scoring a goal in an 8-2 blowout win over the Penguins. On Oct. 28, 1977, the Flyers traded Bennett to the Minnesota North Stars in exchange for Blake Dunlop and a 1978 third-round pick (Gord Salt).
The Flyers drafted Melrose, MA native Brickley in the 10th round (210th overall) of the 1980 NHL Draft. He mostly played in the AHL for the Hershey Bears and Springfield Indians but dressed in three games for the Flyers (one goal, one assist) in March 1983.
After the 1982-83 season, Brickley was part of the blockbuster trade between the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins that brought Rich Sutter to the Flyers to joint twin brother Ron. The Flyers sent Ron Flockhart, Mark Taylor, Brickley, a first-round 1984 selection (Roger Belanger) and a 1984 third-rounder (later traded to Vancouver, Mike Stevens) to the Penguins. The Flyers received 1984 second-round (Greg Smyth) and third-round (David McLay) picks in addition to Sutter.
Brickley went on to have a 385-game NHL career that included stops in Pittsburgh, the New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins and Winnipeg Jets. After his playing career, he became a long-tenured NESN color commentator for the Bruins in addition to doing some national broadcasting. Brickley's broadcasting style is noted for his heavy New England accent.
The Flyers Alumni will host a fantasy hockey camp from August 21-24 in Atlantic City, open to anyone age 21 and older. Instructors and Alumni participants will include Bernie Parent, Brian Propp, Ian Laperriere, Todd Fedoruk, Andre "Moose" Dupont, Dave "the Hammer" Schultz, Joe Watson and Bob "the Hound" Kelly.
Participation costs $3,000 apiece and you can register a spot online. Over on the Flyers' Alumni website, there is more information on camp-related activities and on-ice schedules.