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MELTZER'S MUSINGS: JUNE 11, 2015
1) The Flyers announced their 2015 preseason schedule on Tuesday. The team will not be making a trip to London, Ontario this year. That annual game against the Toronto Maple Leafs has been replaced by a game at the PPL Center in Allentown versus the New York Islanders. As with the last few years, the preseason home/road openers will be done in split-squad fashion on the same night.
The full schedule is as follows:
Monday, September 21, 2015 vs. NY Islanders (SS) PPL Center (Allentown, PA) Monday, September 21, 2015 at NY Islanders (SS) Barclays Center Tuesday, September 22, 2015 vs. NY Rangers Wells Fargo Center Friday, September 25, 2015 vs. NY Islanders Wells Fargo Center Monday, September 28, 2015 at NY Rangers Madison Square Garden Wednesday, September 30, 2015 vs. New Jersey Wells Fargo Center Friday, October 2, 2015 at New Jersey Prudential Center
2) With Kimmo Timonen returning to the Chicago Blackhawks lineup for Game Four of the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the soon-to-retire defenseman is now assured of getting his name on the Cup if the Blackhawks go on to win the series. Tied at two games apiece, Game Five will be in Tampa on Saturday night. In Game Four, Timonen skated just eight shifts and received 5:46 of ice time.
3) Today marks the 20th anniversary of one of the most gut-wrenching losses in Flyers history: Game Five of the 1995 Eastern Conference Final against the New Jersey Devils. Claude Lemieux's stoppable goal with 45 seconds left in the third period sent the Flyers to a crushing 3-2 defeat and gave the New Jersey Devils a three games to two lead in the series. Kevin Dineen scored twice for the Flyers in a losing cause. With John LeClair having a rough series, Flyers head coach Terry Murray moved LeClair down in the lineup as the game progressed and put Rod Brind'Amour on the left wing of the top line with Eric Lindros and Mikael Renberg.
4) Apart from a strong and deep top end to the draft class, the 2015 NHL Draft crop has above-average potential to produce later-blooming standouts who are selected in the later rounds. For example, one of the more interesting "deep sleeper" projects in this year's draft class is Slovakian winger Radovan Bondra. It's not because he's a distant relative of the famed Washington Capitals scoring star Peter Bondra. Rather, it's a combination of size (6-foot-5, 215 pounds) and soft hands along with a playing style that is probably better suited for the small-rink game than the European style. He has played for HC Kosice in the Slovak Extraliga -- not a very high grade of competition nowadays but still a professional league with grown men -- and held his own.