MELTZER'S MUSINGS: APRIL 4, 2016
1) Regardless of the outcome of Sunday's game in Pittsburgh, the Flyers were going to have a complete day off on Monday. Given the lopsided nature of the game -- which very much reminded me of a 7-1 whipping the Penguins laid on the Flyers in Pittsburgh in March 2008, except that Evgeni Malkin did not play in Sunday's game -- it was a good time for a regrouping day anyway.
The Flyers will practice on Tuesday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees; their final regular season practice before embarking on a four-game-in-five-night gauntlet to finish the schedule. The team's magic number for a playoff spot is six points.
Winning the upcoming back-to-back games against the Detroit Red Wings (road) and Toronto Maple Leafs (home) would make the final weekend set more manageable, and could potentially clinch a wildcard spot depending on whether they can beat Detroit in regulation and how the Boston Bruins fare at home against Carolina on Tuesday and then at home against Detroit on Thursday. Currently, Boston is the odd-team out in the East; one point behind both the Flyers for the lower wildcard and Detroit for third place in the Atlantic Division.
Neither Detroit nor Boston play on Monday night, so the game of primary interest to the Flyers in the New York Islanders' home game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. A regulation win by Tampa would keep the Flyers within two points of the higher wildcard seed in the Eastern Conference.
2) Michal Neuvirth skated in Voorhees today at 10:30. The injured backup goaltender is unlikely to be available by Sunday but could start to take reps in the next couple days. The Flyers will probably have an optional morning skate in Detroit on Wednesday, most likely no morning skate on Thursday or practice on Friday in between back-to-back sets. There isn't usually a morning skate before a Saturday matinee game and there's no way the Flyers will skate before their fourth game in five nights come Sunday.
As such, Neuvirth is going to have to make due mostly with scratched players such as Jordan Weal shooting on him. Former Flyers goalie coach Jeff Reese used to warm up goalies himself before practice (pad saves, blocker/stick side, glove side, butterfly/pop up, etc) but current goalie coach Kim Dillabaugh prefers a player to do it. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare is often the designated warm up guy who comes out early, but that duty could now fall to a player out of the lineup.
3) If Andrew MacDonald is sidelined over the final week of the regular season, the most likely adjustment to the lineup that Dave Hakstol will make is to re-insert Evgeny Medvedev into the lineup. Medvedev has not dressed in a game since March 12 in Florida and only appeared in two games in March after being a semi-regular in February.
4) Coming off a blowout loss and needing to get some fresh legs into the lineup, it is also possible that Scott Laughton could make an appearance in the Detroit game; possibly on a line with Nick Cousins and Sam Gagner.
5) You know it was a nightmarish game when you can honestly say that a goaltender who allowed five goals on 38 shots actually played a pretty good game for his team. Flyers goaltender Steve Mason had no chance at stopping four of the five goals he yielded on Sunday, and the other one (Patric Hörnqvist's goal that made it 3-0) was a tough chance in its own right off a broken play. The final Pittsburgh goal was an empty-netter.
Some have opined that Anthony Stolarz should have been given the start in Pittsburgh. In hindsight, would it really have mattered if the Flyers lost 9-2 or 10-2 instead of 6-2 (5-2 pre-empty netter)? For the team, probably not. But that would have a mighty tough way for Stolarz to make his pro debut.
With the nerves kicking in and the Penguins putting on a four-shot assault in the opening 20 seconds of the game, I'm not too sure that Stolarz could have gotten through it without a goal. As the game progressed, there were also about five or six other saves that Mason made -- a couple of wicked deflections, a 10-bell skate save on a one-timer, several point-blank saves -- that Stolarz may not have been able to make, especially with the weight on his shoulders of several goals already on the board for Pittsburgh.
Stolarz would then have then have had to psychologically carry around the mauling until the next time he got into an NHL game; which would not be this season unless the final game of the season is meaningless either for good (Flyers locked into a playoff spot) or bad (Flyers eliminated by Detroit and Boston) reasons. Conversely, Mason is a seasoned pro and has developed the necessary tunnel-vision through hard-earned experience.
All in all, especially with two open nights on the schedule to follow, it was probably for the best that Mason started in Pittsburgh apart for the effect it had in knocking his season save percentage down from .920 (a benchmark number in today's NHL) to .918. That's strictly an individual stat. The Flyers weren't going to win Sunday's game regardless.
6) After having a night to sleep on it and then watching the Tom Kuhnhackl hit on Andrew MacDonald and the Wayne Simmonds stick to Pittsburgh goaltender Matt Murray's neck, I have somewhat changed my opinion on the former and still feel the same about the latter.
In watching the Kuhnhackl hit again, it was not as bad as it looked initially. All along, it was clear that MacDonald put himself in a vulnerable position but the hit finish was more careless than vicious. It was still a penalty -- the onus is on the hitter to avoid or minimize contact on a defenseless player and Kuhnhackl had just enough time to let up as soon as he was looking at the numbers on the back of MacDonald's jersey as the defender was lurching toward the boards -- but probably more of a minor than a five-minute major and not something worthy of supplementary discipline.
It was still galling from a Flyers point of view that MacDonald suffered an injury on the play and the Penguins got a point-blank scoring chance that resulted in their fifth goal rather than a Philadelphia power play. However, even if the score remained 4-2 and the Flyers got a power play out of it, it still seemed highly unlikely that Philly had a comeback in them with the way the Penguins were playing.
As for the Simmonds stick, it was an attempt to agitate the goalie and the Penguins. Simmonds clearly meant to brush into Murray with glancing body and/or stick contact, but the result -- the stick ending up around the rookie's neck -- was accidental. Simmonds apologized after it happened and there was no harm done to Murray. Nevertheless, the player is still responsible for his stick, though, especially in a gratuitous situation like that one. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was absolutely deserved but not called. Cries for a suspension are laughable, however. There was no intent to injure, no actual injury and no force applied. It was a careless attempt at gamesmanship.
7) With the Calgary Hitmen eliminated from the Western Hockey League playoffs, Travis Sanheim and Radel Fazleev will join the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for the rest of the season, joining recent additions Oskar Lindblom and Reese Willcox. The Val-d'Or Foreurs were eliminated from the QMJHL playoffs on Sunday, so it is possible that Nicolas Aube-Kubel could also be on his way to Allentown to close out the season.
8) The Brandon Wheat Kings (Ivan Provorov's team) and Sarnia Sting (the injured Travis Konecny's club) are still alive in the WHL and OHL playoffs respectively. With Konecny still out of the lineup, Sarnia forced a seventh and deciding first-round game with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.