Quick Hits: November 7, 2018
1) Returning on Tuesday from a successful western road trip (3-0-1), the Flyers will hold their first practice in Voorhees since Oct. 26 when they take to Skate Zone ice at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the team will conclude its season series with the Arizona Coyotes in the back end of a home-and-home set that started in Glendale on Monday with a 5-2 Flyers win. Philly snapped the Coyotes' five-game winning streak and thwarted their bid for an unblemished homestand.
Now the Flyers will embark on a five-game homestand that will run through Nov. 17. During that span, the Flyers will play the Coyotes, Chicago Blackhawks (it will be strange to not see Joel Quenneville behind the Hawks bench), Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils and Tampa Bay Lightning. In all, six of the Flyers next seven matches and seven of the next nine are at the Wells Fargo Center.
In other words, the Flyers had better be able to bring home what they did on the road, where they scored first in all four games and never trailed at any point in regulation throughout the trip. The Flyers were actually outplayed for significant portions of the game in Arizona, but got one of their best goaltending performances of the season in terms of clutch and timely saves. To be truthful, I thought Cal Pickard was a bit more lucky than good in the San Jose game but, in Glendale, he was excellent. Philly was also opportunistic offensively, and benefited from some self-made good luck on a couple of goals. Hopefully, the stellar play of Nolan Patrick and Oskar Lindblom during the road trip will continue on top of the spark that Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds provided in the Arizona game.
There are certainly areas where the Flyers will still need to improve, despite their deserved strong record on the road trip. Coming home, they would certainly benefit from putting together a few games where they avoid getting scored upon on the penalty kill or, even better, stay out of the penalty box and not have to kill more than one or two disadvantages. When on the kill, with only a couple of exceptions, it has been more "survival mode" than anything emphatic. The power play, although it scored twice on the trip, is still not totally back in synch.
When last season at the Wells Fargo Center, the Flyers put forth an inexecusably non-competitive effort against the New York Islanders to fall to 4-7-0 on the season and 2-4-0 on home ice. The road trip came as almost a relief, and facing two other struggling teams on the front end of the trip (the banged-up Anaheim Ducks and the LA Kings with since-dismissed head coach John Stevens hanging by a thread) was a bit of fortuitous scheduling to get the Flyers focused and then to feeling good about themselves again after taking care of business. Not all the wins on the trip were pretty, and the Flyers could have had an eight-point trip if they'd taken care of third-period business in San Jose but it is still hard to quibble with the results.
One of the oddities of last year's 98-point campaign was that the team's significant improvement on the road was offset by a five-point dip (55 points to 50) on home ice. In fact, the Flyers had successive seasons of 53, 54 and 55 points at home but couldn't win on the road with any sort of consistency. Considering that so much of the remaining November schedule will be played on home ice and that the team needed the seven-point road trip just to pull up to statistical .500, the work has only just begun if they team is to improve on last year.
2) The Flyers said there would be an update on goaltender Brian Elliott on Wednesday. Elliott was injured at practice on Sunday in a collision with teammate Travis Konecny. Elliott left under his own power but apparently sustained an upper-body injury when Konecny accidentally plowed into him.
3) James van Riemsdyk began skating on his own before the Flyers left for the road trip. He is about 10 days to two weeks from being ready to play, according to Flyers general manager Ron Hextall.
4) Shortly before the Flyers departed on their recent western trip, I had the chance to spend about 15 minutes talking to Oskar Lindblom for an in-depth feature on his path to the NHL. Oskar is from a hockey family. His dad is an ex-minor league player in Sweden who later became a coach. Both his older and younger brother also play. I talked to Oscar about his development path in Sweden, his decision to spend one extra year in the SHL and turn down a chance to play in North America in 2016-17, his experiences with the Phantoms last season, the current team and what it meant to him to have his dad come along on the Father's Trip. In case you missed the article, you can
click here to access it.
The Lindblom article is the second in what will be a monthly series of player "road to the NHL" features on the Flyers website. The first one looked at
what set Shayne Gostisbehere apart from other players even back at his first Flyers Development Camp in 2012.
For December's profile, I am playing to talk to Travis Sanheim. He and his twin brother, Taylor, for a time played together as teammates on the WHL's Calgary Hitmen. Travis hit a growth spurt, had a big second half of his draft-eligible year, and became a viable first-round pick in 2014 and then the top offensive defenseman in the WHL before turning pro in 2016-17 for his rookie season with the Phantoms.
If you enjoy these long-read features, let me know. I enjoy writing in that format and supplementing the research with the players' own perspectives.
5) Over on the Flyers' official website, there is also an up-to-date
North American prospect roundup on all Flyers prospects playing in the CHL and NCAA. We have been rotating these updates between CHL/NCAA, Europe and the Phantoms. Next up will be a new update on the Swedish league and Russian prospects and then an updated look at the progress of Phantoms players.
6) Congratulations to longtime Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen, who will be returning home to Finland this weekend to receive a special honor. On Saturday, the Finnish national team will retire his No. 44 sweater, making him the first defenseman and seventh player overall to receive the honor. He joins previous honorees Jari Kurri (17), Teemu Selänne (8), Saku Koivu (11), Jere Lehtinen (26), Ville Peltonen (16) and Raimo Helminen (14).
7) November is national Lung Cancer Awareness Month as well as the National Hockey League's Hockey Fights Cancer Month. In order to raise funds for the Ride Hard Breathe Easy campaign to help someday find a cure for lung cancer, SAP's John Matthews has forged the Ride Hard Breathe Easy Challenge throughout the month of November.
The goal of the challenge: find riders worldwide to pedal a combined 24,901 miles (the equivalent of bicycling around the world) and to raise $100,000 for the cause. All miles that participants ride, whether on the road, on a stationary bike or even in a spinning class, count toward toward the goal.
Participants need only to have or sign up for an account at
strava.com, sign up for the Ride Hard Breathe Easy Club, and record their miles. Road miles are tracked automatically on the Strava app, while indoor miles can be manually entered.
A lifelong Flyers fan and longtime friend of the Flyers Alumni Association, Matthews has partnered with Flyers Alumni president Brad Marsh for a special program within the Challenge: "Ride with Brad."
For every 50 miles a participant rides, he or she will receive an entry chip. At the end of the month, there will be a random drawing for prizes ranging from Flyers' tickets to an opportunity to meet Marshy. The more entry chips, the greater the chance to win.
For more information,
click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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