Quick Hits: April 9, 2020

1) The latest addition to the in-depth player profile series on the Flyers official website is All-Star right winger Travis Konecny; the team's leading scorer this season.

Each profile features the same format; a capsule synopsis of the player's 2019-20 season to date, five key facts or stats from the current season (or cumulative info from the last couple seasons, if applicable), three notable games with a video highlight, a quote about the player from the team or a coach, and one from the player himself.

In Konecny's case, it was hard to limit my selections to just 5 facts and 3 highlight games from this season. If I had to narrow it down to just one fact, it's this one: Testifying to his high degree of offensive consistency this year, he's never gone more than three straight games without a point (and has only gone three-game spells twice).

2) Later today or early tomorrow, look for an article on Carter Hart's media conference call, which will take place this afternoon. I will post a link when it's available.

3) Flyers Warriors head coach Brad Marsh has arranged for numerous Flyers Alumni to participate as speakers in the team's video conference call/ chat series. Last night, Riley Cote addressed the Flyers Warriors about the medicinal benefits of cannibidiols. Previous speakers included Kerry Huffman (discussing goal-setting and ways to stay productive and find inspiration during the current extended down time), Bill Clement (turning adversity into learning opportunities), as well as advice and information from a professional nutritionist and concussion research and treatment specialist Dr. Andrew Newberg.

Next up in the series will be a special appearance by a very prominent Flyers Alum, who will take part in Friday's "Happy Hour" series. I was sworn to secrecy by Marshy as to the Alum's identity. However, he said nothing about avoiding any hints. So here's a pretty big one for anyone who knows me: The mystery speaker is my personal all-time favorite hockey player.

4) Five different Flyers/ Flyers Alumni players celebrate April 9 birthdays today. The most famous names of the bunch are current Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott (1985) and two-stint Alum right winger Rick Tocchet (1964). In honor of Tocch's 56th birthday, here is 20-minute compilation of playing career highlights of the current Arizona Coyotes head coach.


Other Flyers Alumni celebrating birthdays today: American-born inaugural season forward Wayne Hicks (1937), former Phantoms captain Ben Holmstrom (1987), and early 1970s forward Michel Parizeau (1948).

5) Over on the Flyers Alumni's official website (FlyersAlumni.org), we will be doing a series of weekly "Where Are They Now?" articles that will update fans on the post-career whereabouts and endeavors of Flyers Alumni. We encourage reader suggestions on profile subjects.

Our preference is to prioritize profiling Alumni who are no longer living in the Philadelphia area, working directly for the Flyers in some capacity (such as Flyers scout Dave Brown) or otherwise still high-profile (such as Canadian national broadcaster Dave Poulin) but will do so if there's enough demand for a certain Alum.

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Flyers Fantasy Tournament

Team Quebec defeated Team Manitoba in yesterday's fan voting on the outcome of their fantasy tournament round-robin game, with the winning side gathering 65 percent of the vote to 45 percent for Team Manitoba. As always, it is the fan vote that determines the winner.

The EA Sports simulation of the game saw Team Quebec rally from a 4-2 deficit after two periods to pull out a 5-4 win in overtime, with Danny Briere (who else?) scoring the winning goal at 1:21 of the extra frame on a one-timer set up by Claude Giroux (1g, 2a) in the game. Simon Gagne scored back-to-back goals in the third period, including an unassisted shorthanded goal to send the game to OT. Eric Desjardins scored a mid second period power play goal after Giroux gave his team a short-lived 1-0 lead in the first period. Bernie Parent stopped 25 of 29 shots to earn the win.

On the other side, Reggie Leach scored a hat trick in a losing cause (first hat trick in the tourney to date) and Bobby Clarke assisted on all four Team Manitoba goals. Travis Sanheim scored as well. Pat Falloon had two assists. Ron Hextall took the loss with 31 saves on 36 shots.

Today's round-robin game is one from Group 2: Team Finland takes on Team Europe (the squad consisting of players from any nation except Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic or Slovakia).

Flyers Team Finland consists of:

LW: Ilkka Sinisalo -- Valkeakoski (1984-85 season)
C: Ville Leino -- Savonlinna (2010-11 season)
RW: Sami Kapanen -- Kuopio (2003-04 season)
D: Joni Pitkänen -- Oulu (2005-06 season)
D: Kimmo Timonen -- Kuopio (2007-08 season)
G: Antero Niittymäki -- Turku (2008-09 season)
Coach: Tomi Kallio

Flyers Team Europe:

LW: Michael Raffl -- Austria -- 2014-15
C: Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- France -- 2015-16
RW: Ruslan Fedotenko -- Ukraine -- 2001-02
D: Dennis Seidenberg -- Germany -- 2002-03
D: Mark Streit -- Switzerland -- 2013-14
G: Rob Zepp --represented Team Germany -- 2014-15
Coach: John Miszuk (born in Poland)

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