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Quick Hits: Pre-Tahoe Practice, Patrick, Taxi Squad, TIFH

February 19, 2021, 9:03 AM ET [174 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Today in Flyers History: February 19, 2021

1) The Flyers will hold a brief practice on Friday morning, scheduled for 11:45 a.m., prior to taking a 2 p.m. flight to Reno, Nevada. The team will practice in Lake Tahoe on Saturday morning before playing the Boston Bruins on Sunday. The start time of Sunday's game was moved up one hour to 2 p.m. ET (11:00 a.m. local time in Lake Tahoe).

Following practice, head coach Alain Vigneault, veteran center Sean Couturier, and whomever the planned starting goalie on Sunday (Vigneault will inform his goalies today of his decision) will have short media availability sessions.

2) Vigneault confirmed on Thursday that none of the seven players on the COVID-19 protocol list -- Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Travis Konecny, Oskar Lindblom, Scott Laughton, defenseman Justin Braun and injured rookie center Morgan Frost --will be able to make the trip with the team. In other words, all remained in the protocol.

As a result, the Flyers will have the same group of players they featured in Thursday's 3-2 shootout loss to the New York Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center.

In Thursday's game, four Taxi Squad players (Samuel Morin, David Kase, Andy Andreoff and Maksim Sushko in his NHL debut) skated in the bottom six of the Flyers' forward lineup. Fourth-line wingers Michael Raffl and Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who both played strong games against New York, were elevated to second-line duty. Fourth-line center Connor Bunnaman played third-line left wing.

Ivan Provorov led the Flyers with 27:38 of ice time and Travis Sanheim skated 23:54. With the Flyers' depth so depleted, not only did Couturier log 23:39 and Hayes play 22:05, the Flyers also called upon JVR (21:46), Farabee (21:18), Raffl (20:33) and Shayne Gostisbehere (22:35) to play expanded minutes. The same is likely for Sunday against the Bruins.

4) In Thursday's game, Raffl and Aube-Kubel rose to the challenge of moving up in the lineup into top-six roles. From an analytics standpoint, their line with Hayes was the best trio for the Flyers. I'd argue, however, that Couturier was individually the best Flyer on the ice. Couturier used his size and strength very effectively and played his usual Selke Trophy caliber brand of 200-foot hockey.

If the severely depleted Flyers are to deliver an upset win over the Bruins on Sunday, they will need not only the top two lines to step up and the starting goalie to have a standout performance, they will likely also need the defense corps to generate some offense in joining the attack and perhaps an unlikely hero or two to step up.

Nolan Patrick is a particularly important player for the Flyers come Sunday. The Bruins stack up Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Charlie Coyle down the middle and the Flyers will need Patrick (along with linemates Bunnaman and Kase) to at least cancel out whatever Boston gets from the Coyle line.

Defensively, Patrick is playing fine. He's working hard without the puck and, in the offensive zone, is competing to keep plays alive. Offensively, though, he's taken a step backward from what he was doing in training camp in making plays. Patrick has a career-long tendency sometimes -- inevitably coinciding with his point droughts -- to settle into a little too much of a perimeter game and to pass up shooting opportunities. Only when he starts getting himself below and between the dots does he have one of his offensive runs.

Patrick was forced to take a penalty in overtime to muffle a point blank chance for Pavel Buchnevich. The Flyers three skaters got a little mesmerized by the puck and didn't see Buchnevich getting open until it was nearly too late. That penalty came out because the Rangers' 3-on-3 unit was taking it to their Philly counterparts.

Because the Flyers have gotten scoring from many different sources this season, and with James van Riemsdyk and Joel Farabee in particular getting red hot before the four straight postponements, Philly has been able to be patient as Patrick and Lindblom have tried to find their offensive games. Now, though, the Flyers could really use a breakout game from Patrick against the Bruins, especially because he's part of the power play.

In the Rangers' game, Patrick's underlying numbers in 15:55 of ice time were OK (53.33% Corsi at 5-on-5, although only a 37.50% Fenwick due to all the shot attempts the Rangers were blocking). By the eye test, though, he had room to be more assertive even on a patchwork line with Bunnaman and Kase that was playing together for the first time.

Patrick opened the regular season with five points (2g, 3a) in his first seven games but is pointless in his last seven games. The two-way effort has been fine, and it hasn't been any sort of a work ethic issue but the Flyers need him to be more of an offensive difference-maker come Sunday if they are withstand all the lineup absences.

4) On Thursday, the Flyers called up Matthew Strome from the Phantoms to add to the Taxi Squad. Owing to the Flyers' extensive COVID list -- which also appears to include Taxi Squad forward Carsen Twarynski, who did not practice all week -- and the corresponding activation of four Taxi Squad forwards to the active roster, the Flyers were down to exactly 12 healthy forwards available. If anyone else went down before Sunday, they'd have no choice but to dress seven defensemen and 11 forwards. Hence, they are bringing along an extra forward.

The Lehigh Valley Phantoms, thus far, have avoided COVID-19 cases, but they are riddled with injury-related absences: Wade Allison, Tanner Laczynski, Isaac Ratcliffe, 2020 first-round pick Tyson Foerster and, most recently, Linus Sandin. As such, they were down to just three remaining forwards under NHL contract who were not already on the Flyers' NHL or Taxi Squad rosters: Strome, Pascal Laberge and 18-year-old Zayde Wisdom.

5) Today in Flyers History: On Feb. 19, 1992, the Flyers completed a major trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Flyers sent power forward Rick Tocchet (their team captain at the time), defenseman Kjell Samuelsson and backup goalie Ken Wregget to the Penguins. In return, the Flyers received 24-year-old right winger Mark Recchi (already an established 100-point-caliber NHL forward), defenseman Brian Benning and a first-round pick in the 1992 NHL Draft (defenseman/left winger Jason Bowen).

The trade was actually a three-team deal that also involved the LA Kings. The Penguins acquired Benning, ex-Flyer Jeff Chychrun and the 1992 first-rounder from LA in exchange for Hall of Fame defenseman and future Flyer Paul Coffey. Benning and the draft pick were then immediately flipped to the Flyers as part of the Recchi trade.

The deal ultimately worked out for both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The Penguins filled in roster needs that enabled them to win their second straight Stanley Cup championship. Recchi, meanwhile, made an instant impact in Philadelphia. In 1992-93, he set a franchise single-season record with 123 points. The next year, he posted another 100-point season. Finally, early in the lockout shortened 1994-95 season, the Flyers traded Recchi to the Montreal Canadiens for Eric Desjardins, John LeClair and Gilbert Dionne.

6) Feb. 19 Flyers Alumni birthdays: Rob DiMaio (1968), Kris Newbury (1992).
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