If Flyers fans have been watched closely yesterday. Alain Vigneault divided the team into the Flyers, and the black aces for the most part. As time goes on the team will be divided up in a random pairing to get some of the rookies a chance to showcase against the pros and see what they got, mainly gaining valuable experience just in case. Vigneault is purposely doing this to see who’s ready, “I intend on using more than 20 guys for those (round-robin) games. I’m going to look at different players in different situations,” Vigneault said to Charlie O’Connor. With that being said, Vigneault has made it clear as day who the forward group will most likely be and the last camp battles will be for the black aces.
The Flyers may be forced to trim their forward as they have 18 forwards on the moment, to include 12 defencemen, and 4 Goaltenders. They have to trim their roster to 31, as 31 players total will be traveling to the hub city. Yes, teams have unlimited Goaltenders, and they might have to cross that barrier when the case arises.
This year’s playoff group is a lot different than last years because first there are three first timers for the playoffs in Joel Farabee, Carter Hart, and Philippe Myers. Second there is no 4th line weigh-down anymore with a Michael Raffl, Derek Grant, and Tyler Pitlick fourth line at the moment. Geez louise can any Flyer fan remember a better fourth line?
Giroux-Coots-Voracek
Farabee-Hayes-Konecny
JVR-Laughton-NAK
Raffl-Grant-Pitlick
Provorov-Niskanen
Sanheim-Myers
Hagg-Braun
Hart
Elliott
In the end, everybody has stayed on their respective lines, and Vigneault has intermixed Morgan Frost, Connor Bunnaman, Carsen Twarynski, German Rubtsov, and Andy Andreoff in nicely. It looks like the fourth line will consist of the a mixture of the best fourth line in recent memory with Raffl, Grant, Pitlick.
What can be said of Joel Farabee. This young is the real deal, and make no mistake about it will be in the starting lineup when the games kick off on August 2 against the Boston Bruins. His work ethic just really shows as he blows by everyone, and pushes the play up the ice. Farabee is always in position to make the RIGHT play:
Now for the battle. The Flyers defensive pairings could get very interesting, considering the Flyers have to trim their roster to 31 before they travel to the hub city.
Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Philippe Myers, Matt Niskanen, Robert Hagg, Justin Braun, and Shayne Gostisbehere appear to be the shoo-ins. If I had to guess Mark Friedman is in another class of his own judging from his fresh new contract he signed yesterday, so in my opinion he will travel to the hub city. General Manager Chuck had this to say about Zamula yesterday, “Make no mistake about it, this kid is a top prospect,” that’s pretty high praise from the big boss. For those wondering Zamula had another good day today, he’s just so fast, and can make cuts with the best of them. Nate Prosser, Andy Welinski, and Tyler Wotherspoon will get a fair shake, as well. They were solid today, but again it’s just the second day.
Can’t forget the goalies right? Look at Brian Elliott continuing to impress on day 2 once again:
Brian Elliott Presser:
“You have to appreciate what your family’s doing at home, and sacrifices they make. I don’t think that gets brought up in the media as well. If I can say it publicly, thank you to my wife for sure for taking care of the little ones while were gone.”
“You are just trying to jack yourself up and make sure you’re on your best A-Game. Sometimes when the playoffs roll around, you have no choice to get that amped-up level just because of that atmosphere. You’ve got to calm yourself down. His way it might be the opposite, like I said before. It’s trying to find that balance between. Just get that peak performance state ready. As goalies, I think we’ve been trying to do that for so long. Talking to mental coaches, trying to get to that point. I think Carter’s in a good spot too. I think he’s dealt with that a lot as well. We’ll take it as they come.”
“The first couple days are always hard no matter what. What happens when you get back to that pace and a constant NHL shot on you. But I feel good, the boys look good. I think we are just gaining confidence day by day here.”
Carter Hart:
“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life,” in regards to the playoffs.
“Moose has been great to me since I got here. He’s a great mentor. Obviously he’s a great goalie. He has been around the league a long time. He’s been in the playoffs and played in the playoffs many times, conference finals. He definitely knows. He’s somebody that I’m going to lean on for help and support. He’s been all there long. He’s been great for us. He’s been a great teammate.”
Alain Vigneault:
“Right now our focus with our whole group, not just with Carter but our whole group, is this phase in Philly where we’re trying to get our team as far as conditioning and execution and timing, to the level or close to the level that we were before we left.”
“Obviously we’re going to miss the people who are close to us, but we’re getting an opportunity here to compete for the Stanley Cup. We’ve got the best facilities and the best people taking care of us, and if you look at what’s going on in the world right now.” Where people are losing their jobs, losing their businesses, going from paycheck to paycheck, we’re one of the lucky ones.”
“We have a really good leadership group here with Jake, Coots, G, Brauner, Nisky, and the list goes on. We have a really good group of guys here. We all gel really well together. We’re the kind of group where we are always doing things together and having fun.”
Jake Presser:
“Obviously, he was one of the best goalies in the league at this early stage of his career. We’re real lucky to have him on our team and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for him.”
“I mean, if it’s the price we have to pay, yeah we’re going to do that. There’s people outside who don’t have insurance, can’t get the medical support they need, and they’re struggling with this. So I think we have it pretty good.”
“Last time I played with no fans… probably never. There were always at least some people in the stands, at least family, when I was a kid. It’s obviously going to be different, it’s going to be weird, it’s going to suck.” #Flyers
What will day 3 bring, who knows, stay with us and find out tomorrow.
