Another practice, and another day of camp is in the rear view mirror. The Flyers are one day closer to opening night on January 13, 2021, against their rivals in the Pittsburgh Penguins.
This year’s group is a lot different than the 2019-20 team, as there is a bit of youth infusion that are near or are ready to make the next jump into the NHL (Wade Allison, Wyatte Wylie, Zayde Wisdom). Morgan Frost, Mark Friedman, Connor Bunnaman, Carsen Twarynski, and Alex Lyon will do whatever is necessary to make the team and that includes Frost playing a different position as he indicated after practice Wednesday, “I am comfortable with trying to play whatever position they want me to play. I think I’ve obviously played center for most of my life, but I can adapt to wing and whatever gives me a chance to play for this team, I am willing to learn and do. It doesn’t really matter to me. I am just trying to go out there and do my best and work as hard as I can and whatever position that falls under is fine with me.”
Frost and company may see time on the Taxi Squad (4-6 players travel and practice with the team in case an injury or Covid case arises). How will this Taxi Squad roster shape up to be? Well you have to stay tuned with us for that, but Frost did see time at both Center and Wing today, per Charlie O’ Connor, especially with how well Nolan Patrick has looked at camp. Finally, Frost broke through with some great plays in the scrimmage from what I saw from Charlie O’ Connor, and that was an area that he needed to get better at. If Frost wants to make this team he had to get better at scrimmages.
I just want to mention that Shayne Gostisbehere he’s getting a healthy dose of a look as he was paired with star Defenseman Ivan Provorov for the second straight day with on-ice portions at camp.
It should be noted that Ghost was paired wth Provorov in 2016-17 at times, and they played solid hockey together. Head Coach Alain Vigneault said earlier in a week that ghost was given a “Clean slate” and boy has he meant it. This is worth tracking for the time being.
Another twister was Yegor Zamula in Group A for the second consecutive day of on-ice portion at camp. Zamula was in Group A in favor of Mark Friedman, as it appears he will be getting a healthy look at camp, as well. However, per Charlie O’ Connor he didn’t appear to have his best day at camp today:
The Flyers are very high on both defenseman, but they raved about Zamula in camp during the bubble training camp.
As indicated above in the Flyers tweet if you clicked it. Kevin Hayes, Claude Giroux, and Joel Farabee were moved to Group B today in favor of Wade Allison, Connor Bunnaman, and Carsen Twarynski. this is to give all three a healthy look at making the Taxi Squad roster, which will contain four to six players, whom have to clear waivers if they are no longer waiver exempt.
However, Hayes scored a go ahead goal at 2-1 in the scrimmage. Hayes uses his big frame to his advantage. He’s just do darn tough to move off the puck when he lowers his body like Jakub Voracek. Hayes also saw time on the Power Play today too in providing a net front presence on PP1.
The Power Play will be a work in progress this season, after a very unsuccessful Power Play in the playoffs where they had a success rate of 7.7% on 52 attempts. Look for the Flyers to do more Power Play work tomorrow and Sunday, as well, before the intra squad scrimmage.
Konecny provided a net from presence today, per Charlie O’Connor. TK had a great year last year for the Flyers and when she led the team in points and goals. He has before the very good camp thus far in my opinion from the videos I’ve seen, and he even potted a few goals today on the Power Play, while providing a net front presence:
Kevin Hayes potted a Power Play goal, and TK provided some quality goals while providing a net front presence, as indicated above.
Lindblom, Couturier, Patrick
This line was intact again for the send straight day of on-ice portions at camp, as it appears this line might become to fruition on opening night. It will be interesting to see how Vigneault develops his lines tomorrow, but this might be a sign on day 5 of training camp. Vigneault did say on Wednesday that he put this line together for chemistry purposes, “I wanted to see that today and wasn’t disappointed,” Vigneault said.
Training Camp Diaries
Alain Vigneault Presser:
AV with tremendous praise for Carter Hart:
“I believe in Kim, our goaltender coach, also believes that he can be one of the top goaltenders in the league. If we are going to be a Stanley Cup contending team, we are no different than anyone else, we need top goaltending, elite goaltending and we think Carter can do that for us.”
AV on Zamula:
“Z has tremendous amount of potentional. Big man, he has gained some weight. He was gotten stronger. Not quite sure he is quite ready for this competition right now, but we wanted to take a look at him.”
AV on Ghost and Provy:
“We wanted to have the opportunity to take a look at Provy and Ghost together. They have played together in the past and my understanding is they have had some good success. So I wanted to take a quick peak at that.”
Stay with us for all the latest training coverage, as we are nearing the completion of camp.
Pictures from Today:
