Flyers head coach John Tortorella does not take the ice for game day “morning skates”. Aside from the coach’s absence today’s morning skate looked more like a full practice.
The skates are usually optional and only draw a handful of players. Tortorella has said in the past that he wished certain players would not attend, save the energy, and use their time otherwise. Today everyone was on the ice running drills with the coaching staff.
The team is hoping to break out of their current funk tonight when they faceoff against Claude Giroux and the Ottawa Senators. The Flyers have dropped the first four games of their seven game homestand and obviously would love to turn things around with a much needed W tonight.
The schedule continues to be busy and challenging over this two week stretch but having seven games in a row at home should be to a team’s advantage. The Flyers are not dealing with travel. They are eating their meals at home and sleeping in their own beds. The attendance and pace of the session this morning is a sign that the team is taking the current skid seriously and looking for a way to break it and turn things around.
Emil Andrae
Ivan Fedotov will get the start in net tonight for the Flyers and Egor Zamula will have the night off to make way for Emil Andrae. I had a chance to speak with Andrae in the locker room after the skate. I asked him about his return to the club. “It’s nice to be back. Ever since I got sent down I’ve been trying to get back up. Been trying to work as hard as I can in Lehigh, try to play some good minutes there and hopefully I can stay longer here”.
When asked about the hardest part of the transition he said “I think it’s habits you create in the AHL that you can not get away with in the NHL. It’s a little bit of a transition when you come up again. I think you just need to get back on the quick decisions as soon as you can. I think that’s the biggest part of it”.
Less time to make decisions with the puck? “Yes, less time, It’s not much. Stuff you can’t do here, stuff you can get away with in the AHL. You don’t have to be as quick as you do here. I can’t really tell you how quick it is but it’s a difference”. In hockey a fraction of a second is a long time. “Yea, yes exactly”.
Last Men Standing
With Zamula not suiting up tonight and Ersson taking on the backup roll these two guys were still on the ice long after the skate was over. For a while they were working with a coach on puck-handling behind the net. After the coach left the two players remained on the ice. No pressure, no agenda, no real purpose other than having fun. They were just goofing around with the puck enjoying playing ice hockey. It was refreshing to watch.
Next Up: Flyers host the Senators 7:00 PM tonight.
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