Photo Credit: Ricky Brown
The big man, Wade Allison, 6’2 205 pound, from Myrtle, MB, CAN, finnnnnnnalllly made his season debut, and it didn’t go as planned (We will get to that in a bit). Finally right, after much speculation for the past few years if Allison would sign or not with the orange and black. Allison is physical, good along the boards, and creates a net front presence that the Flyers could use in the future.
A young 24-year-old in Allison just wanted to show people that the Flyers did not make a mistake by drafting him, and that he is healthy. If a person has seen Allison play in prior years, then he or she would notice his gifted hands. He can shoot and pass on top of being a physical guy. Allison enjoyed a great season last year for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms by registering four goals, and five assists for a total of nine points in eight games played. He really enjoyed the pressure of his first year as a professional, after recovering from ankle surgery that kept him out through Flyers camp, and the first part of the AHL season.
Unfortunately, after Allison worked his way back from a high ankle sprain injury earlier in the season, he returned and got hurt again this sidelining him for another few months. Wade returned yesterday, and sustained a lower body in the second period to which he was sidelined for the rest of the game.
This young man just cannot catch a break after sustaining injury after injury. It has to be taking a toll on him mentally to rehab, come back just to get injured again. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious and he comes back soon.
Rasmus Ristolainen
Flyers’ General Manager Chuck Fletcher was left with a gaping hole on the blue line when Matt Niskanen officially announced his retirement one day before the NHL Draft was set to commence last year. Niskanen was a very reliable Right-Handed Defenseman that was on the top pairing, while being paired with a work-horse in Ivan Provorov.
Fletcher approached this offseason trying to replace Niskanen, and he accomplished that with obtaining Ryan Ellis and adding Rasmus Ristolainen to the fold. The Flyers were in a free fall, and beaten on a regular basis. Gone are those days as Ristolainen is very physical and demands a presence. Is eminent today in Buffalo and he even potted a big goal to tie the game up one. Of course, the flood gates opened up soon after for the Buffalo Sabres, but Risto actually looked back at home in Buffalo.
Ristolainen offers the Flyers another dimension this season, and that has been made evident this season as Ristolainen hits everything that moves. He stuck up for Claude Giroux with a big hit at the end of the first as the horn sounded during the last game of the pre-season. Giroux was hit by a Capital moments prior, and Ristolainen didn’t like it.
The Sabres gave him a nice video tribute, and Risto loves Buffalo, “I think it was time for me to see something new,” Rasmus Ristolainen said before the game to Giana Hade of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “At first it was sad, but I think it was good for me. I liked living in Buffalo, personally I couldn’t do enough.”
Following the game he gave an awesome quote, “I think we got outworked from the first shift of the game,” Ristolainen said.
He was then asked about a specific goal that the Sabres scored, “Which goal was that? They scored too many goals, I can’t remember sorry.”
All in oh it wasn’t the homecoming that Risto envisioned, as the Flyers are now one game away from a franchise record of 12 losses in a row.
