Here are a few Flyers-related odds and ends for your Friday morning:
*
Nicklas Grossmann is slated to play today in an exhibition game in Järfälla, Sweden. The game will pit the minor league Järfälla HC club against an All-Star team featuring numerous current and former NHL players from Sweden. It will be the first organized game Grossmann -- who has spent the summer in Sweden rehabbing a knee injury -- has played since Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Among Grossmann's teammates on the All-Star team are the likes of Niklas Kronwall (Red Wings), Gabriel Landeskog (Avalanche), Gustav Nyqvist (Red Wings), Jacob Josefson (Devils), Jonathan Ericsson (Red Wings), Johnny Oduya (Blackhawks), Marcus Kruger (Blackhawks), Tom Wandell (Stars), Patric Hörnqvist (Predators), former NHL defenseman Dick Tärnström (now with AIK Stockholm) and retired former NHL defenseman Mattias Norström. Jonas Gustavsson (Red Wings) will start the game in goal.
Side note: A few months ago, Grossmann told me that Norström was a
mentor to him during his early days in the Dallas Stars organization and a player whose style helped influence his own.
*
Shayne Gostisbehere put on a show for Team USA in yesterday's 10-2 blowout of a listless Team Sweden on the 6th day of the WJC Camp in Lake Placid. The19-year-old Flyers'
2012 third-round draft pick scored a pair of goals and added an assist.
The defenseman opened the scored on the power play. "Ghost" received a D-to-D pass from Jacob Trouba, skated one long stride to find an optimal shooting lane and fired a tracer of a wrist shot that found the top right corner.
Later, he added a second power play goal. On this one, Gostisbehere took a pass from Blake Pietila in the right circle and fired a quick snap shot into a small short-side opening past beleaguered Swedish goaltender snapped it short side, narrowly beating Nicklas Lundström (Oscar Dansk had the day off, and his backup gave up all 10 goals).
By all accounts, Gostisbehere has greatly improved his chances of playing in the WJC with his performance at camp. Some have said he's been one of the top two or three defensemen at the Team USA camp. The fact that he's undersized will certainly not deter coach Phil Housley -- who knows a thing or two about succeeding in hockey as a small defenseman -- from giving him a chance to rise or fall on the merits of his play.
I was very impressed by Gostisbehere at the Flyers prospect camp last month. In some of the key skills drills the defensemen did -- such as practicing breakout passes against an oncoming forechecker -- only
Brandon Manning (who has already played in the NHL) appeared to be ahead of Gostisbehere. The Florida native seems very poised and mature, both on and off the ice. He has that certain "it" factor about him.
The one thing that does concern me about Gostisbehere is his lack of strength. It doesn't really matter that he stands right around 5-foot-10 (although he's listed at 5-11) but he has a pretty small frame to go with it. It's going to take a lot of hard work for Ghost to get up to a pro playing weight of even 180 pounds -- he's about 20 pounds from there now.
Unfortunately, after standing out in the skill development phase of the Flyers prospect camp, Gostisbehere didn't get much of an opportunity to show what he could do in the scrimmages. Early in the first scrimmage, he was on the receiving end of a freight-train hit by 2012 first-round pick
Scott Laughton, which knocked him for a loop and kept him out of the remainder of the camp.
Gostisbehere has shown at the WJC Camp that he's no worse for the wear after the injury at the Flyers' scrimmage. Meanwhile, 2012 second round pick
Anthony Stolarz is also at the WJC camp with Team USA. The latter is unlikely to make the team this time around, but hopefully the goaltender will see action against Finland tomorrow.
* The Flyers have invited undrafted 19-year-old Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (QMJHL) goaltender
Etienne Marcoux to attend training camp in September. Even if there is not an NHL training camp due to a lockout, there will be some sort of rookie/Phantoms camp held (the AHL season will go on per normal).
Marcoux attended the Flyers prospect development camp in July and played in the two scrimmages at the end of camp. Jeff Reese and Neil Little must have been suitably impressed to recommend to Chris Pryor and Paul Holmgren that the youngster be given a longer look. If it were to somehow work out that Marcoux got signed to an entry-level contract (odds are against it), his contract could slide back to the QMJHL for next season.
To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to Marcoux or the two other undrafted goalies at the development camp. My attention was focused on
Anthony Stolarz and
Cal Heeter. The one thing I did notice about Marcoux is that he seems to get up and down in the butterfly pretty quickly.
* Somewhat surprisingly, the Flyers have elected NOT to extend a training camp invitation to Marcoux's Armada teammate
Christopher Clapperton. The undrafted forward looked impressive in the skill development drills throughout the Prospect Camp week and then put on a show at the scrimmages with four goals and two assists in the two games.
The decision not to invite Clapperton made me wonder if he even had a legitimate chance at a September invite in the first place or if the Flyers brought him there simply to throw a bone to camp co-instructor Joel Bouchard (a camp instructor, the majority owner of the Armada, and a close friend of Ian Laperriere). There isn't much more that Clapperton could have done at prospect camp to leave a positive impression, apart from suddenly growing four inches in a week.
Pryor and Holmgren must have decided that Clapperton, who is listed at 5-foot-9 but appeared at camp to be closer to the size of Nathan Gerbe, is simply too small to have much chance to make it as a pro. It is the rare player like
Danny Briere, Gerbe or Theoren Fleury who can overcome such a severe size disadvantage and make it to the NHL successfully. So the odds are stacked against a guy like Clapperton.
Clapperton averaged nearly a point-per-game in his rookie QMJHL season last year, but went unselected in the 2012 Draft. His game reminds me a bit of diminutive Calgary Flames forward Paul Byron, who was a linemate of
Claude Giroux in Gatineau. The skill is obvious, and he's not afraid to get involved even if he's outmatched physically. However, Clapperton didn't appear to be quite as fast as Byron (who was originally a 6th-round pick by Buffalo in 2007), although his skating didn't seem deficient to me. At any rate, Clapperton will go back in the NHL Draft next season.
*************
Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information
click here.
Click below to follow me on Twitter:
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»