As first
reported by Truehockey.com and later
confirmed on the official site of Eispiraten Crimmitschau, Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds and Blues winger Chris Stewart have signed with the 2. Bundesliga (minor league) team in Germany. The two players were in route to Germany last night.
While Simmonds (and Stewart) fielded numerous individual offers from teams in various European top leagues, including Germany's DEL, the two close friends wanted the opportunity to play as teammates. With the regular seasons already underway and many European teams either at or nearing their league's import player limit on the roster, the available opportunities to sign in tandem had become limited.
Team sponsors will cover the insurance costs for the NHL players. Simmonds and Stewart will make very little money in the league -- the German players on the Bundesliga clubs have often worked separate jobs, especially in the offseason. But making money during the lockout wasn't the players' objective in the first place.
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Yesterday, the Flyers announced the schedule and
roster for the Adirondack Phantoms' American Hockey League training camp at the SkateZone in Voorhees.
In addition to the five Flyers entry-level contract players (Sean Couturier, Brayden Schenn, Erik Gustafsson, Eric Wellwood and Zac Rinaldo) who were assigned to the Phantoms, Flyers defenseman Marc-Andre Bourdon will attend the camp. ]
Bourdon is eligible for AHL play during the lockout because he was on the AHL Clear Day List this past spring and he is also on a two-way NHL contract this season with the Flyers. Players who meet this criteria are eligible for (temporary) minor league contracts during the NHL lockout without having had to pass through waivers.
With the Phantoms roster bolstered by up to six young NHL players, competition will be fierce for roster spots. There will be a trickle-down effect to the ECHL's Trenton Titans, with players who would otherwise have made head coach Terry Murray's Phantoms roster instead starting the season with Trenton.
The schedule is as follows:
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Phantoms Ice – 9:15 am - 12:15 pm
Phantoms Ice – 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Phantoms Ice – 8:00 am -11:00 am
Flyers Ice – 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Monday, October 1, 2012
Phantoms Ice
9:00 am – 12:30 pm
2:40 pm – 4:30 pm
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
2:00 pm – Exhibition Game vs. Albany Devils
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Phantoms Ice
9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Phantoms Ice
9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Flyers Ice
8:00 am -1:00 pm
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Apart from the contracted Flyers/Phantoms players, there are a few interesting tryout players attending the camp.
Perhaps the most intriguing of the non-roster players is 25-year-old forward
Sergei Sentyurin, a huge (6-foot-4, 220 pound) winger who has played parts of two seasons in the KHL and was one of the better VHL (Russian minor league) forwards last season.
Another notable non-roster attendee is 24-year-old defenseman
Mitch Versteeg, who is the brother of former Flyers forward Kris. Mitch played for the Titans last season and appears likely to play in the ECHL again, but is a solid minor league player who adds some toughness.
Invitee defenseman
Connor Goggin, 23, had a solid four-year collegiate career at Dartmouth College as a physical-two defenseman with a righthanded shot. He spent some time in the AHL with Rockford late last season. Connor's brother, Mark, was drafted by the Bruins in the 2008 Draft and is slated to return to Dartmouth for his senior season in 2012-13. The Goggin boys are part of a three-generation Dartmouth hockey-playing family, as their grandfather, father and uncle all played for the collegiate program.
Soon-to-be 23-year-old
Johan Ryd is a Swedish player who developed in the Södertälje SK system (Nicklas Grossmann's old team) before attending small St. Norbert's College in the U.S. for four seasons. He's listed as a defenseman on the Phantoms training camp sheet, but Hockeydb and Elite Prospects list him as a forward. Ryd dominated the NCHA level last season and got into three ECHL games with Chicago late last season.
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Yesterday on Twitter, Flyers defenseman Bruno Gervais announced that the first game of the Players Tour in Quebec that he and Flyers teammate Max Talbot have organized will take place on Thursday at the Leo-Crepin in Chateauguay. The game starts at 7 p.m. and tickets will go on sale at the door at 5 p.m.
The twitter feed for the Players Tour is @LaTDJ and the Facebook page (in French) is
here. There will be English as well as French updates on the Twitter feed.
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Jakub Voracek had an assist yesterday in HC Lev Prague's 4-0 win over HC Yugra. He skated 15:32 of ice time (down slightly from the previous game, in part because Voracek had to serve a tripping penalty early in the game) and registered one shot on goal. He has points (1G, 2A) in all three games he's played to date.
Despite being introduced at a Sunday press conference, Ilya Bryzgalov was neither the starting nor the backup goaltender for CSKA Moscow yesterday. The Red Army team shut out Avangard Omsk, 1-0, behind 28 saves from former Washington Capitals goaltender Rastislav Stana.
Ruslan Fedotenko's HC Donbass Donetsk club was idle yesterday but will be in action today on the road against Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Last game, Fedotenko scored the winning goal in the shootout after former Flyers defenseman Oskars Bartulis tied up the team's game against Barys Astana late in regulation. Another ex-Flyer, Alexandre Picard, is also a member of the Donbass starting blueline.
By the way, tonight would have been the Flyers' first preseason game if not for the lockout.
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Bobby Clarke, Eric Lindros, Claude Giroux and Rod Brind'Amour were the four centers chosen in our Flyers All-Time Roster selection polls. Today, we'll pick two goalies and tomorrow we'll pick seven wingers before placing two remaining forward and two remaining defense roster spots up for grabs in the final poll.
There is zero doubt as to whom will be the top vote-getting goalie in the poll. The bigger questions are which goalie will finish second, how much the 2nd/3rd place voting split will be and how many votes the fourth-place finisher on down will get. I'll weigh in with my thoughts on the subject tomorrow before introducing the winger poll.
To make the selection process a little more thought-provoking, I had actually toyed with the idea of basing the poll around people choosing one goaltending TANDEM from (starter and backup) from team history; for example, Doug Favell and Bernie Parent, Bernie and Wayne Stephenson, Pelle Lindbergh and Bob Froese, Ron Hextall and Chico Resch, and Hextall and Garth Snow.
However, I ultimately decided against doing it that way, because then the poll would be as much about the backup as the starter, and we'd end up with bumping a more worthy goalie out of the number 2 spot. Since the idea of this is the all-time roster, it wouldn't make sense to do it the other way.
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