Over the next few days, my blogs will look at which Flyers players are likely to stay on the team next year, which ones are likely not to be back and which ones are on the fence. There can always be surprises, especially after a season in which the team missed the playoffs. However, most of the selections are pretty easy to peg in terms of probability.
In the first installment, I took thumbnail-sketch looks at the current Flyers veteran forwards. Tomorrow, we'll cover the defensemen and goaltenders. Future blogs will take more in-depth individual looks at many of these players.
NHL FORWARDS -- STAY
Claude Giroux: Will center top line. I have no worries about his offensive game or his ability to deal with the captaincy. The team could use a little more regular season consistency from him on the defensive side of the puck. There are games where he's excellent defensively, but a few too many where he's not-so-good.
Jakub Voracek: Will play right wing on top line. He produced at the same near point-per-game pace during the 2011-12 stretch run and playoffs as he did during his Bobby Clarke Trophy season this year. The 23-year-old is the real deal. Like Giroux, I think Voracek is a good two-way player when he sets his mind to it but also can cheat a bit on times on the defensive side of the puck.
Scott Hartnell: Not a mortal lock to regain the top-line left wing spot but still the most likely candidate. The power forward will play in the top six regardless. A broken foot and game conditioning issues set him back after not playing during the lockout, and he had a big-time down season. He too frequently got caught behind the play, struggling to keep up with the pace linemates Giroux and Voracek set. Hartnell should have a bounceback offensive year next season. Beyond that, you know what you'll get. He'll take more than share of bad penalties and, like most power wingers, isn't going to win any Selke Trophies. I've always thought of Hartnell as a competitor who acts on emotion. That sometimes works to his and the team's benefit, sometimes to their detriment.
Brayden Schenn: There is a chance that he or Sean Couturier could end up being traded this summer as part of a blockbuster deal for a top-pairing defenseman, but I doubt it. Although his offensive output remained a little too streaky, Schenn subtly improved in many areas in his second NHL season and should only continue to improve. Can still get stronger physically, get to the net more regularly and protect the puck a little better. He also needs to continue to improve on the defensive side of the puck.
Sean Couturier: As with Schenn, I don't think he's going anywhere but other teams will keep asking for him in any deal of consequence. his name will keep popping up in trade rumors and (quite often horrible) proposals. Still the best defensive forward on the team, and will only continue to improve. Offensively, he struggled for much of the shortened season but showed signs of coming around toward the latter portion of the year. Some fans complained about his five-on-five role but Couturier was given more offensive responsibility early in the season after the lockout and really, really struggled to handle them at that point. The offensive struggles seemed to affect even his defensive game for awhile, but he soon recovered in the latter regard. Even after being moved back to more of a strictly defensive role, he continued to see second power play unit ice time. The biggest thing Couturier needs to work on is adding more upper body muscle. He's still just 20 years old.
Wayne Simmonds: The compete level is high every night with Simmonds. There is a lot to like about his game, because he's a plus-skating power forward who is absolutely fearless about engaging anyone physically. Simmonds looks like a beanpole (especially his legs) but is very strong pound-for-pound. I don't consider him a truly natural goal scorer but I expect his 28 goals in 2011-12 and 15 in the lockout year -- a 25.5 goal pace in an 82-game season -- will be his healthy-season norm. On the defensive side of the game, he still needs to work considerably on cutting down on turnovers between the bluelines. He also sometimes struggles with the discipline line when it comes to taking retaliatory penalties or engaging behind the play while an opposing rush goes the other way.
Max Talbot: Like so many of his teammates, Talbot got off to a bad start this season. He eventually came around and was playing at a comparable level to the 2011-12 season when he sustained a season-ending broken leg. The Flyers will need him to make a full recovery. His role will be to remain a key part of the penalty kill and a weapon on the forecheck to gain territorial advantage. I prefer Talbot at wing to center, but he could end up back in the fourth-line center role if Scott Laughton does not make the team and assuming Adam Hall is not re-signed (or a comparable player added). Talbot does not need to score 19 goals again, as he did in 2011-12. But the Flyers will still count on him to hit the low double-digits.
Zac Rinaldo: Rinaldo backed up his brashness with hard work this year. He cut down on his bad penalties, created a lot of power plays for Philly and referees gave him fewer "reputation penalties" on marginal infractions. He is one of the NHL's most aggressive hitters and most active trash talkers. I thought his all-around game improved a lot from his rookie year. For the last two years, Rinaldo has told anyone that will listen how he could be an excellent penalty killer if given the chance (he did see some PK time in Adirondack during the lockout) and could even score more goals if he's placed on a scoring line. While I don't think he'll ever get top-six ice time except perhaps in a blowout game with lots of line combination juggling, I do think he can continue to grow his game to where he could be used on an NHL penalty kill. He skates quite well and is willing to fight (literally and figuratively) for turf.
Jay Rosehill: I have to admit that when Rosehill came over to Philadelphia via trade, I was dubious about his ability to do anything on the ice other than fight. I had no doubts about the latter; he's a legit heavyweight who can deliver or take a punch. I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out he wasn't a liability in non-fighting shifts. While he's still no more than a 12th forward, Rosehill can answer the bell when needed. I was not disappointed the Flyers re-signed him. The cap hit is low, and he serves a specific purpose that still exists in the game.
NHL FORWARDS -- GO
Danny Briere: If his cap hit ($6.5 million) was in line with the salaries in the final two years ($3 million in 2013-14 and $2 million in 2014-15) of his front-loaded contract, I would advocate the team finding a way to keep Briere for his playoff scoring and off-ice leadership by example. His defensive liabilities are well known and his regular season offense has been in decline the past two seasons. However, I attribute the latter primarily to a collection of injuries, including a wrist injury that clearly affected him early this season and concussions in each of the last seasons. He also played out position for most of this season. Briere, who seems physically better suited to right wing than the middle, has nevertheless always been more productive at center.
Ruslan Fedotenko: Fedotenko did an excellent job in the checking and penalty killing role he was brought in to play. Apparently, though, he was unhappy in that role both in New York in 2011-12 and Philly this past season. I don't see any other team putting him back into a role with more offensive responsibilities -- certainly no playoff-caliber teams would use him that way anymore -- but more power to Rusty if he can find a role and team situation that make him a little happier. He has absolutely earned at least the same salary next year that he made this season, but the Flyers really aren't in cap position to pay him $1.75 million again with the cap going down. As such, a parting of ways is in both sides' best interests. That said, I will miss Fedotenko. Great guy, and a savvy hockey player.
Adam Hall: I am personally in favor of the Flyers bringing back unrestricted free agent Hall on a one-year contract. He was excellent on faceoffs, decent defensively and added some size down the middle. His expiring contract is modest ($650,000) and he's not in line for a raise after the way he bounced around non-playoff teams this year. However, general manager Paul Holmgren did not sound very keen on retaining either Hall or defenseman Kent Huskins in the off-season. That leads me to believe that Scott Laughton will get a chance to win the fourth-line center job out of camp next year, or else the club will acquire a comparable player to Hall or plug one of Talbot or Ben Holmstrom (if healthy) into the fourth-line center spot.
Mike Knuble: I admire the hell out of Knuble. He is a true pro both on and off the ice. It is not set in stone that the 40-year-old will announce his retirement as an active player but it seems likely. I actually thought he played well in most of the games he got into the Flyers lineup this year. However, one also has to be realistic. He went unsigned last summer, ended up on a minor league contract in Detroit and was released from it after Hartnell suffered a broken foot and the struggling Flyers had an opening for Knuble on their NHL roster. He was a frequent healthy scratch in Philly, despite playing well on the walls, demonstrating responsible defensive play and chipping in an occasional goal. If he does not retire, he's going to have a hard time finding a team to sign him this summer, and his only shot might be another training camp tryout. Knuble has had too good of a career to be lowered to just trying to find a team another year. He should retire with the dignity he deserves, going out as a player who set a fine example on a team with many young players.
Jody Shelley: Another great guy off the ice. There won't be a taker in the NHL for the aging enforcer, who is coming off hip surgery and dressed in only one game this season (a combined 31 in the last two years). A lot of fans maligned him, primarily because of his too-high-paid and too-lengthy contract, but the guy deserves respect for all the hard work that went into taking modest natural talent and a willingness to drop the gloves and muck on the walls into a 627-game NHL career.
NHL FORWARDS -- ON THE FENCE
Simon Gagne: The impending unrestricted free agent has said he'd like to return to the Flyers, and will be willing to take a paycut off his $3.5 million contract to do so. He still offers good speed and a two-way game. His goal-scoring touch, which always ran a bit streaky except at the peak of his prime when he played with Peter Forsberg and Knuble, has shown some signs of decline or least lowered self-confidence. I still think he can score a bit depending on whether his main role is to be a third liner and penalty killer or to play in the top six. There are, however, also injury concerns to consider. Gagne has been banged up a lot in recent years, including concussion and neck issues. His return to Philly next year depends on team budget, how much of a cut he's willing to take and what the team's other priorities may be. If he does not re-sign prior to the start of free agency, I could see a situation somewhat akin to Jaromir Jagr's last summer. Gagne may be asked to wait until the team finds out about other free agents they covet and then Paul Holmgren would circle back with an offer that fits the remaining budget.
Matt Read: In his two-plus pro seasons, Read has become a personal favorite. I appreciate heady two-way players with good speed. It was unfortunate that he suffered a ribcage injury this season, because he was off to a fine start in his second NHL season. He struggled offensively after his (early) return to the lineup, but came on late in the year. There is not a good in-house candidate to replace Read's versatility. The main retention problem is that he can become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2014 and the Flyers will have a lot of other key contracts -- including RFAs Claude Giroux, Couturier and Brayden Schenn -- to deal with before then. Additionally, if the Flyers remain unwilling to trade Couturier or Schenn to upgrade the blueline, Read is a candidate to be moved in a somewhat lesser trade. If the Flyers can get Read signed to an off-season extension that kicks in for the 2014-15 season, the team will have more leeway to keep him on the roster. Conversely, an extension in hand could also boost trade value.
ON THE FARM: TOP FOUR CANDIDATES FOR PROMOTION
Scott Laughton: His entry-level contract can slide back to the OHL again next season, but I think there's a good chance he once again opens the year with the Flyers. He missed time this year due to a pair of OHL suspensions -- one in the regular season and one in the playoffs -- but that did not affect his development at all. He played well in the OHL during the NHL lockout and then came back with sky-high confidence after holding his own in his five-game trial run with the big club at the start of the 2013 season. When he returned to Oshawa, he was a dominant two-way force the rest of the year. It is his defensive maturity and physical aggression that remain his best assets from an NHL standpoint, but he's an underrated playmaker. He still needs to add considerable muscle to win NHL battles with the same regularity. Other than that key area, he's close to being NHL-ready on a full-time basis.
Ben Holmstrom: It was unfortunate that he suffered a torn ACL early in the AHL campaign or else the Phantoms captain would have stood a chance at trying to crack the NHL on more of a full-time basis after the lockout. He has already had a few cups of coffee with the big club. Holmstrom plays a no-frills and defensively responsible game, with the potential to become a good faceoff man in the NHL. Assuming Hall is not re-signed, Holmstrom will get a crack at winning the fourth-line center spot on the big team.
Tye McGinn: McGinn made a lot of progress over the last year, taking on a bigger role with the Phantoms and performing admirably during his time in the NHL with the Flyers. He is very good on the walls, is willing to crash the net and is above-average in deflecting pucks even if he'll never be a big goal-scorer as a pro. He'll drop the gloves willingly but it's not his main role. McGinn's skating and defensive play have improved since his first pro season but he still needs further work in both areas to gain a full-time spot in the NHL. He is probably not a top-six candidate in the NHL so he needs to further refine other areas to become an energy player who stays in the lineup.
Jason Akeson: Here's the thing with Akeson. Everyone knows he has NHL caliber ice vision and hands. The problem is that he's a victim of the deadly combination of being undersized and an average-at-best skater. That has doomed many an otherwise talented player to being a career minor leaguer. The sole reason why Terry Murray cut Akeson from the Phantoms squad at the start of the season and he was sent to the ECHL was so that he could work on improving his two-way game and skating. Akeson was something of a one-trick pony as a Phantoms rookie last year, and that was Murray's tough love way of showing him that AHL points alone wouldn't get him to the AHL. Akeson really worked his tail off this year in the ECHL and AHL and got rewarded with an NHL call-up, a start in the season finale in front of family and friends, a spot on Giroux's line and a goal on his second shift. It was a touching story, especially in light of the back story of Akeson's mother being a cancer survivor and the player drawing on-ice inspiration from her. However, come next year, Akeson will still have to deal with the question marks about his speed and size. He'll return to the AHL but could be a call-up if a scoring line forward goes down.
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FLYERS RETAIN 11TH PICK OF 2013 NHL DRAFT
In yesterday's NHL Draft Lottery, the Flyers ended up in the same boat as the third to 14th teams that missed the playoffs: their Draft spot will match their place in the final standings. The Colorado Avalance will pick first (and no doubt select Seth Jones) and the Florida Panthers will pick second (and almost definitely take Nathan MacKinnon).
Even with the 11th pick of the Draft, the Flyers should get a good player. Last night prior to the lottery, one of the pundits on TSN Radio proclaimed this to be a draft with five potential superstar-caliber talents (Jones, MacKinnon, Jonathan Drouin, Aleksander Barkov and Valeri Nichushkin) and an average draft crop after that.
Baloney. No one has any idea in ANY draft year how many stars will emerge beyond the top few picks or can even absolutely guarantee that the top-end picks will fulfill their potential. Every single draft produces future surprises. You never know what 18-year-old kid will hit a development spurt and who will stagnate.
From the four NHL scouts with whom I've spoken -- including one who emphasized that he measures the depth of a draft in volume of players with the demonstrated tools to be future productive NHLers, and not just slam-dunk picks in the top four or five -- the 2013 Draft could ultimately go down among the better crops in recent history.
On Monday, Paul Holmgren said that he thinks there could be a half-dozen or even more players that go straight to the NHL next season. That is not to say that a player who takes a little longer to reach the NHL will not ultimately become a superior player to the one who is fast-tracked (in fact, this often seems to be the case with defensemen who are nurtured a little more slowly rather than being rushed right into the NHL because of their physical maturity and draft position).
The Flyers have said they would be perfectly comfortable picking 11th but would also consider moving up in the right situation. Even if they pick 11th, they stand a solid chance at getting a good future NHL player. The team's first-round draft record is pretty strong.
It is impossible to predict whom the Flyers will draft. I have no idea. Even scouts who talk off-the-record rarely tell me their team is targeting Player X (although they may share whom they think other clubs may be targeting, which may or may not be accurate).
They will instead tell you want they think a player's strengths and weaknesses are, and there is a grapevine about which players interviewed well or poorly at the Combine (but teams sometimes draft players they didn't interview, such as was the case with the Flyers and Sean Couturier two years ago). Additionally, teams often tend to go for players who fit a certain style of play or certain body type but that is not set in stone, either.
Last but not least, the Flyers draft philosophy in the first round is always to take the prospect whom they believe to be the best available player regardless of position. I can't emphasize this enough times.
Specifically, the Flyers will NOT draft a defenseman just for the sake of trying to fill an NHL-level need nor will they bypass a higher-ranked forward if he happens to fall to their draft spot. This was the case with Couturier in 2011. There is no so thing as having too much depth at any position, because it eventually enables you to better trade from a position of strength in order to meet other needs. Alternatively, it enables a team to account for NHL level injuries by being able to move a capable player up in the lineup.
That is not to say the Flyers will not draft a defenseman with their first pick. It's simply a heads up that there is just as much chance they take a forward, especially if teams ahead of them "go off the board" a bit and someone falls to them.
There is nothing wrong with going off the board sometimes, either. In Flyers history, the ultimate example was the 1991 Draft. Do a little research on what the experts said and wrote before and immediately after the Draft on the the Flyers picked sixth overall.
The Hockey News Draft Preview called him "a poor man's Thomas Steen" who was "a solid second-round pick who could sneak into the first." The Hockey Bible ranked him accordingly, one spot behind the forever-to-be-obscure Mike Pomichter (but at least they had him profiled at all unlike, say, Erik Karlsson who somehow got omitted from their top 50 in 2008 Draft Preview, when he was a first-round pick).
Central Scouting was right in line with THN, pegging him as a late first-round pick, ranked slightly behind his linemate on the wing, who did go on to be a late-blooming NHL star in his own right but not of the same caliber.
Even some Flyers scouts weren't especially keen on the kid. Several wanted either defenseman Richard Matvichuk or speedy winger Patrick Poulin. One scout vehemently pushed for the consensus lower-ranked player at number six, more vehemently than anyone else advocated for their preferred players. Ultimately, then-GM Russ Farwell went along with the idea of going off the board.
Immediately, the Flyers were criticized by a TSN commentator for "reaching" for the pick, and opined that "decisions like these are why Philly is no longer a playoff team." Even those who were far more temperate in their assessments, such as Bob McKenzie, said the pick was a bit of a surprise that high.
The player's name: Peter Forsberg.
I digress. Getting back to present day, no matter whom the Flyers pick in the first round, their scouts and Holmgren have a strong enough first-round drafting track record to have confidence they made a solid pick.
In upcoming blogs, I will discuss players whom I particularly like and who may be available when the Flyers' turn comes up in Round One. I'll look at both defensemen and forwards.
One of the few good things about the NHL lockout this season is that I got to watch far more junior and European games, so I got to see the OHL, WHL, Elitserien, Allsvenskan and the KHL: a pretty fair amount on webcasts early in the season. Combined with reading up throughout the year and talking to four NHL scouts as well as draftniks such as Russ Cohen, I tried to get a handle on players of interest and potential sleepers.
As a spoiler, among defensemen not named Seth Jones, I personally prefer Ryan Pulock above all the other potential candidates (and, yes, I'd take him over Darnell Nurse even if I had a choice of either one). I'd also be fine with Nurse or Rasmus Ristolainen. Among forwards, I would hope one of the projected top three after Barkov (Nichushkin, Sean Monahan or Elias Lindholm) dropped a bit. Adam Erne has a good shot at being there, and it sounds like Hunter Shinkaruk could drop from his earlier consensus projections. I'd also be fine with taking someone like Max Domi or the heady Bo Horvat a little ahead of where they are likely to go.
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