Bit of a strange day at Flyers practice.
Craig Berube skated their asses off. Again. Literally, he had them skating in circles and circles and circles.
All you needed was some Huskies and sleds.
It's all part of the team's rather poor conditioning. And that's a mistake not just from the coaching staff but Flyers management for the disjointed training camp where the team didn't get its players in shape and didn't play enough games with its full lineup.
So Berube is using these three days this week plus to get their legs moving.
Are they that badly out of shape?
"I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use," Berube replied. "It goes back to doing things fast and getting your feet moving.
"We want to become a faster hockey team and to do that you’ve got to work on it in practice. It has to become natural to do things quickly and get your feet moving. That’s what we try to do out there."
All over the internet, you hear about how s-l-o-w the Flyers are and how their defense is even slower. Funny, but this team skated pretty well with Pittsburgh two years ago. They can't match them on passing, but they have played shinny with them.
As for the defense, it's actually faster than last season but Kimmo Timonen is hurting.
"If you do things quicker, move the puck faster, it’s gonna be quicker," Berube said. "It’s just about doing things and the confidence to do things a lot faster than we are. Not everybody has great wheels. Not everybody has that ability to skate.
"The puck moves faster than anybody and this [pointing to his head] has to be quicker. If you think quicker and it comes natural, you’ll do things faster and you’ll look like a faster team."
Almost all the Flyers drills involved up-tempo and speed and movement everywhere.
Thursday, it's the Rangers, who are no first-place prize in the Eastern Conference, either, right now.
Berube likes having time to practice and get things down. He doesn't expect Vinny Lecavalier to play against the Rangers because he will not be in game shape or skating shape. If he is coming off a groin or abdominal injury as we all suspect, he needs several days of higher tempo skating with teammates to get back into it and right now, he is working on his own.
As for this week's agenda ... it's all practice.
"I think it came at a nice time," Berube said. :We can regroup here, get our feet under us and go to work Thursday. Basically we’re worrying about one game at a time here. Don’t look ahead.
"Don’t look behind anymore. Just focus on the task at hand and that’s the Rangers on Thursday. That’s it. That’s all you should be thinking about and worrying about and focusing on right now."
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