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FLYERBUZZ PODCAST: BLUELINE ICE TIME PLUS WIN FLYERS-OILERS TIX
On today's FlyerBuzz podcast I discuss the lineup changes that Craig Berube has made on defense and the issue of ice time distribution on the current Flyers blueline. I am also doing a "Who am I?" trivia contest with a pair of Flyers-Oilers tickets for this Saturday to give away. Be the first to answer the answer the podcast trivia question correctly -- either on the message board here or on Twitter -- and the tickets are yours.
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POST-PRACTICE UPDATES (11:45 AM ET)
The Flyers resumed practice today at the Skate Zone in Voorhees after taking an off-day yesterday. The team departs shortly for Raleigh, NC, for tomorrow night's game against the Hurricanes. Some quick-hit notes from today's session:
* Vincent Lecavalier returned to practice today after missing Saturday's game with facial contusions suffered in the line brawl against Washington on Friday. He sported a full face cage early in practice and then switched to a half-visor/half-shield for the remainder. He skated on his regular line, so it looks like he'll be in the lineup tomorrow.
* Lecavalier said that he spoke with Steve Downie yesterday after Downie was released from University of Pennsylvania hospital. Lecavalier reported that Downie was in good spirits and doing better but politely declined to discuss any further details.
* Ray Emery did not practice today, so the team used a local stand-in. Emery was at the White House to participate in a Stanley Cup commemoration for last season's Chicago Blackhawks team.
* Tye McGinn and Jay Rosehill rotated on and off with the fourth line centered by Adam Hall.
* It looks like Hal Gill and Andrej Meszaros will remain in the lineup tomorrow night in Raleigh, and Erik Gustafsson and Luke Schenn (who were paired together today at practice) will be scratched again.
* Gill made a point about how teams need to reset the process -- starting with defense and then turning defense into offense -- after something like Friday night's debacle happened. The Flyers weren't setting out by design to try to win 1-0 or 2-1 on Saturday but the main emphasis was on executing well defensively and then building from there again. Saturday's game was an ugly win from an offensive standpoint, but the main thing was that some defensive stability was re-established quickly. (I will add, however, that the depleted and largely punchless Devils attack was probably the ideal opponent against whom to limit shots and chances in route to a shutout).
* Berube said of defensive play that "it's hard work and not a lot of fun" but his players had better pay consistent attention to their work without the puck because it is a big part of the direction he wants his team to go in order to make progress toward climbing out of the hole the 4-9-0 team has dug for itself.
* Jakub Voracek primarily took line rushes on left wing, in combination with Brayden Schenn (center) and Wayne Simmonds (right wing). But there were also some rushes where Voracek and Simmonds switched sides. Today's combinations:
A veteran of more than 1,100 NHL regular season games, Hal Gill has been the team's eighth defensemen on the depth chart after being signed to a one-year contract from a training camp tryout invitation. The towering 38-year-old was a healthy scratch in each of the first dozen games of the regular season.
With the Flyers coming off Friday's 7-0 humiliation at the hands of the Washington Capitals,
head coach Craig Berube changed all three defense pairs and made a pair of lineup changes. As expected, he returned Erik Gustafsson to the healthy scratch list after a terrible performance in Friday's game and re-inserted Andrej Meszaros into the lineup. Less expected was his decision to scratch another in-the-doghouse defenseman, Luke Schenn, and dress Gill for the first time this season.
The reasoning for the decision to scratch Schenn and start Gill was probably two-fold. For one, Berube no doubt intended it as a wakeup call to Schenn -- and others by implication -- that went over and beyond cutting the starter's ice time (which has already been done with Schenn). Secondly, it was a reward to Gill for the attitude and work ethic he has shown.
Gill is a proud veteran, and the Flyers are struggling horribly. There is no doubt he's been aching to get to play, but he also understands his spot on the depth chart and the fact that he's a player nearing the end of his playing career.
Rather than complaining and setting a negative example -- and there are some veterans around hockey who would do so even in the same precarious situation -- Gill has been nothing but positive, upbeat and encouraging on a daily basis. He works hard on the ice every single day at practice. In the locker room, he always has a smile on his face and is quick to lighten the mood with a quip. He is also never sour when reporters ask him a question, and he gives honest, straightforward answers.
Basically, Gill is now performing the sort of locker room and practice example-setting role that Mike Knuble and Jody Shelley did before him. Like Knuble, Gill always has articulate insight to share and clearly knows what is going on with the team, for good and for bad. He's been part of excellent teams and lousy teams; clubs that have had great starts and slipped and ones that struggled out of the gate and recovered. He's seen and done it all.
Hockey fans tend to see things in black and white. "Why is this guy still around? He's stealing money. He stinks. Get rid of him." (By the way, I've heard of fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. But can a player truly fool NHL coaches 1,100-plus times into playing him or is there perhaps a chance the player actually knows what he's doing out there? You figure it out).
In reality, things in hockey and life are rarely that clear cut. If a player is being kept around, especially when he has a modest cap hit and a ton of experience, there is usually a reason for it that's not immediately evident when you watch games on TV and barely see him play if he played at all.
Based up today's practice combinations and Saturday's result, it looks like Gill will be staying in the lineup tomorrow night and Schenn will get another game in the pressbox. I am sure that as soon as Gill is on the ice for his first goal against -- whether it's tomorrow night or whatever game it will be-- the second-guessing of Berube will begin in force.
Personally, I give Berube credit for having the guts to scratch Schenn for continued subpar play. But both Berube and Gill have been around the block enough times to know that the aging, slow-skating vet will never be the choices of the masses to get a start or even hold down a roster spot.
Such is hockey.
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SHERO MUCH MORE THAN 'BULLIES' COACH
Today on the International Ice Hockey Federation's official Web site, I take an in-depth look at one of the many innovations that the late Fred Shero brought to the NHL: studying and adapting European hockey tactics to fit the small-rink game.
Shero, who will be posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Nov. 11, was the first NHL coach to make a detailed study of Soviet hockey and even made two trips behind the Iron Curtain in the early-to-mid 1970s to learn more about their training and coaching methods. He was also an early -- and vocal -- advocate for NHL teams to scout and sign more European players, speaking out on the subject as early as 1973.
The more one learns about Shero's forward-thinking approach to coaching and the evolution of the sport in general, the more it becomes clear that his critics who dismissed him as a purveyor of violence and goon tactics could not have been more wrong.
Yes, the Flyers of the mid-1970s fought a lot. But that's not why they won two Stanley Cups, went to a third straight Final and beat the Red Army team (perhaps Shero's proudest personal accomplishment) along the way. The Flyers were winners because they had the most cohesive and hardest-working team in the NHL, with the NHL's best goaltending, best captain and best coaching for the roster that had been assembled.
For more on Shero's contributions in the realm of studying and adapting international hockey to the NHL, click here.
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