Will Meszaros be ready to start the season?
I agree wholeheartedly with Tim Panaccio about whom to trust when it comes to interpreting sports injury information: If there is conflicting information between what a team says and what the injured player says, go with the athlete's self-report.
Flyers defenseman
Andrej Meszaros (Achilles tendon repair surgery) said yesterday that although he feels like he's progressing and is "optimistic" that he can return to game action soon, he still feels weak in his heel and has days where he feels significant soreness.
In terms of the timetable for medical clearance to play hockey again, Meszaros told reporters that he will see first what the doctors say and go from there. However, his words suggested that he does not feel he will be ready for the start of the regular season.
“That is not going to change through the whole course of the season," Meszaros said to the beat writers. "Treatments every day. Take care of it. Even if I am going to start playing at some point, the recovery is going to take a while to get it really where I want it to be.”
The key part of the quote, to be is the final sentence: Play at "some point." His recovery will still take more time to get back close to 100 percent. This the norm for achilles tendon tears. Even when athletes return from the injury in relatively quick fashion, they often struggle to regain full strength for a significant period of time.
Meszaros also expressed a preference that he "want(s) to make sure I am 100 percent before I start to play again."
Given everything else he said, one can only expect that he won't be where he wants to be by the start of the season. However, like most hockey players, if the doctors say he's sufficiently recovered to clear him, he'll probably play regardless of how he feels.
The Flyers painted a rosier picture of the players' status. General manager
Paul Holmgren cautioned that the player has not been cleared as of yet, so it's premature to say he'll be in the lineup on opening night or shortly thereafter. However, he added that it seems like Meszaros has progressed sufficiently where he's likely to be cleared soon.
According to Holmgren, the biggest challenges awaiting Meszaros are as much about getting over the "mental hump" as about being physically ready to play. Meszaros needs to "trust" his body again in order to play effectively.
There is merit to this statement. Holmgren speaks from personal experience as a former NHL player who sustained numerous injuries during his career. Many athletes who have overcome serious injuries have later said that clearing the mental hurdles was the final and most daunting step of their recoveries.
However, when an athlete self-describes that he still feels physically weak, he is probably not ready yet to compete in game situations. Even if he is cleared to play opening night or in the early weeks of the shortened season, Meszaros will almost certainly not be ready to handle the type of ice time he customarily receives.
It is unrealistic right now to expect Meszaros to a major role on the Flyers' blueline, and for him to perform at a high level. Unfortunately, the team really needs him -- or a suitable substitute -- to play to a standard comparable to the form Meszaros showed in winning the Barry Ashbee Trophy in 2010-11 and in performing at a high level (after a slow start possibly related to offseason wrist surgery) in December to early March of last season.
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Setback for Gustafsson
Do not look for young defenseman
Erik Gustafsson to immediate compete for a spot on the Flyers' starting blueline. The player, who has an injury variously described as either a high ankle issue and/or a foot bone bruise, suffered a setback late last week after returning to practice for two days.
According to a
report in the Saratogian, Gustafsson is now back to walking on crutches. He was scheduled to be examined this week by Flyers team doctors.
Gustafsson last played on Dec. 14. He suffered an injury in the third period of a game against Syracuse, hobbling off after blocking a shot with his foot. Initially, the injury was deemed a foot bone bruise and Gustafsson was put on a day-to-day timetable. Later, the the description changed to a high ankle injury. It now appears that Gustafsson will be out several more weeks.
In 24 games for the Phantoms during the NHL lockout, Gustafsson led all defensemen on the team in ice time, while producing 14 points (three goals, 11 assists). He got off to a slow start in October, but rebounded over the next month-and-a-half.
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Where can Flyers turn for blueline help?
Yesterday, Holmgren said that the team was happy with its starting defense and it was unlikely that the club would make any trades or signings prior to opening night. That's what any general manager would say. No GM in his right mind would self-report that there's a glaring weakness on his roster.
It is true that the Flyers surged during the stretch drive last year and won a playoff series against pre-postseason Cup favorite Pittsburgh without the services of either Meszaros (lost after March 1 due to back surgery) or
Chris Pronger (post-concussion syndrome). Although he was usually in the lineup,
Kimmo Timonen was battling various injuries, including a bad back which underwent offseason surgery and a knee injury that was dealt with via rehab and exercise.
However, since that time, the club has also lost Matt Carle from its starting blueline. The team has added
Luke Schenn to the starting lineup, but he's a different type of player than Carle. Schenn is much more of a hitter, but not nearly as good of a puck mover as Carle.
Between Schenn,
Nicklas Grossman and
Braydon Coburn (who also brings exceptional mobility to the table), the Flyers will be fine in terms of big defensemen who can handle the trench warfare below the circles in the defensive zone. Where they come up far short of where they need to be, especially in the up-tempo system that
Peter Laviolette employs, is in puck-movers and defensemen who can chip in some offense to keep other teams honest.
Despite his injury issues and advancing age, Timonen is still the Flyers' best all-around defenseman. He played in his fourth NHL All-Star game last season (fifth selection to the game) and enters the season as the favorite to win another Ashbee Trophy.
Coburn, who was the team's best defenseman down the stretch and the playoffs, would be the other potential Ashbee Trophy candidate heading into the season. His offensive game has been spotty over the years following his career best nine goals and 36 points in 2007-08, but that's largely because he was moved out of an offensive role in the seasons that followed. Almost by default, he's going to have to rediscover that part of his game and simultaneously maintain the defensive level he displayed late last season when he played like one of the better shutdown defensemen around the NHL.
Even if all four of the Flyers top defensemen perform at the peak of their respective games, the team is still suspect in the depth department without Meszaros at close to full strength. They can't afford a single significant injury in the top four. And even with everyone intact, the Flyers still need one more puck mover.
Yes, the team added
Bruno Gervais in the offseason. He has some puck skills and mobility. But Gervais is best suited to handle the relatively limited minutes afford to a sixth defenseman. If Meszaros is unable to play, Gervais would currently be slotted as the Flyers' fifth defenseman, and handle at least about 16 minutes per game. Young defenseman
Marc-Andre Bourdon remains sidelined indefinitely with a concussion.
The team also has veteran role playing defensemen
Andreas Lilja and
Matt Walker. Both are stay-at-home types suited for a seventh defenseman role. Lilja is the better of the two when pressed into sixth-D duties.
It seems pretty clear the Flyers will need more help on defense, at least before the trade deadline. While there have been internet rumors of the Flyers' pursuing Montreal Canadiens' restricted free agent defenseman
P.K. Subban, acquiring him seems unlikely.
First of all, Montreal is not anxious to part with Subban, despite some of his perceived drawbacks and streakiness of his play thus far in the NHL. Secondly, if the Flyers were not willing to part with
Sean Couturier and/or
Brayden Schenn in their fervid pursuit of Nashville's
Shea Weber last summer, they wouldn't be willing to trade either player for Subban.
If it were my decision to make, however, I would very reluctantly be willing to work a trade involving Brayden Schenn if it meant the team could reel in a young defenseman of Subban's potential. I really like Schenn, and I think he's not too far off from being ready to be an NHL impact player. However, bolstering the blueline is a bigger organizational need for Philadelphia and defensemen tend to fetch inflated prices (both salary and trade-wise) around the league.
That said, I would not trade Couturier even up for Subban, though I think Montreal might go for it (especially since the fully bilingual Couturier's "first" language is French, and that always carries weight in that market). Teams throughout the NHL covet Couturier, because they see Selke Trophies and regular 20-goal seasons in his not-too-distant future.
Forwards with Couturier's skill set -- a young and already playoff-proven shutdown center with decent offensive upside to boot -- are very hard to come by. In fact, they are every bit as tough to find as young NHL defensemen who are already pretty good at the top level but could get significantly better in the near future. I would've been willing to see the Flyers part with Couturier-plus to land Weber; a true franchise defenseman in the prime of his career. Short of being the centerpiece for a deal for a franchise defenseman, Couturier should be untouchable.
The Flyers do have 2012 first-round pick
Scott Laughton in the system. He's a player whom some feel can eventually blossom into a shutdown defensive center at the NHL level. However, Laughton is physically smaller than Couturier and only has a fraction of his offensive upside. I don't see Laughton being close to the type of prospect Couturier was before the latter entered the NHL. He's nowhere near as polished as Couturier, including on the defensive side of the puck (although the potential is there to become so).
With little realistic chance of acquiring Subban and zero chance of prying soon-to-be RFA
Alex Pietrangelo (who is right on the cusp of serious contention for the Norris Trophy and may already be of franchise player status) away from St. Louis, the Flyers would have to make due with a stopgap defenseman whom they hope could fill a need for one shortened season.
Two potential options are Ottawa's
Sergei Gonchar and "kinda-sorta" New York Islanders defenseman
Lubomir Visnovsky. Both aging veterans carry hefty salaries and a variety of question marks, but are proven point producers. They are both unrestricted free agents after this season, so the Flyers would not have to worry about their impact on the salary cap next season when the ceiling drops from the current $70.2 million (prorated) to $64.3 million.
In Gonchar's case, the veteran plays for a team that made the playoffs last year but already has defending Norris Trophy winner
Erik Karlsson to perform the offensive-minded duties that the aging Gonchar has specialized in during his career. The Pittsburgh Penguins, with whom Gonchar won a Stanley Cup, allegedly have interest in re-acquiring Gonchar by the trade deadline. That, coupled with the fact that Gonchar has had considerable success when playing against the Flyers over the years, could spur Philly to consider him as an option before the deadline.
In Visnovsky's case, the player does not want to play for the Islanders. He tried unsuccessfully to have an offseason trade from Anaheim voided. Now, with the lockout over, he's claiming he plans to remain in the KHL for Slovakian-based Slovan Bratislava for family reasons the rest of this season.
One problem: The NHL's "non-interference" agreement with the KHL precludes contracted NHL players from jumping to the KHL before the expiration of their deals. It would be up to the KHL to actually enforce it and disqualify Visnovsky from playing the rest of this season. But if the KHL does not do it, the hard-fought agreement (which took several years to be reached) immediately becomes worthless.
Assuming Visnovsky is compelled to return to North America, he is not going to be a happy camper in Long Island (despite constantly saying his refusal to report to the Islanders is not about the team itself). I'm not sure where he WOULD want to play to finish out his contractual obligations, but the Isles would probably be best to cut their losses. Then again, they did not do so with goalie
Evgeni Nabokov and things ended up working out pretty well for him on the Island.
Any way you slice it, when the Nashville Predators swallowed the poison pill of matching the offer sheet the Flyers gave to Weber, they also dealt a pretty severe blow right back to the Flyers. Having Weber aboard would in and of itself have transformed the rest of the team's blueline picture to tolerable (even with Meszaros' subsequent Achilles tendon injury). Losing out on Weber meant that the Flyers now can only peruse a variety of other, less desirable options.
The can try to trade for an overpriced, declining player (ala Gonchar). They try to take on a reclamation project of a failed young defenseman from elsewhere (ala Florida's
Keaton Ellerby). They can scour the bargain bin for players with injury issues. They can try to make a blockbuster trade for someone like Subban out of their forward depth. Or they can just cross their fingers with what's already there.
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Tuesday Quick Hits
Here are some odds and ends related to Flyers training camp and prospect news.
*
Danny Briere (sprained wrist, bone bruise) will be seen by a hand specialist. He might miss the start of the regular season and will certainly miss much or all of the abbreviated training camp that could start on Sunday or Monday. However, the injury is not believed to a long-term issue -- so long as the initial diagnosis was correct.
* Holmgren said that beyond the "obvious guys" (likely meaning Couturier, Schenn,
Zac Rinaldo, and
Eric Wellwood), there may be a few more Phantoms players who get a look at NHL camp. Wellwood, who was a healthy scratch several times in the AHL during the lockout, is not a lock to break camp with the big club. Rinaldo has the inside track for a fourth-line role, ahead of
Tom Sestito and veteran
Jody Shelley. As for the other players who could get invites, there are not too many Phantoms who are having standout seasons. I think
Tye McGinn has earned at least a look, and I'm pretty sure
Harry Zolnierczyk will get another look from the big club. Defenseman
Brandon Manning has struggled until very recently, but may get a look in camp with neither Gustafsson nor Bourdon available.
* Sestito will miss the start of camp. He was recently diagnosed with a case of the mumps.
* Flyers 2012 second-round pick
Anthony Stolarz is leaving the University of Nebraska-Omaha program midway through his freshman year to join the OHL's London Knights. The goaltender will not be in training camp with the big club. I'll have more on Stolarz in an upcoming blog later this week.
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