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Quick Hits: Loaned Player Updates, TIFH and More |
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Quick Hits: October 27, 2020
1) SHL: Tuesday is a busy day on the Swedish Hockey League schedule, with 10 of the circuit's 14 teams in action. Below are the games that involve loaned Flyers players and unsigned prospects in the league.
* HV71 @ Leksand: Linus Sandin missed HV71's last game due to an undisclosed injury. Emil Andrae, the Flyers 2020 second-round pick, has dressed in all 10 games to date. Both HV71 (3-6-1) and Leksand (2-5-4) are off to tough starts early this season, but HV71 was a 6-4 winner against Brynäs in its last game.
* Brynäs @ Örebro: Samuel Ersson had been off to an outstanding start this season but got strafed in Saturday's 6-4 loss to HV71. He will look to bounce back quickly. Örebro is 5-3-2 to date this season while BIF is 3-4-2.
* Färjestad vs. Rögle: Unsigned Flyers prospects Olle Lycksell (2G, 2A in 10 GP) and Adam Ginning (9 GP) both changed teams after last season, going from Linköping to Färjestad. 2018 second-round pick Ginning is still struggling to earn more than third-pairing ice time despite transferring teams. Lycksell, now in his draft-plus-four season (6th round pick in 2017) is a player whom the Flyers must sign by June 1, 2021 before losing his NHL rights. Earlier this year, the Flyers signed defenseman Linus Högberg just under the wire before his rights would have expired. To date this season, FBK is 3-5-3 while RBK is 7-2-1.
2) Allsvenskan: Västerviks IK is involved in the Swedish top minor league's only game being played today, as they take on Björklöven. Phantoms/Royals goaltender Felix Sandström has made two starts for Västervik so far, losing both games (one in overtime) but stopping 80 of 86 shots over the two matches. Play was in his end of the ice most of the two games. Unsigned Flyers draftee Marcus Westfält (2018 seventh-round pick) has scored two goals in 8 games to date.
Elsewhere in Allsvenskan, HC Vita Hästen was a 7-2 winner over Västerås on Monday. Linus Högberg earned an assist in the win, had one shot on goal and was even (+1, -1) in plus-minus on the day for the winning side.
3) Czech Extraliga: David Kase's HC Karlovy Vary team remains in a Covid-19 related pause to the young season. Kase had three assists and a traditional minus-two rating (+2, -4) over his first four games this season before a coronavirus outbreak forced the suspension of team activities. Leaguewide, teams have played from between two to seven games.
4) KHL: Excluding Flyers restricted free agent Mikhail Vorobyev, who signed a three-year contract with Salavat Yulauev Ufa and seems unlikely to come back to the Philadelphia organization, the Flyers have two affiliated played on loan to KHL teams: German Rubtsov with HK Sochi and Maksim Sushko with Dinamo Minsk.
Rubtsov missed time due to a facial injury after being struck by a puck but has worked his way back to his regular ice time over a couple games since his return. Statistically, he has two points (1G, 1A) in 13 games played. Sochi returns to action tomorrow, hosting Kazakhstan-based team Barys Astana.
There was a rampant Covid-19 outbreak on Sushko's Belarus-based team that saw 18 players test positive. It is unknown if Sushko was one of the affected players (team and leaguewide policy is to not disclose any information on player absences, as was the case with the NHL in the "Bubble") but he finally returned to the lineup on Oct. 25 (after a 24-day absence), skating 17:29 and being credited with three hits and one shot on goal. The team had been filling out its roster with junior team callup players. Sushko has scored one goal in his first 10 games this season.
Flyers unsigned goaltending prospect Ivan Fedotov has made six starts for KHL team Traktor Chelyabinsk this season, plus one on loan to their VHL (minor league) feeder team Chelmet Chelyabinsk. Roman Will (8-5-1, 1.78 GAA,.934 SV%, 2 SO) is the primary goaltender for Traktor, while Fedotov (3-2-1, 1.83 GAA, .938 SV%) is the backup.
5) Belarus Extraliga A: Phantoms/Royals goalie Kirill Ustimenko was recently loaned by the Flyers to HK Gomel; a team that plays in the top domestic league in Belarus, known as Extraliga A or the Belarus Hockey League (BHL). He has made two starts to date. Ustimenko allowed two goals in one start and three in the other. The team returns to action on Thursday.
6) Today in Flyers History: October 27, 2005
The Flyers enjoyed the best record in the NHL during the first half of the 2005-06 season, although things did not go nearly as well after mid-January. Early in the season, the Flyers found many different ways to win. The No. 1 way, though, was via the Flyers' dominant first line of Peter Forsberg centering Simon Gagne and Mike Knuble.
On October 27, 2005, the team found itself in comeback mode throughout the night in a home game against the Florida Panthers. The Flyers found themselves trailing 3-1 in the second period and 4-2 in the third. Each time, they pushed back.
With just 50 seconds left in regulation, Peter Forsberg scored his first goal as a Flyer and forced overtime. Earlier, Forsberg assisted on a pair of Simon Gagne tallies. Capping the comeback, defenseman Joni Pitkanen scored the game-winner in overtime
Forsberg, reasonably healthy early in the season, would go on to lead the NHL in scoring through Thanksgiving weekend, when he suffered a groin pull in the first period (with him already racked up two goals and an assist) in a matinee game in Boston. He'd be in and out of the lineup the rest of the season with recurrent groin issues, which turned out to be a bi-product of a worsening and congenital issue with his feet. He would delay reconstructive surgery -- originally slated to be done on both feet, but done only on one -- until after a dominant playoff series in a losing cause against Buffalo in the first round. He'd never again be close to the top of his form after that series, and his career was essentially over after 2006-07 despite comeback attempts.
None of these disheartening subsequent developments seemed imminent in the early months of the 2005-06 season or even while Forsberg almost single-handedly won two games against the Sabres in the playoffs (and forced OT in a losing cause in the series opener). The problem wasn't that Forsberg was no longer one of the two or three best players in the world; it was that his body was betraying him and keeping him off the ice.
5) October 27 Flyers Alumni birthday: Mike Ricci
Gritty two-way center Mike Ricci was born October 27, 1971 in Scarborough, Ontario. A born leader and a star for the Ontario Hockey League's Peterborough Petes (for whom he posted seasons of 106 and 116 points and posted 35 points in 17 playoffs games in the spring on 1989), Ricci was selected by the Flyers with the fourth overall pick in the first round of the 1990 NHL Draft.
Before being traded to Quebec in the blockbuster deal that brought Eric Lindros to Philadelphia, Ricci jumped directly to the NHL as an 18-year-old and played two productive seasons for the Flyers at the start of a 1,099-game NHL career.
Ricci broke into the NHL with a 21-goal, 41-point season in 68 games for the Flyers in 1990-91. He followed it up with a 20-goal, 56-point campaign the next season.
During the second year of his tenure with the Flyers, Ricci played through a very difficult time in his life. His father Mario, a steelworker and former soccer player who emigrated from his native Italy to raise a family in Canada, was gravely ill with cancer. When the opportunity presented itself, Ricci traveled back and forth from Philadelphia to Scarborough to be at his dad's side. Mario Ricci passed away two weeks before Mike was traded to Quebec.
Ricci's career should be judged on its own merits, and not for the fact that Russ Farwell drafted him rather than Jaromir Jagr (per The Hockey News' 1990 Draft Preview, the Flyers were Jagr's likeliest destination in the Draft had Bob Clarke, who called him the top talent in the Draft after seeing Jagr at the 1990 World Juniors, not been fired after the 1989-90 season). The vast majority of NHL players would gladly trade careers with Ricci, who had six 20-goal seasons (including a 30-goal season), twice finished in the Selke Trophy balloting top five (one-time finalist), won a Stanley Cup, and dressed in more than 1,200 combined NHL regular season and Stanley Cup playoff (110 GP, 66 PTS) games.
Jaromir Jagr isn't the vast majority of NHL players, of course. He was a once-in-a-lifetime talent. But Mike Ricci was far from a bust and, in a more normal Draft year, would be recalled as a rock solid selection although never a superstar. If a player's biggest failing is that he couldn't score nearly as much or play for nearly as long as Jagr, weil, he's got a whole lot of company.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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