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Quick Hits: ASG, Phantoms, Attard and More |
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Quick Hits: Feb. 5, 2022
1) The 2022 NHL All-Star Game will be held today in Las Vegas. The Team Metro vs. Team Pacific 3-on-3 game, featuring Claude Giroux captaining the Metropolitan Division All-Stars will be at 3 p.m. ET. Team Atlantic vs. Team Central is at 4:00 p.m. ET. The two winning teams will then play each other for the mini-tourney championship. The games will be televised on ABC and streamed on ESPN+.
2) Phantoms Pound Providence, Head to Hartford
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms skated to a 5-1 victory over the Providence Bruins at the PPL Center in Allentown on Friday night. The Phantoms controlled most of the first and third periods, building an early 3-0 lead and then pulling away after the Bruins narrowed the gap in the middle stanza.
Friday's performance wasn't flawless. The Phantoms coughed up a few odd-man rushes and Providence made a pretty strong push in the second period. However, Felix Sandström (25 saves on 26 shots) came up with big saves when needed and the Phantoms were able to keep on rolling.
Overall, there was a lot to like on the Lehigh Valley side. Hayden Hodgson scored twice (10th and 11th) of the season. Wyatte Wylie had a goal and two assists. On loan from the Flyers over the NHL All-Star break, Morgan Frost notched a goal and an assist. It took a 10-bell save from Providence goalie Troy Grosenick (30 saves on 35 shots) to rob Frost at the doorstep off a Linus Sandin feed late in the second period. Otherwise, Frost would have a two-goal game.
Phantoms captain Cal O'Reilly got things going with a fluky goal early in the first period. The play was very similar to Claude Giroux's recent goal against the New York Islanders that was scored out of the right corner. The main difference was that this one bounced off a defender in front rather than being a simple misplay by the goaltender.
Before going down to the Phantoms, Frost put together a stretch of five straight games for the Flyers in which he kept his feet moving consistently, used his body better to shield and battle for pucks and generated more puck touches. Flyers head coach Mike Yeo said recently that, for now, he's more focused on Frost doing those things regularly than he is about Frost's point totals (in the context of what he wants from the player while Frost is playing on a line with Gerry Mayhew and Max Willman). Yeo said that the skill element will re-enter the player's game with more regularity -- at the NHL level -- if Frost continues to play the way he has of late.
On Friday night, the most encouraging part of Frost's performance was not that he scored a back-door tap-in goal (off a perfect pass from Wylie) to make it 2-0 in the first period and later assisted on Wylie's third-period goal. Rather, it was that he kept doing most of the things he'd been doing for the Flyers over the last few weeks but also did things that could help the player's offensive confidence (which had really taken a beating over a month-long period).
Some of the more notable Frost moments from Friday's game, apart from the goal and assist.
* He generated a clear entry on the delayed Providence penalty in the first period. Skated with good pace, head up all the way. No scoring chance resulted before the Providence touch up, but it was nice to see Frost slice through the coverage.
* Frost won a board battle in the D zone and made a nice pass for a clean exit about midway through the second period. He's still working on improving his win-loss ratio in 50-50 battles, so that was an encouraging little sequence.
* With about 9:20 left in the second period, Frost had a shift where he controlled the puck while navigating around in the offensive zone for about five seconds. Eventually, he put the puck around behind the net. He did not force a "hope" play when nothing materialized.
* Apart from the play where Sandin fed him at the post and Grosenick made the save, there was good line chemistry and puck support among all three players on the line with Sandin and Wilson at various junctures of the game. In particular, Frost and Sandin (2a) read well off one another despite it being their first game as linemates. By the same token, this is why I'd like to see Frost get another chance to play higher in the Flyers' lineup.
* Frost does not kill penalties at the NHL level, at least not so far. But Ian Laperriere used Frost on the PK at the AHL level before his NHL recall in November, and the player did well as a counterattacking threat (as he did in the Ontario League, when he had 19 shorthanded points over his D+1 and D+2 seasons). On Friday night, Laperriere plugged Frost right back into the PK rotation as well as the power play.
* 3rd period: At about the 4:45 mark, Frost moved out front behind the Providence net and fired a dart of a pass onto the tape of a pinching York. The Phantoms got a scoring chance out of it.
* On the first of back-to-bank Phantoms' power plays in the third period: Frost carried in on a clean entry. The Flyers have been putting in a lot of practice work on PP entries of late because it's been a big trouble spot for both PP1 and PP2 (Frost's unit). For him to carry in twice on delayed penalty/ power play situations was a good sign. In the Flyers' win against Winnipeg in the final game before the All-Star break, Frost chipped in with speed at the blue line and recovered the puck behind the Jets' net. These are all potential building blocks for the player.
* On the second PP of 3rd pd: Frost started it off with a clean left circle faceoff win. Moments later, he had a look from high in the zone with some traffic in front (the puck got deflected wide). As the PP continued, Frost froze the D with a fake shot. Two passes later, Adam Clendening had a look.
None of these plays were spectacular or highlight reel moments. But they were all things that could help the player stay in the NHL lineup and eventually start to make a little more of an impact apart from an isolated set up here and a scoring chance there. Doing those little things with consistency will increase the volume of ensuing scoring opportunities for the player and his linemates.
Frost wasn't the only Flyers prospect who had a good night on Friday. Isaac Ratcliffe, who got onto the score sheet with an assist on Hodgson's power play goal in the middle of the third period, had a similar game to his NHL debut against Los Angeles; he was physically involved and showed a willingness to shoot the puck when there was an opportunity. The Flyers have largely been trying to develop him as a fourth-line type -- I still personally think he could score more goals as a pro than he has -- and his game has been coming together in that regard.
After missing time with a non-COVID illness, Egor Zamula returned to the Phantoms' lineup on Friday. He played a strong all-around game. York also played well, showing assertiveness and confidence with the puck.
Additionally, apart from making a nice play leading up to the first Hodgson goal, winger Maksim Sushko continued his recent all-around resurgence in his play. Sushko quietly had a promising rookie year for the Phantoms in 2019-20 and then took a significant backward step (partially due to injury but also in terms of things within his control) last season.
It took time for Sushko to get back on track this season but he's been solid since mid-December. Sometimes he's been rewarded with points to show for it, sometimes not. More importantly, since his NHL role would be on the bottom end of the lineup, he's begun to look like a potentially viable callup option again.
On Saturday, the Phantoms face a gut-check game; a 5 p.m. road contest against the Hartford Wolf Pack. The Atlantic Division leaders are 21-12-6 this season with a 13-5-2 mark on home ice. The club is coming off a loss on Friday night, falling 3-2 on the road to Springfield Thunderbirds. Garrett Metcalf will be in goal for the Phantoms against the Wolf Pack.
The Phantoms team, which had only 3 wins in its first 19 games and is now at hockey .500 (15-15-8) despite a slew of injuries, NHL recalls and interruptions from COVID-related game postponements, has become a resilient and seemingly close-knit bunch. Multiple players who are on AHL contracts -- or who came to Lehigh Valley on tryouts and ended up playing their way into jobs -- have stepped up in recent weeks. The team is also finally starting to get some healthy players back in the lineup, although there are still several notable absences.
When the Phantoms were desperately short on forwards, Laperriere dressed defenseman Ryan MacKinnon as a winger for the first time in his career. On Friday, even when the Phantoms finally had 12 healthy forwards available, Laperriere opted to keep MacKinnon in the starting lineup as a forward. MacKinnon turned in another high-energy performance and even had a third-period breakaway opportunity.
3) Prospect update: Offensive-minded defense prospect Ronnie Attard had a big game on Friday night, recording a hat trick and an assist as Western Michigan routed Colorado College, 8-2. Attard, a 22-year-old junior (he'll turn 23 on March 20), has posted 11 goals and 28 points in 24 games this season. It was not a coincidence that when Chuck Fletcher discussed player development during his mid-season press conference, he name-dropped Attard specifically when talking about the Flyers' expanded development department having more resources now to do in-season legwork to meet in-person with as many prospects as possible.
4) Today in Flyers History: Feb. 5, 1982
During the 1982-83 season, rookie Flyers goaltender Pellie Lindbergh entrenched himself as the Flyers' starting goaltender and earned a selection to the NHL All-Star Game. Everything was sailing along until he suffered a fractured wrist in a Flyers exhibition game at the Spectrum against the Russian national team on January 6, 1983.
Lindbergh was forced out of action for nearly a month. He returned to the Philadelphia lineup in Los Angeles just in time to be one of the victims of the then-common rookie "shave" locker room prank. The veterans reduced the flowing hair atop the rookie goalie's head to a severe buzzcut.
Unlike a shorn Samson, a self-conscious Lindbergh remained every bit as formidable as he was before the the involuntary haircut. Lindbergh shuts out the host LA Kings on 29 shots. Brian Propp's first-period power play goal and Brad McCrimmon's second-period tally were all the offensive support the little Swede needed to earn the win in a 2-0 victory.
5) Feb. 5 Flyers Alum birthday: Larry Hillman
Defenseman Larry Hillman was born on Feb. 5, 1937 in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Both he and his late younger brother, Wayne, played for the Flyers in the late 1960s to early 1970s.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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