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Quick Hits: Injury Updates, Flyers Daily, Sunday Scrimmages and More

September 26, 2022, 2:32 PM ET [96 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Quick Hits: Sept. 26, 2022

1) Injury news on Sunday overshadowed the two scrimmages on the ice on Day 4 of training camp at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. Fortunately, for once, most of the news appears to be positive.

Carter Hart, Cam Atkinson and Artem Anisimov were all held out of Sunday's scrimmages. All three are day-to-day, according to the Flyers. None of the issues appear to be anything of great concern.

Hart (lower-body) was involved in a collision with a forward and defenseman who crashed into him during a wipeout in a 1-on-1 drill when the non-game group on Saturday held a practice session. Hart was at the Skate Zone on Sunday, although he didn't play in the scrimmage. The word is that he would have played had it been a regular season game night.

Atkinson is dealing with an upper-body issue. It's not clear when he sustained it. However, while he was held out of the scrimmages on Sunday, he was a full participant in the practice and conditioning skate that took place immediately after the second scrimmage.

Anisimov blocked a shot in the first period of Saturday's game that sent him hobbling off the ice and briefly down the tunnel. He returned shortly thereafter and finished the game. It should be noted, though, that he took a full off-day on Sunday.

There was also some national news from Ren Lavoie regarding Sean Couturier's back injury. Lavoie tweeted that Couturier could return in three to four weeks. Additionally, Couturier spoke with a group of Flyers season ticket holders on Sunday and said that he feels much better than the dire initial report from Crossing Broad stated.



Now comes the caveat: With any injury news, whether positive or negative, take it with a grain of salt and believe it when you see it. If the player does return on the optimistic end of a projection, don't assume he's out of the woods until he not only returns but plays to his accustomed standards.

There is no disputing the fact that, if one were to make a list of the top five players the Flyers could least afford to be without for any extended period of time, Couturier, Hart. and Atkinson would be at or near the very top. The others would be Kevin Hayes and Ivan Provorov.

2) In the first scrimmage on Sunday, the line of James van Riemsdyk (1g, 1a), Morgan Frost (1g, 1a) and Travis Konecny (multiple scoring chances) took over in the final 25 minutes and pretty much had their way. Max Willman also notched a goal for the winning side in their 3-1 victory. The lone goal for the other team was scored on a Tyler Savard breakaway.

The second scrimmage was a 1-1 tie through regulation on offsetting deflection goals by Theo Rochette (Team White) and Zayde Wisdom (Team Orange). In a five-round shootout, Jackson Cates (Team White) scored the lone goal.

Jackson Cates was listed on the scrimmage roster as being on the Orange side but he was "traded" to the other side with Anisimov (listed on Team White) being held out.

For a more in-depth look at Sunday's scrimmages and goings-on at the FTC, click here.

3) Today is the weekly "Mondays with Meltzer" edition of Flyers Daily. Jason Myrtetus and I ran down a variety of topics about training camp and exhibition opener observations and standouts thus far. We also discussed the cautious optimism about Couturier's injury potentially not requiring another back surgery. To listen, click here.

4) Elsewhere on the injury front, Joel Farabee continues to be a daily participant in practices and skating drills. He's still not cleared for contact yet. Given the nature of the neck injury he had, which preceded cervical disc replacement surgery, caution is merited.

Checking center Patrick Brown (off-season back surgery, officially week-to-week) has a nebulous timeline for his return. Prospect Bobby Brink (offseason hip surgery) remains on track for a late December to early January return, according to the Flyers.

5) Flyers head coach John Tortorella can be every bit as insightful and expansive on some topics as he can be laconic on others.

Thus far in training camp, he has shooed away questions about any individual player assessments, saying that he's not focused on those yet. He's "looking for try" and success in completing tasks at this stage. Systems will start being introduced as a bigger facet of practices as the number of players in camp start to be cut down. The latter games in the six-game exhibition slate are when he'll start to focus on whether the team and individual players are executing plays and fitting in with systems. Any and all attempts to ask about whether Player A or Player B is having a good camp get cut off quickly with an "I'm not going to get into that stuff right now".

On the flip side, other topics can elicit some instructive replies. On Sunday, he spoke about why intangibles matter greatly to him (in specific regards to a question about Nic Deslauriers) and why he respects sports science and the related data but still prefers to go by the old-fashioned eye test on things such as workloads.

Tortorella was asked for his views on Wade Allison's response to Connor Carrick's open-ice hit on Antoine Roussel in Saturday's game. Tortorella gave a nuanced reply (video of the full response is below). In a nutshell, it boiled down to respecting Allison's desire to defend a teammate in a preseason game, especially as someone trying to make the opening night roster. However, it's not something Tortorella would want to see in a regular season game, as he felt it was a clean hit and a legitimate hockey play that didn't merit a response. Lastly, he was annoyed with the referees issuing an instigator penalty (and, thus, 17 penalty minutes) in that situation.



Additionally, Tortorella discussed at some length why he is such a big believer in skating-intensive training camps. It boils down to this: Conditioning is one of the few things within a hockey team's control that can make a tangible difference over the course of a hockey season. It's not talent-dependent, either. While it's certainly a mental challenge, dealing with it together as a group builds unity in the head coach's eyes, and it also pushes players individually to realize WHY it's being done. There's a reward on the other side it: If your team is better conditioned than the opposing team, it's something that boosts your team's ability to compete.

Through four days of camp, skating-focused sessions have been part of every day's activities, and players who'd played on Saturday night did the same 9 a.m. scrimmage, practice and conditioning skate on Sunday morning as everyone else in their group. Tortorella said that he sees this a reasonable expectation for professional athletes.



6) At the end of Sunday's practice session, Tortorella remained on the ice discussing something for several minutes with defenseman Cam York after everyone else had exited. Both men were calm and it seemed more instructive than anything else and likely pretty mundane coach-player communication. Whatever it was, Tortorella is going to keep it private.

Part of the coach/media relationship as, I see it, is to gain an understanding that different coaches set somewhat different boundaries. With some coaches, as long as something has been communicated to a player first, they'll share the gist (although perhaps not the specifics) with the press afterwards. Mike Yeo did that, as did Scott Gordon. Alain Vigneault would have his "for-public-consumption" message ready to go, and if not asked about it, would sometimes drop it in anyway to piggyback onto a related question. Dave Hakstol, at least during his Flyers tenure, would discuss player performance but pretty much any other questions about coach/player communications were treated as off-limits.

There are certain questions that have to be asked regardless of the response it will elicit. Having done some work in the TV broadcasting media himself, Tortorella understands that. It doesn't mean he'll entertain it or that he won't push back if he doesn't like it, but he will.

From those who've know Tortorella for a long time -- the late Jay Greenberg used to say this, and others whom I respect and consider friends have echoed it almost verbatim -- this is the key to understanding how Tortorella is wired: He takes the "my team is a family" (with him as a stern but caring authority figure) approach very seriously.

Correspondingly, Tortorella can critique a player or his team as a whole publicly and bluntly if he feels a message needs to be sent. But as soon as an OUTSIDER does it (in print, on the air, etc) or asks a question in a way the head coach perceives to be loaded, accusatory or demeaning, that's when the "YouTube compilation" of Tortorella lacing into a reporter comes to the forefront.

It's not all that different from how many people are about their immediate families or how fans are about their rooting interests. It boils down to "I can criticize as I see fit and I'll initiate it if I think I need to, but I'll defend them to the hilt if an outsider attacks them." It hasn't happened yet in Philly with Tortorella, but it's only a matter of time until it does.

He also has his "playoff mode", when he goes into a bunker mentality and just isn't going to say more than the bare minimum, if that. Personally, I'm not a big fan of that. If the press conference is just going to be a waste of time and the head coach is going to just shoot down every query and then walk off abruptly, it's not even worth holding.

However, as Jay once told me, "John's audience is always his players. He'll rip them. He'll shield them. He'll make himself the story if he wants to deflect pressure. It all comes from the same place, and he doesn't see it as being inconsistent even if we do."

Something else that Jay told me that has always stuck with me: When he was let go by the New York Post, one and only one current or former NHL coach called him to check on how he was doing and to say hang in there. That was John Tortorella.

At the end of Sunday's practice sessions, with exhausted players in the center ice circle during the stretches at the end (there wasn't really any cool-down stretching going on after a scrimmage, practice and skating laps on Day 4), Tortorella skated around the circle and gave each and every player a little tap with the stick he was holding.

In the press room, I joked to the small gathering of writers who were present, "I'm glad it's just us here. The wrong person might say, 'Torts put them through a four-day grind and then skated around, slashing all the players."

The Flyers have a complete off-day today. Tomorrow, they'll have a road game in Buffalo with a non-game group practice in Voorhees. On Wednesday, there's a home game against Washington.
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