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Eklund on Flyers. Drama with a D. Vs. Penguins Game Thread. |
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So glad to be back! hockeybuzz has been gone for a week, so what have y’all done with your time?
I’m not even gonna get into what we did to get it working, but it’s working and its working better than ever…so we shouldn’t have any more problems at all for a long time…. Or else I’ll throw myself into the ocean… cause I can’t live through this again!
Anyway, lots to talk about with the Flyers…
First off, sending Andrae to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms has not been a very popular among fans… and it’s easy to see why…
Andrae plays fast and he’s one of the best puck moving defenseman on the team. When John Tortella comes out today and says, “We need a power plate quarterback,” you are probably screaming “We sent him to Lehigh.”
It’s easy to think that John Tortella is making a mistake by sending him down. Zamula plays a totally different game, and kind of reminds you of a backup quarterback trying to get a pass to receivers that are running routes he is not familiar with. However, there’s a cautionary tale here that I think is playing behind the scenes… Andrae took that big hit and was out for a while. Then when he returned he was a little tentative, which is normal for a young player after missing time with an injury, but he can’t be tentative to be what he is. To play his game.
It reminds me of Simon Gagne. Older people like me might remember that every time Gagne got hurt he came back but wasn’t quite as good as he was before he got hurt. It took a couple weeks.. It was a pattern, but they never sent him down to the minors and they always let him play through it, but he never got over that. I think there’s some wisdom in what they’re doing with Andre.
It’s frustrating because they look like a playoff team sometimes and other times they look like they should be tanking….so it’s a tough call and I think what they’re doing is just taking every players individual growth into consideration more than they are the short term team record.. Andre isn’t being sent down because he’s struggling and not a good player. He’s being sent down because he’s a very important player for them moving forward…. And he’s not gonna be down there very long. I don’t believe he will at all.
But there’s more drama behind the blue line!
This time I don’t blame the player, but I kind of blame the coaches.. Cam York has struggled a bit since he came back from his injury. So before his injury he was playing with Sanheim and they were a great duo. So of course, when you return the lineup, they put the duo back together again, right?
The problem is during the intermediate time, without York, Sanheim became a different player. He became a confident player and is taking all kinds of chances. He became super effective and I think we all wanted him to stay on that path. The problem is he is now the same kind of player that Cam York is supposed to be. So York is trying to figure out how to play with the new improved Sanheim and that is causing York to have to make way more decisions than an instinctual player like York should be worried about. It is not really York’s game to be a complementary defenseman to a puck moving partner.. He’s not exactly Matt Carl.e
I believe they have to work out a new partner for Sanheim or just use the partner they were using for him when Cam York was hurt because that worked… Then, give Cam York another partner that will mind the kitchen when he rushes and does what he does best…. I don’t know that the flyers have that player right now on their roster, but for York to be effective, he’s gotta be doing what Sanheim‘s doing…but not at the same time.
Frosting over Trade Rumors…
Personally. There’s nothing worse when the site is down and there are rumors flying around and some of those rumors are flyers rumors and that is just terrible! Morgan Frost has value here. I believe Briers believes that…He just needs confidence. The skill is all there…(and he needs to play a little more pissed of)
Tonight, the battle of Pennsylvania
There’s nothing like the flyers and penguins to take us into Christmas. Considering these two teams usually play in the first week of the season, the fact they haven’t played each other yet is kind of bizarre…. The penguins are pretty much an enigma right now. They have of course incredible high-end talent but then they have really 2 so-so fourth lines behind the top 6.…. And they don’t have goaltending like they used to at all, which has been the biggest problem for them And why they were in on MacKenzie before he got moved to Colorado…
Erson gets th Net…Couts is back. I will be posting in the comments as the game progresses…
Thanks for coming back to hockeybuzz. And happy holidays.
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