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Preseason Finale Recap, Roster Cuts, End-of-Camp Quick Hits |
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RECAP: FLYERS FALL, 5-2, IN PRESEASON FINALE
The Flyers' dress rehearsal for the regular season opener did not go as hoped. The team fell, 5-2, to the New York Islanders at the Wells Fargo Center in the preseason finale during the twilight of Sunday. The Flyers concluded the preseason with a 3-2-3 record.
Things started out well but ended up being a little too reminiscent of many losses last season. However, one of the brightest spots throughout the preseason was the play of the Flyers' new fourth line trio of Taylor Leier, Scott Laughton and Michael Raffl. That line was Philadelphia's best on Sunday, scoring a goal and creating a pair of power plays with their tenacious forechecking. Raffl potted a two-on-one opportunity with Laughton to open the scoring at 2:21 of the first period.
The Islanders struck for the next four goals, however.
At 13:10 of the first period, after the Islanders won a left circle faceoff and rotated the puck to the right point, former Flyers defenseman Dennis Seidenberg shot the puck at the net. On an unscreened, end-over-end puck, Flyers goalie Brian Elliott boxed it and the shot went into the net for a soft goal for New York.
In the second period, the Islanders forged ahead with two closely spaced goals early in the stanza.
On a New York power play, Anders Lee jammed home a carom off the end boards for a power play goal. Andrew MacDonald gave up both body positioning and stick positioning on the play. Devon Toews and Joshua Ho-Sang drew the assists at 2:22.
At 3:07, Elliott yielded his second stoppable goal of the game. On an Islanders' counter-rush 20-year-old forward Anthony Beauvillier, who impressed throughout the preseason, wristed a shot from above the faceoff dot that beat Elliott to the short side as he slid to his right. While the shot was released fast and had good movement on it, it was shot from the faceoff lines. Elliott had ample time to cover the angle and make the save. The assists went to Casey Cizikas and Adam Pelech.
The Islanders opened a three-goal lead at the 32-second mark of the third period with their second power play goal of the game. On this goal, Beauvillier took a perfect cross-ice feed from young playmaking forward Mathew Barzal. From the right circle, Beauvillier blasted a one-timer past Elliott for his second goal of the game. Once the pass got across, it would have taken a lucky save or a mistake by the shooter to keep it out of the net. Ryan Pulock earned the secondary assist.
The Flyers' second power play unit often out-performed the top unit during the preseason, even when no goal resulted. That was also the case on what eventually turned into the Flyers' second tally of the game. The second unit pressured heavily and generated several good looks at the net (Travis Konecny had a few opportunities during the game that he'd like to have had back, as he blasted a few pucks wide of the net when he had some shooting room).
Finally, the first unit got out late in the advantage and Wayne Simmonds tipped home a Shayne Gostisbehere shot at 6:32. It was Simmonds' second goal -- one power play, one shorthanded -- during the preseason. Jakub Voracek got the secondary assist for his third helper and fourth point of the exhibition slate.
Unfortunately, Gostisbehere would not be able to finish the game. Shortly after assisting on the Simmonds goal, "Ghost" suffered an apparent upper-body injury on a hit from Scott Mayfield. That would end up being the most potentially significant play of an otherwise meaningless match.
The Flyers came close a few times to drawing back within a single goal. They also survived a 5-on-3 penalty kill. Late in the match, Steve Bernier scored an empty net goal from long range to seal a 5-2 win for New York. Cizikas and Pelech assisted.
Thomas Greiss, who severely outplayed Elliott in this tilt, earned the win and first-star honors with a 31-save performance. Elliott finished with 17 saves on 21 shots.
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ROSTER MOVE
After the game, the Flyers made the fully expected announcement that Swedish rookie left wing Oskar Lindblom was the final roster cut among the forwards. While Flyers general manager Ron Hextall praised Lindblom's efforts in his first NHL camp, he essentially said that the rookie fell into the "held his own" category, he did not make himself "uncuttable."
Lindblom backchecked diligently and won some battles on the walls in each of his preseason outings. However, the Flyers appeared to conclude that he was not involved in enough scoring chances relative to the upper-lineup role he played during the first half of camp.
"He did a lot of good little things. He didn’t produce the way he is capable of. Maybe even getting in the proper spots and stuff and again he didn’t play poorly. I think our power play wasn’t playing that great at the time as well. So there are a lot of things involved but usually young players when you have to get down to the roster of twenty three. They have to push you and he pushed us just not far enough," Hextall said.
The word around camp was that the Flyers felt that Lindblom still needs to demonstrate greater quickness with his feet to be effective at getting from Point A to Point B at the NHL pace. Hextall did not outright say Lindblom's instincts were NHL ready but not his pacing. However, the GM hinted at it indirectly with the comment about getting in the proper spots. Lindblom went to the right places but not quickly enough for the roster decision-makers' liking.
Hextall said that he emphasized the positive with Lindblom and repeatedly stressed that he feels the player will eventually be an impact player for the Flyers. However, there's no hypothetical timetable for a recall.
"Oskar is a good player and American League time hasn’t hurt one player in history of professional hockey. So he will be fine. When you say high expectations you are also talking the kid who came from the big rink, played extremely well but came from a big rink and all of a sudden you get into a smaller rink with big guys, fast guys,” Hextall said.
With the injury to Gostisbehere, the team did not make a decision about whether to cut one addditional defenseman, which would likely have been either Travis Sanheim or Sam Morin. While Gostisbehere will be re-evaluated on Monday, Hextall appeared to believe that Gostisbehere would have to open the season on injured reserve.
"They are all going to California probably so we will see," Hextall said in response to a question about the remaining seven defensemen at the end of camp.
Hextall then added, "I would say right now that is a guess but I don’t know. It is my best guess. ...We are going to make a decision tomorrow and see how Ghost is doing and figure something out, but we have to find a spot.”
Until Gostisbehere got injured, the Flyers planned to carry four rookies -- forwards Nolan Patrick and Taylor Leier, defensemen Robert Hägg and one of Sanheim or Morin but not both -- on the opening night roster. The team leaves for California on Monday, so all five rookies will make the trip.
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END-OF-CAMP QUICK HITS
1) Patrick finished the preseason with zero goals (11 shots on goal) and three assists in seven games. He also had a memorable fight in the Boston game on Thursday that greatly amused his veteran teammates.
For his part, Patrick said that goal scoring was not a primary concern during camp.
“I think when I get the first one, they will come. It’s a tough thing for me I always kind of start the year slow on the goals so hopefully I can get a bounce and get the first one out of the way. My main focus isn’t on scoring. I’m just trying to hold onto pucks, make plays and be a good defensive player, too," Patrick said.
Patrick's playmaking, hockey sense and two-way play were the real deal but he had only one or two bonafide scoring chances of his own during the preseason. Every bit as much as Lindblom if not more so, Patrick lacked first-stride quickness to get separation from defenders. How much of that had to do with Patrick having had dual hernia surgeries within a year and having played through the issues last season remains to be seen.
2) Over the course of training camp, Hägg was tried on both the right side and left side of different defensive pairings and saw time in practice and games with partners of various different styles. The adaptability he showed, coupled with poised and generally reliable defensive play, apparently made him the most consistent of the Flyers' three rookie defensemen in camp in the eyes of the coaches and GM -- he had fewer individual highlights than either Morin or Sanheim but also made fewer errors.
3) Flyers coach Dave Hakstol was asked about the reasoning for having the playmaking oriented Valtteri Filppula deployed in the more shooting-oriented middle slot role on the top power play unit formerly played by Brayden Schenn. Hakstol said that he and power play coach Kris Knoblauch like other aspects of Filppula's game and they believe the veteran can adapt to shooting more often as well.
“We have liked Fil there and I think he is getting more and more comfortable in that spot. He does such a good job on entry. He does a really good job in the little areas of recoveries and he is getting more and more comfortable in terms of just playing that support spot in that middle on that PP unit," Hakstol said.
The Flyers experimented with the righthanded shooting Patrick over the middle on the top power play unit at Saturday's practice but went back to Filppula in Sunday's game. Entering camp, that spot appeared to be a natural role for Lindblom but the plug got pulled on that during the second half of the preseason (except for the final preseason game that Lindblom played, when Filppula was given the night off for the second half of the home-and-home with the Rangers).
4) Jordan Weal had a considerably better preseason than his numbers (zero goals, one assist) would suggest. As he did late last season for the Flyers, the undersized left winger showed craftiness with the puck and surprising two-way ability. There were hints of chemistry developing with Patrick at several junctures of camp. Once the season begins, however, Weal is one of the players who the Flyers will need to produce toward the bottom line -- putting more pucks in the net -- if the team is to be better offensively than it was a season ago.
5) Giroux once again played left wing on a line with Sean Couturier and Voracek. He was asked both for his initial views when the line was created and his end-of-camp assessment of the line's progress since it was first put together.
"I was thinking the same thing as you guys. I didn’t really know anything of it. Maybe not tonight, but I think the last two games, we had good chances and played well. We’re just going to have to keep building. We never really played together, all three of us. It’s definitely exciting, though," Giroux said.
6) Although no one said it at camp, it is likely that Hakstol and/or Hextall had cold feet about the prospect of three rookie defensemen in the regular season starting lineup when two (Ivan Provorov and Gostisbehere) of the other three projected starters also had less than 145 games worth of NHL experience under their belts. It's this writer's view, however, that all three among Sanheim, Morin and Hägg seemed NHL ready (all factors considered, including the grind of an 82-game schedule) and outplayed some of the veterans over the course of camp.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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