The Flyers will use the same groupings and ice-time schedule on Saturday as they had on Friday's opening day of training camp. While there was some systems work incorporated into various drills on Day 1, the bigger emphasis was on competition drills and conditioning (particularly via a lengthy segment of goalline-to-goalline "suicides").
Said Flyers coach
Dave Hakstol, "We touched on 3 or 4 different areas of systems right away today. We're going to try to work that in as we go. We only have two days of practice, so we'll try to touch on each major area of systems through a little bit of video. Whether you can see it or not from up above, there is systems work that's mixed into most of the drills. On a day like today, there a lot of emphasis on competition and conditioning. But in several of the drills, there are elements of systems work that we talked about in the meeting before practice."
On Day 2, many line combinations may hold over from the first day with the preseason opener slated for Sunday afternoon against the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum; the first of four straight game days.
Over on the Flyers' website, I wrote a
running blog of news, notes and quotes from the opening day of camp. On Saturday morning, there will be a feature story on the newly formed line of
Nolan Patrick centering
James van Riemsdyk and
Jakub Voracek.
Friday's line combinations were as follows:
GROUP 1
Orange: Claude Giroux- Sean Couturier/Jordan Weal - Weal/ Wayne Simmonds
Gray: Scott Laughton - Mikhail Vorobyev - Travis Konecny
Green: Greg Carey - German Rubtsov - Carsen Twarynski
Yellow: Connor Bunnaman/Pascal Laberge - Radel Fazleev - Isaac Ratcliffe
Blue: Taylor Leier - Corban Knight - Cole Bardreau
Ivan Provorov - Christian Folin
T.J. Brennan - Philippe Myers
Yegor Zamula - Reese Willcox
David Drake - Frank Hora
Brian Elliott
Carter Hart
Anthony Stolarz
GROUP 2
Orange: James van Riemsdyk - Nolan Patrick - Jakub Voracek
Green: Michael Raffl - Morgan Frost - Dale Weise
Gray: Oskar Lindblom - Jori Lehterä - Nicolas-Aube Kubel
Yellow: Danick Martel - Mike Vecchione - Matthew Strome
Blue: Tyrell Goulbourne - Phil Varone - Colin McDonald/ Maksim Sushko
White (non-contact): David Kase
Robert Hägg - Shayne Gostisbehere
Travis Sanheim - Radko Gudas
Mark Friedman - James de Haas
Zach Palmquist - Wyatte Wylie
Michal Neuvirth
Alex Lyon
Liam Hughes
After practice on Day 1, Hakstol was asked if the separation of
Ivan Provorov and
Shayne Gostisbehere as a defense pairing would continue in subsequent days.
"We’re going to look at different pairs. That’s one pair that has a chance to be together when we start the season. We’re going to look at a lot, not a lot, we’re not going to flock shute so to speak. We have some ideas of things that we want to see," Hakstol said.
"That’s one pair that we know has had success. They’ll get a little bit of time together somewhere during camp, not necessarily early on. We want to look at some different pairs with Provy that involve Ghost, but we’ve got the entire group of seven guys that we’re going to end up with at the end of training camp, maybe eight, that we want to give good looks to. We want to see some variation in the partners that we look at."
Hakstol said that he was impressed by the way
Travis Sanheim handled adversity during his rookie season, which included a return trip to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms after an extended string of being a healthy scratch. After a highly successful stint with the Phantoms, Sanheim returned to Philadelphia with a burst of confidence and performed solidly overall for the balance of the season.
" Sanheim, is a tough competitor. He’s a pretty quiet individual. He goes about his business in a pretty quiet manner but he’s mentally tough. He handled the ups and the downs pretty well. He takes advantage of whatever opportunity is put in front of him. Including, when he went back to Lehigh Valley, he took advantage of that opportunity and put his game in order. When we had a chance to bring him back, he was ready to come back. That tells you a lot about a person. Those are the kind of things that you learn about young players as they go through the ups and downs of being a rookie, of being a young guy in this league," Hakstol said.
Last season, primarily in the first half of the season, Sanheim and
Radko Gudas were a frequent defense pairing. That seems likely to be the case to start this season, but things can chance.
Come Saturday, Group 1 will again be on the Skate Zone ice from 9:15 to 11:30 a.m., with the Group 2 session running from 12:15 to 2:30 p.m. ET. On Friday, each session started on what was formerly called the "Phantoms" rink and then moved over to the "Flyers" rink. The same is likely (but unconfirmed) for Saturday.
The Flyers will be staging a variety of attractions on Saturday in conjunction with the on-ice sessions. Games and activities will be set up inside and outside SkateZone, including a photo booth and concessions from Dunkin' Donuts and Dietz & Watson. There will also be giveaways to fans in attendance.
Members of the new incarnation of the Philadelphia Wings (National Lacrosse League) will be onhand to visit the Flyers' Saturday session. Team members Matt Rambo, Jordan Hall and Kiel Matisz will speak to the media between sessions.
On Sunday at 8:30 a.m., there will be a scrimmage for non-participants in the preseason game against the Islanders. The game participants have a 1 p.m. match at the Nassau Coliseum.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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