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Quick Hits: Road Trip, Recalls, Phantoms |
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Quick Hits: Oct. 29, 2018
1) After falling to 4-7-0 on the season and producing an unacceptably non-competitive clunker of a 6-1 home loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday afternoon, the Flyers are now in Anaheim to begin a four-game road trip through California and Arizona. The team will hold a practice at the Honda Center at 1 p.m. PT (4 p.m. ET) and then a morning skate tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. PT (2:30 p.m. ET) in advance of Tuesday's game against the Ducks.
2) On Sunday, the Flyers placed Corban Knight (upper body injury, suspected hand injury) on injured reserve and sent struggling rookie center Mikhail Vorobyev down to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The team has called up third-year pro Nicolas Aube-Kubel for his first NHL recall and also called up fourth-year pro Tyrell Goulbourne.
Aube-Kubel, 22, has the upside of being a Michael Raffl type of player with perhaps a bit more offensive push. After a rough rookie season with the Phantoms in 2016-17, he took a big step in his development as a 200-foot forward last season and was among the American Hockey League's top even strength scorers during the regular season last year.
He was set back a bit by three suspensions by the league, but he had no prior reputation as a dirty player. He had a decent training camp with the Flyers this September, and strung together some strong games for the Phantoms prior to his recall. Offensively, through eight games with the Phantoms this season, he produced seven points (three goals, four assists).
The recall of Goulbourne, 24, is strictly geared toward injecting energy and physical combativeness ("snot and balls", as Dave Hakstol called it over the summer in his interview with Mike Sielski) into the lineup. That was the same reason he was called up midseason last year and dressed in nine games.
Goulbourne is marginal as an NHL player because of limited puck skills relative to the norms of the league including among role players. It remains to be seen how long Goulbourne's call up this season will last. His minutes will be limited. While the lineup needs to upgrade its competitiveness, that really needs to come from higher in the lineup. Shifts like Goulbourne's first in the NHL -- delivering a hit that directly causes a turnover and a quick goal for his team -- don't come around very often.
However, Goulbourne, deserves credit for his work ethic and for being a good teammate. In the AHL, he has worked his tail off and made himself into a viable fourth-line role player. He has scaled his penalty minutes way down, picks his spots to fight, has improved immensely in his board work (little things like coaching him to use his feet better have helped him because he's worked hard at it) and chips offensively every once in awhile. Actually, Goulbourne has not taken a penalty of any sort yet in seven games with the Phantoms this season.
Within a very small sample size, a player such as Goulbourne can bring some of that to the NHL. However, the returns typically diminish fast because it's usually unsustainable at the top level. Besides, the Flyers need a hell of a lot more out of the top nine in their forward lineup and most of the defense corps than anything their fourth-line -- or basically any fourth line group -- can provide.
3) Any way you slice and dice the Flyers this season -- five-on-five play, power play since starting 5-for-20, continued PK letdowns, starts to games, responses when trailing, giving up the first goal in 10 of 11 games and losing in regulation the only one in which they did score first, strictly average goaltending in most games and well below-average goalie play in two, a lack of competitiveness on home ice in the home opener and last game against the Islanders -- it has been an unacceptable first one-eighth of the season. The only thing that has been good enough is the faceoff department, and that is utterly meaningless when everything else is off the mark.
Before the Flyers can even worry about looking where they are relative to the early-season playoff cutoff line (five points off the pace, if you are scoring at home), they need to fix a whole lot of issues and take steps in a positive direction. Only one loss this season (home vs. Vegas) has been one where the Flyers deserved at least a point. Two of the four wins have been ugly ones. Once again, that's not even close to good enough.
4) The Phantoms split their weekend games, earning a 5-2 win in Binghamton on Saturday behind strong goaltending by rookie Carter Hart, building further on a baby step forward he took in a shootout loss last weekend. On Sunday, the Phantoms dropped a 3-1 decision in Hershey. Alex Lyon took the loss. One of the goals was a penalty shot in the third period. Connor Bunaman scored his first AHL goal. Vorobyev was in the Phantoms lineup. Taylor Leier was a scratch.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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