Bill Meltzer Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSS
• Archive
• CONTACT
Quick Hits: May 9, 2019
1) Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault, in Slovakia with Team Canada for the 2019 IIHF World Championships, spoke with the Philadelphia media via conference call on Wednesday. Primarily, he discussed the hiring of former NHL head coaches Michel Therrien and Mike Yeo to join his staff as assistant coaches, and the shuffling of holdover assistant coach Ian Laperriere's duties.
2) Laperriere will no longer run the Flyers' penalty kill or be on the bench during games. His main duties will be to do pre-scouts as well as to be a pressbox eye in the sky during games. He will continue to have one-on-one interaction with players.
3) Yeo will be in charge of the penalty kill and coach the defense corps. Therrien will coach the forwards and power play. It is not unheard of for a former forward to coach a blueline; most recently with the Flyers, John Paddock did it for a season.
Back during his assistant coaching days in Pittsburgh under Therrien, Yeo was credited with a turnaround in the Penguins' penalty killing stats during his first season. However, since Yeo is a former forward (he played left wing) and Therrien was a defenseman during his playing days, I had initially thought the assignments would be reserved.
4) Vigneault said that he has still only had one phone conversation with Flyers captain Claude Giroux but plans to speak to him -- and the rest of his Flyers players -- at greater length after the World Championships. He has spoken with Sean Couturier and Carter Hart, but only as pertains to Team Canada. Vigneault also spoke briefly with Michael Raffl, who is at the Worlds with Team Austria.
5) Team Russia announced its World Championship roster on Wednesday. Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov, who conditionally accepted his invitation from the Russian Hockey Federation on the basis of first having to have a new NHL contract in place with the Flyers, is not on the roster. This is not a big surprise.
Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher said several weeks ago that he did not anticipate having any of the team's restricted free agents (including Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny as well as Provorov) signed ahead of the summertime. The GM said that he expects all of the deals to get done this offseason but could not estimate the timetable.
Provorov's agent, Mark Gandler, is a notoriously tough and aggressive negotiator. Disappointing 2018-19 season aside, Gandler still knows that his client is the Flyers' leading ice time player and a huge part of the plan moving forward. Provorov will get paid accordingly, when all is said and done. Whether the two sides agree to a bridge deal or agree to a long-term deal remains to be seen but odds favor a deal getting done well ahead of the start of next season.
In short, there is no reason for Flyers fans to be nervous in early May about the state of the Provorov negotiation. If the summer comes and goes and Labor Day passes with no deal done, then and only then would it be time to wonder how far Gandler would recommend his client go to get an optimal deal.
An NHL assistant general manager told me a few months ago that the threat to play in the KHL is not nearly the sort of leverage for agents that it was a few years ago. Even the wealthiest teams in Russia aren't throwing around the sort of money anymore they were at the height of their drive to rival the NHL on equal footing. Additionally, Provorov has stated that he is happy in Philadelphia and wants to stay put.
The nuclear option in lieu of the "KHL threat" or a trade demand: No one in Philadelphia wants to see what happened in Toronto this past season with William Nylander. The player did not benefit on the ice from missing training camp and several months of the season -- the missed time put him behind the eight ball, especially in trying to live up to the pressure created by eventually signing a lucrative deal, and it took him quite some time to get going. Provorov, who has yet to miss a game in the NHL, hates not to play for any reason.
But would it be a Gandler tactic to use the threat of taking the negotiation into training camp or even into the season? His history suggests it's not beyond him to do so if he feels he has the leverage advantage. In Provorov's case, though, there almost certainly will be a deal done this offseason even if it takes some time.
6) Team Sweden, featuring Oskar Lindblom and Robert Hägg, arrived in Slovakia on Wednesday. The defending gold medalists, Tre Kronor opens their schedule on Friday against the Czech Republic (featuring Jakub Voracek and Radko Gudas). Game time is 2:15 p.m. EDT. Team USA, featuring James van Riemsdyk, opens on Friday against host team Slovakia at the same time.
7) The resilient Guelph Storm, which overcame 3-0 and 3-1 series deficits in the previous two rounds of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs, earned a 5-4 home win on Wednesday in Game 4 of their championship final round series against the Ottawa 67's to tie the series at two games apiece. Storm captain Isaac Ratcliffe was held without a shot on goal but earned one assist.
8) Today in Flyers History: Today is the the 45th anniversary of Bobby Clarke's iconic overtime goal and jump for joy at the Boston Garden in Game 2 of the 1974 Stanley Cup Final. For more about one of the most pivotal wins in Flyers' franchise history, click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»