No team is trading the #1 or #2 pick in 2014. Please, get the idea out of your heads.
- Feanor

your right, but the draft is 2015...2014 already happened

Yeah that's fair. The "lack of effort" could well be that he's not sure where he's supposed to be or exactly what his role is
- Jsaquella

He played on the wing for maybe half the season last year, with mixed results...some good spurts. I thought he was more committed when he was at center, where they somehow made Hartnell-Schenn-Simmonds work against all conditional wisdom.

I hope I am wrong. Because the Flyers need production on the wing and have enough centers

imo it was worth it, we have not had a true star since lindros and apparently macdavid and eichel are projected the best prospects since crosby
- mydoglicks

But this is just one draft. What are the next 4 drafts looking like? Also you have to factor in the Pens were going bankrupt and needed to bring in fans and money. They also had nothing to lose for tanking. The Flyers sell out every night. You can't ask them to just go full tank for 5 years as good as that might be. Look at teams like Chicago, LA, Anahiem, SJ, Detriot. They just need to keep drafting better and start shedding some of the vets and bad contracts.

Giroux and Couturier and Vorachek... all gone?
- mayorofangrytown

why not, they have some of the highest value team wise and i just dont see all of a sudden that group gets it done, really for me i watch hockey for the entertainment, competivness and heart to drive a person almost insane on the ice to do whatever it takes to get the puck and score or defend the goalie, we dont have that besides simmonds, this team is just boring to watch, its not entertaning at all

glad to be a part of "Lets Freak Out Over A Superficial Injury To a Prospect Whose 2 Years Away Day" here on HB
- Just5

Added a post-practice report to today's blog:

Staying on-system and competing for 60 minutes was one of the main themes discussed by Flyers players and head coach Craig Berube after practice at the Skate Zone this morning. The coach said his biggest disappointment from Sunday was his team's loss of competitiveness and unacceptably soft play -- subpar work on the walls, loose coverages, panicky decisions with the puck -- in its own end of the ice in the third period.

Mark Streit talked about the need for the club not to lose sight of the positive things they did in the first 40 minutes of Sunday's game and segments of the Boston and New Jersey games. Wayne Simmonds said that attention to small details lapsed in the third period last game and had a snowball effect as Montreal kept the flyers pinned in their own end of the ice.

With Vincent Lecavalier out for two weeks with an injury to his left foot, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare will get the first crack at centering his line. Bellemare downplayed the opportunity as a chance to show some of his offensive capabilities, and said that he has to keep his two-way game in focus the same as he would when playing on the fourth line.

Berube said that he wants Brayden Schenn to adjust to being a left winger, which is why he is not moving Schenn to play center in Lecavalier's absence. The head coach added that he thinks the first line has looked better with Michael Raffl than it did with Schenn on left wing. Berube said the top line was "not playing fast enough" for his liking in the first and second games of the season.

Andrew MacDonald absorbed 28 minutes of ice time in Saturday's game. While Berube said that it was just how the game played out, he admitted that this is too much ice time. The coach said he'd like to be able to spread around the ice time but he has to go game by game right now.

In Saturday's game, the pairing of Luke Schenn (13:35 of ice time) and Michael Del Zotto (14:43) were pretty much taken out of the mix by Berube as the third period progressed. They got trapped on the ice for two minutes and seven seconds until Tomas Plekanec scored Montreal's second goal. Thereafter, they only took one more shift in the game; a 55-second shift. Del Zotto did see some use in overtime. MacDonald and Nick Schultz (23:37 TOI) absorbed their minutes.

Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn (lower-body injury) has officially been upgraded to day-to-day status after meeting with a specialist today. He will not, however, be ready for tomorrow night. Nicklas Grossmann (stomach virus) did not practice today. Berube said he expects the defenseman to be available tomorrow night against Anaheim.

Berube said that, with Lecavalier out of the lineup for a couple weeks, there is a good chance the team will call up a forward from the Phantoms for the three-game road trip that follows tomorrow night's game against Anaheim. Veteran Andrew Gordon or Chris VandeVelde might get the call as the extra body.

The Flyers had three goalies on the ice for a portion of practice today. Ray Emery left the ice early, with Steve Mason and 19-year-old Jeff Hextall remaining on the ice. The team practiced shootouts at the end of practice, with Hextall defending in goal.

Afterwards, Berube joked, "They weren't scoring on Hexy's boy either."

Turning serious, Berube said that the team would follow through with a pre-season plan of working more on shootouts in practice this season, although game conditions are different. Berube said the team has to try to improve in that area to pick up valuable points in the standings but they really need to win as many games as possible in regulation.

Right now, the Flyers will take a win of any kind against the powerhouse Ducks. It's a big and physical team that can embarrass any opponent that suffers a letdown. Last season, the Flyers actually played two pretty good games against the Ducks and came away with two regulation losses to show for it.

potentially, everyone has potential...not sure where elite comes from, but he has not even been better then jordan staal in his first 3 years, not sure if jordan is considered elite.
- mydoglicks

finishing 9th in the selke voting...... lets think, there are 12 fwds per team, 30 teams. thats 12*30=360(not including 13th fwds, which every team has)

9 divided by 360 is .025.

move the decimal, and it puts coots, in the top 2.5% of fwds defensively. thats at the ripe old age of 21?

or in other terms, better than 97.5% of fwds. if thats not elite idk what is.


http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=723665

These reports that the Flyers were being stoned by some 18 year old kid in shootout practice has to be false right?

BSchenn-PEB-Simmonds shows some imagination. More than I expected, anyway.

He also keeps returning to last year's best line in terms of CF% - Raffl-Giroux-Voracek, or Girafflcek as I saw it called yesterday.
- Feanor

Would really like to see Read or Simmer get a shot on L1, or if splitting up 93 and 28 would make the team harder to check, or trying Schenn and Coots on the same line... there's so many unmined possibilities w/ the current lineup if he'd just be willing to off some of his sacred cow duos.

But this is just one draft. What are the next 4 drafts looking like? Also you have to factor in the Pens were going bankrupt and needed to bring in fans and money. They also had nothing to lose for tanking. The Flyers sell out every night. You can't ask them to just go full tank for 5 years as good as that might be. Look at teams like Chicago, LA, Anahiem, SJ, Detriot. They just need to keep drafting better and start shedding some of the vets and bad contracts.
- J35Bacher

colorado was pretty sucky 3 years ago, they seem to be sitting pretty right now

your right, but the draft is 2015...2014 already happened
- PhillaBully

D'oh.

The problem was I was thinking of the 2004 draft when the top two picks were also not for sale at any realistic price.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NHL_Entry_Draft

If anyone can tell me the #3 pick without looking I'll be impressed.

Added a post-practice report to today's blog:

Staying on-system and competing for 60 minutes was one of the main themes discussed by Flyers players and head coach Craig Berube after practice at the Skate Zone this morning. The coach said his biggest disappointment from Sunday was his team's loss of competitiveness and unacceptably soft play -- subpar work on the walls, loose coverages, panicky decisions with the puck -- in its own end of the ice in the third period.

Mark Streit talked about the need for the club not to lose sight of the positive things they did in the first 40 minutes of Sunday's game and segments of the Boston and New Jersey games. Wayne Simmonds said that attention to small details lapsed in the third period last game and had a snowball effect as Montreal kept the flyers pinned in their own end of the ice.

With Vincent Lecavalier out for two weeks with an injury to his left foot, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare will get the first crack at centering his line. Bellemare downplayed the opportunity as a chance to show some of his offensive capabilities, and said that he has to keep his two-way game in focus the same as he would when playing on the fourth line.

Berube said that he wants Brayden Schenn to adjust to being a left winger, which is why he is not moving Schenn to play center in Lecavalier's absence. The head coach added that he thinks the first line has looked better with Michael Raffl than it did with Schenn on left wing. Berube said the top line was "not playing fast enough" for his liking in the first and second games of the season.

Andrew MacDonald absorbed 28 minutes of ice time in Saturday's game. While Berube said that it was just how the game played out, he admitted that this is too much ice time. The coach said he'd like to be able to spread around the ice time but he has to go game by game right now.

In Saturday's game, the pairing of Luke Schenn (13:35 of ice time) and Michael Del Zotto (14:43) were pretty much taken out of the mix by Berube as the third period progressed. They got trapped on the ice for two minutes and seven seconds until Tomas Plekanec scored Montreal's second goal. Thereafter, they only took one more shift in the game; a 55-second shift. Del Zotto did see some use in overtime. MacDonald and Nick Schultz (23:37 TOI) absorbed their minutes.

Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn (lower-body injury) has officially been upgraded to day-to-day status after meeting with a specialist today. He will not, however, be ready for tomorrow night. Nicklas Grossmann (stomach virus) did not practice today. Berube said he expects the defenseman to be available tomorrow night against Anaheim.

Berube said that, with Lecavalier out of the lineup for a couple weeks, there is a good chance the team will call up a forward from the Phantoms for the three-game road trip that follows tomorrow night's game against Anaheim. Veteran Andrew Gordon or Chris VandeVelde might get the call as the extra body.

The Flyers had three goalies on the ice for a portion of practice today. Ray Emery left the ice early, with Steve Mason and 19-year-old Jeff Hextall remaining on the ice. The team practiced shootouts at the end of practice, with Hextall defending in goal.

Afterwards, Berube joked, "They weren't scoring on Hexy's boy either."

Turning serious, Berube said that the team would follow through with a pre-season plan of working more on shootouts in practice this season, although game conditions are different. Berube said the team has to try to improve in that area to pick up valuable points in the standings but they really need to win as many games as possible in regulation.

Right now, the Flyers will take a win of any kind against the powerhouse Ducks. It's a big and physical team that can embarrass any opponent that suffers a letdown. Last season, the Flyers actually played two pretty good games against the Ducks and came away with two regulation losses to show for it.
- bmeltzer

it seems like 3 years now that the current coach has been preaching they have to play for 60 minutes, i mean what is this, a joke?

how many more times does that statement have to be repeated till they realize how dumb it sounds?

These reports that the Flyers were being stoned by some 18 year old kid in shootout practice has to be false right?
- PLindbergh31

it's hextall's kid.

Added a post-practice report to today's blog:

Staying on-system and competing for 60 minutes was one of the main themes discussed by Flyers players and head coach Craig Berube after practice at the Skate Zone this morning. The coach said his biggest disappointment from Sunday was his team's loss of competitiveness and unacceptably soft play -- subpar work on the walls, loose coverages, panicky decisions with the puck -- in its own end of the ice in the third period.

Mark Streit talked about the need for the club not to lose sight of the positive things they did in the first 40 minutes of Sunday's game and segments of the Boston and New Jersey games. Wayne Simmonds said that attention to small details lapsed in the third period last game and had a snowball effect as Montreal kept the flyers pinned in their own end of the ice.

With Vincent Lecavalier out for two weeks with an injury to his left foot, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare will get the first crack at centering his line. Bellemare downplayed the opportunity as a chance to show some of his offensive capabilities, and said that he has to keep his two-way game in focus the same as he would when playing on the fourth line.

Berube said that he wants Brayden Schenn to adjust to being a left winger, which is why he is not moving Schenn to play center in Lecavalier's absence. The head coach added that he thinks the first line has looked better with Michael Raffl than it did with Schenn on left wing. Berube said the top line was "not playing fast enough" for his liking in the first and second games of the season.

Andrew MacDonald absorbed 28 minutes of ice time in Saturday's game. While Berube said that it was just how the game played out, he admitted that this is too much ice time. The coach said he'd like to be able to spread around the ice time but he has to go game by game right now.

In Saturday's game, the pairing of Luke Schenn (13:35 of ice time) and Michael Del Zotto (14:43) were pretty much taken out of the mix by Berube as the third period progressed. They got trapped on the ice for two minutes and seven seconds until Tomas Plekanec scored Montreal's second goal. Thereafter, they only took one more shift in the game; a 55-second shift. Del Zotto did see some use in overtime. MacDonald and Nick Schultz (23:37 TOI) absorbed their minutes.

Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn (lower-body injury) has officially been upgraded to day-to-day status after meeting with a specialist today. He will not, however, be ready for tomorrow night. Nicklas Grossmann (stomach virus) did not practice today. Berube said he expects the defenseman to be available tomorrow night against Anaheim.

Berube said that, with Lecavalier out of the lineup for a couple weeks, there is a good chance the team will call up a forward from the Phantoms for the three-game road trip that follows tomorrow night's game against Anaheim. Veteran Andrew Gordon or Chris VandeVelde might get the call as the extra body.

The Flyers had three goalies on the ice for a portion of practice today. Ray Emery left the ice early, with Steve Mason and 19-year-old Jeff Hextall remaining on the ice. The team practiced shootouts at the end of practice, with Hextall defending in goal.

Afterwards, Berube joked, "They weren't scoring on Hexy's boy either."

Turning serious, Berube said that the team would follow through with a pre-season plan of working more on shootouts in practice this season, although game conditions are different. Berube said the team has to try to improve in that area to pick up valuable points in the standings but they really need to win as many games as possible in regulation.

Right now, the Flyers will take a win of any kind against the powerhouse Ducks. It's a big and physical team that can embarrass any opponent that suffers a letdown. Last season, the Flyers actually played two pretty good games against the Ducks and came away with two regulation losses to show for it.
- bmeltzer

Berube finds it amusing that the Flyers can't score on an 18 year old kid? I guess it's not like they are the worst shootout team in the NHL or anything. Even though they got destroyed in the third period on Saturday night, two points were on the table if any of the Flyers top 3 shooters could have scored a goal. Amazing, no matter who the coach, shooters, or goalies are the Flyers continue to not be able to get out of their own way in shootouts.

Meh.... I guess with the current state of affairs it's akin to worrying about a hangnail, when your throat has been severed.

finishing 9th in the selke voting...... lets think, there are 12 fwds per team, 30 teams. thats 12*30=360(not including 13th fwds, which every team has)

9 divided by 360 is .025.

move the decimal, and it puts coots, in the top 2.5% of fwds defensively. thats at the ripe old age of 21?

or in other terms, better than 97.5% of fwds. if thats not elite idk what is.


http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=723665
- tweaver3312

well with all your calculations there, if your right and they dont trade him i hope he does become a superstar defensive forward

colorado was pretty sucky 3 years ago, they seem to be sitting pretty right now
- mydoglicks

Yeah, all those zero goals they have scored this year is impressive

D'oh.

The problem was I was thinking of the 2004 draft when the top two picks were also not for sale at any realistic price.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NHL_Entry_Draft

If anyone can tell me the #3 pick without looking I'll be impressed.
- Feanor

Who had the #3 pick?

These reports that the Flyers were being stoned by some 18 year old kid in shootout practice has to be false right?
- PLindbergh31

bill said it was hextall's boy

colorado was pretty sucky 3 years ago, they seem to be sitting pretty right now
- mydoglicks

I'll nitpick that slightly -- something is off with them. Their defense is iffy and losing Paul Statsny appears to have messed with their mix a little bit.

But they do have plenty of talent and should figure it out, but if you believe in underlying metrics, they might struggle some before they do

These reports that the Flyers were being stoned by some 18 year old kid in shootout practice has to be false right?
- PLindbergh31

Yup.

He was 19.

Who had the #3 pick?
- jmatchett383

Chicago.

why not, they have some of the highest value team wise and i just dont see all of a sudden that group gets it done, really for me i watch hockey for the entertainment, competivness and heart to drive a person almost insane on the ice to do whatever it takes to get the puck and score or defend the goalie, we dont have that besides simmonds, this team is just boring to watch, its not entertaning at all
- mydoglicks

That's why I wanted the kids on the roster. I'd be more entertained watching Gostisbehere, Morin, Laughton and Leier than Grossman, MacDonald, Rinaldo and Umberger/Jones. We're losing and few of the players are getting better

Berube finds it amusing that the Flyers can't score on an 18 year old kid? I guess it's not like they are the worst shootout team in the NHL or anything. Even though they got destroyed in the third period on Saturday night, two points were on the table if any of the Flyers top 3 shooters could have scored a goal. Amazing, no matter who the coach, shooters, or goalies are the Flyers continue to not be able to get out of their own way in shootouts.

Meh.... I guess with the current state of affairs it's akin to worrying about a hangnail, when your throat has been severed.
- PLindbergh31

x2

D'oh.

The problem was I was thinking of the 2004 draft when the top two picks were also not for sale at any realistic price.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NHL_Entry_Draft

If anyone can tell me the #3 pick without looking I'll be impressed.
- Feanor

The immortal Cam Barker

colorado was pretty sucky 3 years ago, they seem to be sitting pretty right now
- mydoglicks

So the Flyers aim should be to get a top-3 pick every other year?