Time to Fly

My title would have been a bit different today but one of the Flyers writers for their website, Bill Fleischman, used the title I originally planned. But, now that we jumped that hurdle, let’s have a preview of the team we will be seeing this season. Final announcements have not been made, but, if you have watched the preseason at all I think you would know how much is self explanatory.  The obvious starters would be Ray Emery as starting goaltender and I think its safe to say that Mike Richards will be the number one center. Even with a pretty set roster, the possibilities with the lines are endless. I’ll try to give you guys my favorite look of the line-up and hope that I’m pretty close come opening night.

First let’s look at the active roster for a second;

Forwards –                                                  Defenseman

Arron Asham – RW              –                        Matt Carle

Danny Briere – C/RW          –                       Braydon Coburn

Daniel Carcillo – LW           –                       Ryan Parent

Jeff Carter -  C                    –                       Chris Pronger

Simon Gagne – LW            –                       Danny Syvret

Claude Giroux – C/RW       –                       Kimmo Timonen

Scott Hartnell – LW              –                   Ole-Kristian Tollefson

Ian Laperriere – RW

Darroll Powe – C

Mika Pyorala – C/W

Mike Richards – C

James Van Riemsdyk – LW

Blair Betts – C(I included him even though a contract hasn’t been finalized. I see him making the team under any circumstances.)

Okay now I know that some people are going to wonder why I’m going to write the lines out even though they were pretty consistent throughout the preseason, but I think that they will change for the games that count. If I were John Stevens, these would be my lines for opening night;

LW                      C                     RW

1:     Gagne        Richards       Briere

2:    Hartnell      Carter           Giroux

3:    Pyorala       Powe           Laperriere

4:    Carcillo       Betts             Asham

JVR is missing from the line-up you say? I know that. I don’t think they will put him in over Betts or Pyorala, but, I’ve been wrong in the past.

Defense

1:   Carle   -   Pronger

2:  Coburn   -   Timonen

3:  Parent   -   Syvret

7th man   -   Tollefson

Syvret and Tollefson are really just a toss up at this point. Ole showed us that his knees are better and he can play and Syvret showed us how ready he is to make the next step in his career. One thing is for sure though, as soon as this season is under way I’m SURE there will be more than enough controversy for our boys again this year. I’ll leave you with a quick note to think about; Is Jeff Carter going to stay a Flyer this year? What do you think?