Pre-Season Wrap Up and More
First, let me apologize for not getting this written last night. I’ve been having trouble sleeping for the past week or so and it caught up to me while watching Ghost Hunters with my daughter. However, I finally got a good night’s sleep, but my neck is killing because I got it on the living room floor with no pillow.
So, what do we have here? Tuesday night’s OTL to the Minnesota Wild dropped their pre-season record to 2-3-2. That’s 2-1-1 at home and 0-2-1 on the road. While you can’t gauge much from the pre-season, here are a couple things worth noting…
1. The Flyers have not won in Detroit (pre-season, regular season or playoffs) since November 4, 1988. Luckily, the Flyers only face the Red Wings once this season and it’s in Philly.
2. Another place the Flyers have trouble winning is the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, having only won there one time since the doors opened. I hope the boys have better luck when Joe Benzon’s “Army of Fun” bus trip shows up for the Devils’ home opener.
A handful of guys really stepped up and made us stand up and take notice.
James vanRiemsdyk – The Flyers top prospect coming into this year’s pre-season, he showed the talent that made him a 2nd overall pick notching 3 goals, adding an assist and only tallying 2 penalty minutes in 7 games. He has shown he is ready for the NHL.
Mika Pyorala – The major talk this pre-season was that either Mika or JVR would make the main club and Mika wouldn’t let the decision be an easy one. 3 goals (including an overtime game winner against NJ), an assist and 2 penalty minutes in 7 games.
Daniel Briere – Call me a fanboy, say I only talk about him so much because he’s my favorite Flyer. But, whatever you say, you can’t argue with success. 3 goals and 3 assists in 5 pre-season games. He only had 6 penalty minutes, all in the same game (a penalty laiden 5-4 OTL to the Leafs). Looks to me, the injuries are a thing of the past and Danny is ready to roll.
I’m not gonna start saying there are guys I’m worried about. I’ll save that for the 2nd week of the regular season. As always though, I am worried about the bad penalties that the Flyers consistently seem to take and the marginal calls that never seem to go our way. A lack of discipline will destroy the Flyers chances more than a badly timed injury.
As of this moment, there is still no word on Blair Betts and his status with the Flyers. The roster became official yesterday and here it is…
Forwards:
Aaron Asham
Daniel Briere
Dan Carcillo
Jeff Carter
Riley Cote
Simon Gagne
Claude Giroux
Scott Hartnell
Ian Laperriere
Darrol Powe
Mika Pyorala
Mike Richards
James vanRiemsdyk
Defensemen:
Matt Carle
Braydon Coburn
Ryan Parent
Chris Pronger
Danny Syvret
Kimmo Timonen
Ole-Kristian Tollefsen
Goalies:
Johan Backlund
Brian Boucher
Ray Emery
Just like last season, the Flyers will be carrying 3 goalies. This is mainly due to the “lower body” injury Boucher suffered. What’s that? Where’s Randy Jones? Uh, he should be in New York by now. If you’ve missed the news over the course of the week, Jones was waived on Saturday and assigned to the Phantoms yesterday. This move opened up the necessary cap space to sign vanRiemsdyk and Pyorala and bring Syvret up from the Phantoms.
While the Flyers have off on the official opening day of the season, they play 3 games in 5 days starting on October 2nd. Friday opens their season against the Hurricanes then into the Prudential Center to take on the Devils in their home opener before coming back to Philly for their own on Tuesday against reigning MVP Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Thanks to a friend (Jason Gutteridge 😉 ), I will be attending my first Flyers home opener this season and I couldn’t be more excited.
That’s it for today. Check back tomorrow for my post-game wrap up of the Flyers season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Until then, keep your chin up, your eyes on the puck and you can never go wrong with high to the stick side. 😉
Thanks for reading,
Paul Pickett
Facebook: Paul Ca Pickett
Twitter: PaulakaBFTW