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1) The Collective Bargaining Agreement between the National Hockey League and the Players' Association requires all NHL teams to provide four complete days off -- no on-ice or off-ice activities, including optional skates or meetings for video sessions -- per month. The Flyers have designated today as one of their February off-days. The team will practice on Monday and Tuesday before embarking on one of the more unusual western Canada road trips in memory.
Between today's off-day and Feb. 21, the Flyers will only be in game action three times: back-to-back games in Calgary on Wednesday and Edmonton on Thursday. After two open nights on the schedule, the Flyers are then in Vancouver on Sunday. On the other side of the Canucks game, there are two open nights before the Flyers are home to take on the Washington Capitals.
In fact, between now and the Stadium Series game in Pittsburgh on Feb. 25, the Flyers will play a grand total of four games in 13 nights. By that point, the Flyers will truly see where they stand in the wildcard picture. To stay in the driver's seat, the Flyers needed about eight points from their now-completed five-game homestand, but came away with just five points. Even with Saturday's win over the Sharks, the Flyers still have their work cut out for them.
2) In pre-game, postgame and post-practice media scrums, I generally prefer to observe and listen rather than talk. There are exceptions, of course.
I speak up with no hesitation when I have a specific question or followup question to ask that is otherwise likely to go unanswered. Occasionally, there are no other experienced reporters in the scrum yet (such as when they are still talking with another player) and someone has to break the ice with the first question rather than standing around in awkward silence.
Yesterday's game was a situation where I used my access time to ask both Andrew MacDonald and goaltender Michal Neuvirth about a crucial juncture of the game. There was a penalty killing sequence in which, after Neuvirth lost his goalie stick, he played with no stick for about 90 seconds. Traditionally, and still more often than not, it was almost automatic for a skater to hand the goalie his stick. This has always been based on the notion that the goaltender is the defensive player who could least compensate for having no stick.
More and more, though, this has changed. Many goalies nowadays are able to make the emergency adjustment. MacDonald and Neuvirth explained the thought process during that agonizingly long sequence, during which the Sharks were unable to score.
"Sometimes a goalie doesn’t want it. It might be harder for them. Some goalies want something. He didn’t yell anything. If he wants something, he would tell us. You don’t have the paddle on the player’s stick. I don’t know. I don’t know how a goalie does it. He didn’t say anything so we didn’t bother," said MacDonald, who logged 4:22 of PK time among his 20:35 of overall ice time.
Neuvirth acknowledged that he's among the goalies who finds using a position player stick more disruptive to his rhythm and technique than playing without one.
Explained Neuvirth, "I don’t think it would make much difference if I had a player stick for me. I would rather have the guys four sticks up front, blocking passes and have a good stick [to tie up attackers]. Obviously, it’s not easy to play without a stick but, well, we got it done.”
3) The Flyers Alumni Team leaves for Russia tomorrow. I will be keeping a daily diary blog of sorts for FlyersAlumni.org and there will be special features looking at the highlights of the tour that will run on Philadelphiaflyers.com. Because of the 10-hour (Calgary, Edmonton) and 11-hour (Vancouver) time differences, it is unlikely that i will get to watch the Flyers' games during their upcoming road trip. However, there will still be daily blogs on the current Flyers here at HockeyBuzz during the trip.
4) AHL: The Lehigh Valley Phantoms suffered a 4-3 regulation setback on Saturday night in their rematch game at the PPL Center against the St. John's IceCaps. The Phantoms took a 1-0 lead to the first intermission but a three-goal outburst by the visitors in the second period proved too much for Lehigh Valley to overcome.
Robert Hägg (5th goal of the season), Mark Zengerle (10th) and Colin McDonald (17th) scored for the Phantoms in a losing cause, and goaltender Alex Lyon stopped 17 of 21 shots. An 0-for-5 night on the power play and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill proved to be an important factor in the outcome for the Phantoms.
Lehigh Valley is having its forward corps depth tested right now. Jordan Weal is now on recall to the Flyers, while Taylor Leier, Scott Laughton and Boyd Gordon are all injured. McDonald returned from injury this weekend.
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