There is no sugarcoating the start of the Philadelphia Flyers season. It was terrible. Two games in which they’ve acted more like a practice squad allowing the other team’s stars to practice their offense rather than trying to prevent scoring opportunities, and there’s not much hope of things changing anytime soon. Since, you know, they’re facing the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night.
However, before the game, Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet is looking for answers. During the morning practice, he made major changes to the lineup to look for a specific combination or perhaps budding chemistry, because no matter who they featured back-to-back for the season opener, they were completely bombarded.
According to our friend Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia, the Flyers have decided to go with these player combinations for Saturday’s matchup against the Hurricanes:
Travis Konecny — Christian Dvorak — Matvei Michkov
Carl Grundström — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Tyson Foerster-Noah Cates-Porter Martone
Alex Bump — Noël Acciari — Sean Couturier
Travis Sanheim — Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler—David Jiricek
These are definitely changes! The entire forward group has been changed from how it was set up against the Devils on Thursday and let’s just hope that gives them a little boost. But ultimately, these changes make sense and we are optimistic.
Will the new Flyers lineup provide some sort of spark?
Starting at the top, if we’re correct in assuming that this lineup is in order, placing Christian Dvorak as the first-line center reminds us of the start of last season, and Matvei Michkov certainly deserves the top spot. Over the first two games, it’s really been Michkov who has been consistently solid in the top half of the ice. He makes passes that no one else makes, he looks for chances to score when everyone else is relying on their teammates – he’s just been very good. Whether these performances are purely out of spite remains to be seen, but we love his debut either way and so does Tocchet.
We’ve seen Michkov and Travis Konecny work with a slower veteran center in the past – their line with Sean Couturier two years ago was some of the best hockey they’ve played – and now we’ll see it again.
Trevor Zegras remains in the middle and with regular teammate Owen Tippett, but now they are seen with Carl Grundstrom to provide just something else. Grundstrom isn’t anything special, but he can at least maybe continue a similar shooting streak to last year, partnering with two offensive players. This is probably the range that presents the greatest spectrum of potential performance.
Meanwhile, Porter Martone has a new opportunity to try to make things happen. The rookie has been virtually invisible through the Flyers’ first two games and now finds himself with perhaps the most stable duo on the roster. Tyson Foerster and Noah Cates together form a big, giant, structured gaming machine that can lead to very good results. Their line with Bobby Brink dominated the teams. So now they have a much more talented player than Brink (we still like him, though) and someone who can take advantage of all the space they can create in the offensive zone. Tocchet gives Martone a chance to flourish.
The fourth line has a new member in the person of Alex Bump and it is worrying. Bump has been even more invisible than Martone and the 22-year-old winger is in real danger of losing his roster spot if this continues for a week or two. Now he’s been demoted to the fourth line as others have earned the spot above him, like Grundstrom.
If we want to be optimistic, Sean Couturier is a great center to play with and Noel Acciari is showing some dynamism early in the season. There is energy and intelligence there; so maybe Bump can take advantage and be the main scorer on this line instead of playing with some like Michkov.
David Jiricek gets his chance with the Flyers
The only change we’ll see on the blue line is David Jiricek replacing Simon Benoit after the extra physical defenseman didn’t show much at all.
Jiricek will make his season debut Saturday night, and hopefully his offense will outweigh poor defensive reads, as he tends to do. But it’s interesting to note that when the team was working on its power play during morning skate, the units remained the same. This means Cam York is given the role on the second unit instead of Jiricek.
There may be various reasons. They may simply be looking for consistency in units and strategy. Because having two players like Drysdale and York who would be more distributors than Jiricek, who would shoot from the point as often as possible, would do just that. And it could be a matter of skill since York is a lefty and Jiricek is a righty, so whatever their setup is for this second unit would change if Jiricek was included.
It’s a mystery, but Tocchet said before the season that they would stay committed to that first power play unit, even if they ended up being really bad. It could be exactly that.
Let’s see if these changes do anything against the Hurricanes. Or if we want to be very optimistic, these changes will have better luck beyond Saturday night since the Flyers will most likely lose to the defending champions.
Gn sports
