Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news...

• Previewing tonight's game against the Capitals: [Bill Meltzer]
• Sean Couturier is getting a pretty big role in his rookie year: [NHL.com]
• Eric Wellwood is having a pretty good run for the Flyers, even if he isn't likely to stay in the lineup: [The Hockey Guys]
• Zac Rinaldo is talking about how he doesn't want to be one dimensional again. This time, he's saying he wants to be a shutdown winger. He's got a long way to go. [delcotimes]
• The Flyers have been getting off to really slow starts lately: [Broad Street Bull] [CSNPhilly]
• Bill Meltzer checks in on Europe and their wacky playoff system where the top seed has lost to their hand-picked opponent back to back years. But included at the bottom is the nugget that Joacim Eriksson has a 1.31 gaa and 0.956 sv% through the first round: [NHL.com]
• A look at the history of helmets in the NHL: [SBNation.com]
• An Avalanche fan put Sharpie to tape and made his Peter Forsberg jersey a Peyton Manning jersey. This is atrocious and embarrassing: [Puck Daddy]
• Since the trade deadline, the Los Angeles Kings have been the 3rd best team in the NHL with the 2nd best offense. Thank you, Jeff Carter: [Jewels From The Crown]
• If you sort NHL players by shots-per-game you get a list of elite NHL players. Except for Jeff Carter, of course. We all know he's terrible: [Backhand Shelf]
• Creating an expected goal metric is a pretty big deal: [Arctic Ice Hockey]
• A great look at why Ilya Bryzgalov was going to regress, why that does take into account human factors, and why short-term results should never be weighted more than long-term trends: [Brodeur is a Fraud]