It was a jam packed weekend of action as the Flyers took on the Rangers for their annual pair of rookie games, and for the Flyers — with a team pretty heavy on speed and skill — the resulting outcome was a bit of a mixed bag.
Friday’s game began a bit on the back foot, but things improved once the Flyers settled in and got their legs under them. As acting head coach for the weekend Ian Laperriere noted after the game, “I didn’t like our first 10 minutes, but the rest of it, I loved it.” The Flyers were able to flex the very best of their skillsests, bringing speed where possible, and physicality as well, doing well to make space for their teammates and open things up offensively.
But despite this, it wasn’t enough for the Flyers to really run away with the game — indeed, they had to battle back from a deficit, and it took a goal with the extra attacker out late in the third period to send them to overtime. Ultimately, they would lose in the shootout, but the foundation laid seemed to be a good one.
And things both did and did not pan out for them in Saturday’s rematch. On the one hand, the Flyers did manage to pull off the win here — it took an overtime period to do it, but they did still manage to force a split in the series. But, that said, the process to get there was a little less tidy.
”We looked afraid tonight,” Laperriere observed after the game, “I hate to say it, but… some of the guys didn’t, that fourth line… you know, they showed up physically. And Luchanko did too, [Desnoyers] did too. Other guys, they need to realize that [it’s] pro hockey and if they want to play for me or if they want to play for the next guy above me, they’re gonna have to be a little bit braver I guess.”
And central to this, Laperriere also alluded to, was an unevenness in this matchup. The Flyers, with all of their size and skill, still seemed to struggle with the size of the Rangers, and the level of physicality they were bringing. As a result, those bigger guys just seemed to have more juice in the second game of the back-to-back, even if they didn’t have the result to match.
So the processes and results didn’t really align in this series, the Flyers probably deserved a better result in the Friday game, and a worse one on Saturday, but like Laperriere said: “that’s hockey.”
And while it was hardly a perfect series of games, and it felt as though there were some results and impacts left on the table — and indeed, a stronger criticism levied from the coaching staff than we might have expected from an exhibition series — there’s still a lot to like from what we saw.
Indeed, wins aren’t paramount in a setting like this, but rather, plainly, the focus is that the prospects should ”do something to get noticed,” and that bar was one that was clearly met. The coaching staff recognized Jett Luchanko, Elliot Desnoyers, Matvei Michkov, Emil Andrae, as well as Hunter McDonald and Spencer Gill. We could also add Carson Bjarnason, Samu Tuomaala, JR Avon, and Alexis Gendron to that mix, as all, while not perfect in their showings, still found ways to pop at some point here.
Rookie camp, and then heading into training camp, and then the preseason, is all part of a process, working towards a battle for an NHL roster spot. An imperfect foundation is one we can live with, because it’s clear that everyone is being made well aware of what needs to be worked on. The competition will be ramping up very soon, and it will be up to everyone in that group to build on the flashes they’ve shown so far, to create some much needed separation from the pack.
