Couturier’s collision could skew Flyers’ attack plans
VOORHEES, N.J. » It would have seemed to be a good idea at the time, Dave Hakstol shaking up his lines at practice Tuesday, assembling two new scoring trios for a bold attempt at leveling an Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Penguins when Game 4 commences Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Center. So much for bright ideas. All it took was one collision between punchy defenseman Radko Gudas and Sean Couturier to throw Hakstol’s plan into somewhat of a state of disarray. That’s because Couturier had to be helped off the Skate Zone ice, limping badly toward the locker room ... and never to be seen again on this day.
As for injury reports ... oh, c’mon, it’s the playoffs. Silent Season. Even more fake management news than usual.
To his credit, Ron Hextall eschewed with the methodology they teach in NHL Management School and promptly decided he wouldn’t say anything at all. As for Hakstol ... geez, he’s just one of the unknowing working stiffs.
Asked for a little Couturier health insight, Hakstol said, “Nothing more than what you guys saw.”
That’s not as much as what couple of nearby players saw.
“I really don’t know anything yet,” season-long playing partner Claude Giroux said. “It didn’t look too good. I guess we’ll know more later. You don’t like to see a that. Coots is playing 28 minutes a night for us right now and is a big piece to our team.”
Then there’s anotherthe medical opinion...
“Coots will be fine,” Dr. Wayne Simmonds said. “I’m not worried about Coots.”
Similar statements of bravado were heard about the Penguins, that high-flying, fast-skating rootin’, tootin’ two-time champions. Who’s worried about them just because they lead two games to one?
“Same as last time,” goalie Brian Elliott said with a reference to the Flyers’ approach to Game 2 last Friday. “You’re down a game, it’s time to respond. They came back at us and now it’s our turn.
“I think we’ve been able to turn the page a little bit, not get hung up on things. We went through a tough stretch in the begining to the middle of the season and we were able to just kind of have the belief in the room that things will change if we do the right things. That’s how we’ve got to approach the rest of this series as well. Just keep on doing the things that help make us successful and we have to believe that things will turn around for us.”
A good news announcement about Couturier’s health Wednesday morning might help turn the Flyers’ fortunes the right way, too, but obviously that remains to be seen.
Before that collision ... (Gudas: “I didn’t see him, he didn’t see me. Tough break.”) ... the plan was for Jake Voracek to move up to right wing next to Couturier and across from Claude Giroux. other That line was extraordinarily effective early in the season, but it wasn’t helping the Flyers win many games. Hakstol moved Voracek to the second line and put Travis Konecny up top just prior to an early December Western Canada road trip. It helped turned Konecny into a blooming scoring star and the Flyers into a much better balanced club. They promptly won six games in a row, part of a larger 16 out of 20 climb to the upper reaches of the Eastern Conference.
Michael Raffl played with Giroux and Couturier near season’s end, which might have better balanced the lines but took a little of that spark away. Now it’s back to the artistic drawing board with the creative Voracek, who finished fourth in the NHL with 65 assists, three less than NHL leader Giroux - trying to set the table for Giroux and a hopefully healthy Couturier.
“I was surprised, but I mean, it’s the playoffs. Things like that kind of happen,” Voracek said of Hakstol’s planned moves. “If you lose a game like that (the 5-1 loss in Game 3 Sunday) you want to kind of shake it up and try to find (combinations) to win the game. The coaches thought it was the best idea to put us back together so we’re just going to roll with it.”
As for a new second line, Konecny was going to move up with fellow winger Wayne Simmonds, centered by rocketing rookie Nolan Patrick.
“Just brings an extra spark,” Simmonds said of the line changes. “Obviously we didn’t play to our best in the first three games, and the coach is saying something by changing the lines. He expects more out of us, so we have to bring it.”
Those two lines promised a new attack look that would test the Penguins in Game 4. Now ...?
“You never want to see one of your teammates get hurt in practice or get hurt anytime,” Elliott said of Couturier. “He’s a tough guy, though. So we’ll see what happens. And there’s a lot of guys in here that can pick up slack, guys that are itching to get more time, too. So if he’s not available or is available I think our guys are ready for that.”
*** NOTES » Pittsburgh’s Patric Hornqvist is injured and will not play in Game 4 . ... If Couturier is a nogo there is speculation that Giroux could be moved to center on the top line, after playing all season at left wing there. Asked about that, Giroux said, “We’re not going to jump to conclusions here. We’ll see how Coots is. If it does come down to that, whatever’s best for the team, you go ahead and do it.” ... Michal Neuvirth practiced in full again and was upgraded to “day to day” after practice. Don’t be surprised to see Neuvirth act as backup goalie in Game 4 rather than Petr Mrazek. Hakstol said he “liked (Neuvirth’s) practice today;