Patrick left to wonder about the future
VOORHEES, N.J. » Like 23 other NHL clubs with a chance of winning the Stanley Cup after the NHL decided to render its regular season moot and install a made-for-T V playoff extravaganza, the Flyers have been allotted 30 skaters and an unlimited number of goalies with which to begin battle next month.
As “playoff training” officially commenced Monday at the Skate
Zone, head coach-of-theyear candidate Alain Vigneault declared his team has grown together and simply had to continue to do so in order to have a very viable chance of winning it all in this shortened-season-sumup.
“As a group, you can tell in our players’ faces, what we saw this morning there was excitement, an understanding of the opportunity that was in front of us,” Vigneault said on a video chat Monday. “We’re getting
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to do what we love; that for the players (is) to play hockey, and for me as a coach, to coach these players. I think we’ve taken some great strides since Sept. 12 when we all got together (for the start of real training camp).
“We have just two new faces in our group (trade deadline acquisitions Nate Thompson and Derek Grant). So it’s the same group, yet we’ve progressed, we’ve earned the right to compete for the Cup and now it’s up to us to do the work and get it done.”
All well and good luck with that, though that doesn’t alter the fact that despite a four-month layoff, a big name who won’t be part of this effort, Nolan Patrick, couldn’t even cut that 30-skater Flyers roster.
And yet...
“I have to rely (on) what Nolan said to me. He’s indicated that lately this is the best he has felt in the last 12 months,” general manager Chuck Fletcher said Monday.
“He feels he is making progress. He feels much better, sleeping better, able to exercise, able to
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MLS: MLS is Back Tournament, Seattle vs. Chicago
Soccer: NWSL Challenge Cup, Sky Blue FC vs. North Carolina
Tennis: WTT, San Diego vs. Vegas
Tennis: WTT, Orlando vs. Chicago
Soccer: Premier League, Norwich City vs. Chelsea
Basketball: TBT, Golden Eagles vs. Sideline Cancer
Boxing: Top Rank, Jonathan Oquendo vs. Jamel Herring (Junior Lightweights)
Baseball: KBO, NC at Kiwoom
Tennis: bett1ACES Berlin Tournament skate.
“I’ll just rely on those comments.”
Just over three years ago, the New Jersey Devils’ focus clearly on Nico Hischier as the No. 1 overall pick, then-Flyers GM Ron Hextall didn’t have to stretch to explain his choice of Patrick as a No. 2 overall choice. The son and nephew, respectively, of longtime NHL players Steve and James Patrick, Nolan had been a top-rated Canadian prospect from early in his junior career. He also had missed much of the previous year with a lingering sports hernia problem, but Hextall picked him and assured that Patrick would soon be ready to show his stuff in the bigtime.
He wasn’t. It was subsequently disclosed that Patrick had had a second abdominal surgery 10 days prior to the draft. And he would be slow to return.
Patrick really didn’t start to have a major impact until near the end of his rookie season, and in his second season, expecting to take over the center spot on the second line, the inconsistent Patrick would score only 31 points in 72 games.
The Flyers promptly signed free agent center Kevin Hayes to the tune of a $50 million contract, thereby dropping Patrick down a line. But he never got the chance to show what he could do as a third-line center, since a migraine disorder knocked him out of camp early last fall.
Now, some 10 months later, comes another training camp. And Patrick, despite optimistic words about his immediate future and possible return to the club extending over months prior to the pandemic “pause” in March, still isn’t able to practice with his team, much less play. The expressions of optimism have taken a turn toward harsh reality.
“His situation has been well documented,” Fletcher said Monday. “Jim McCrossin, our athletic trainer, and I have been in continuous communication with Nolan and his representatives. Frankly, our focus is to get him ready for the 2020-21 season.
“We really want to be prudent about this matter and prioritize his health and safety over the long run. The reality is, not just for Nolan but for every player, we have a very short runway here before we jump right into what is essentially playoff hockey. We felt that at this stage, when we have time, use it.”
With 26 goals and 61 points through 145 career games, Patrick is, officially and finally, shut down for what’s left of the much delayed 2019-20 season.
In his rare granted interviews to talk about his situation during the regular season, Patrick always held optimistic hopes and dreams of return close to the vest. He was guarded, but at the same time honest in his assessment that this strange migraine disorder did not leave much room for predictability.
Throw a crazed, chaotic pandemic on top of that and you get the idea what Nolan Patrick’s professional life has been for much of the past year.
You also should get the idea that a player packing so much presumed talent and promise a few years ago has a long way to go to catch up to what should be his career track.
To that end, the Flyers’ brass is absolutely right in curtailing Patrick’s activities with the team for now, while carrying the long-range hope that a higher power can eventually produce normal times for him and everybody else again.
Until then, Chuck Fletcher and Alain Vigneault and a closed locker room full of Flyers veterans will all cross their fingers and carry with them an optimistic view of a modified playoff system somehow yielding historic glory for the franchise in the coming months. Closing the regular season as one of hockey’s hottest teams has spurred such optimism, but the sudden loss of momentum due to the pandemic seems to lend a fateful touch to this Philly hockey story.
“This is going to be new for all of us,” Fletcher said. “This type of situation has never happened before. We’re going to be playing in two hub cities in front of no fans. Who knows? Everybody is in the same boat. Certainly very exciting and a little nervewracking at the same time.”
Either way, Nolan Patrick isn’t part of the story. He’s still only 21, and he does indeed have plenty of time. Not that it makes anything easier for him.
While his team enters what with a lot of luck could be a promising summer, he can only carry on, trying to see a resumption of his own dreams, hoping that at some point, his longracked head will allow it.