Flyers ready for Game 3 vs. Isles on Saturday »
There’s nothing new about constantly changing schedules in sports these days, but the Flyers’ reworked Saturday start against the New York Islanders in the Toronto bubble had more to do with social change than false positive virus tests or the like.
The teams were originally scheduled to play Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Saturday at Noon on NBC. The protest shutdowns marking the police shootings of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. changed all that, with the NHL postponing two games Thursday night, including Game 3 of the Flyers-Islanders series.
That game will now take place Saturday night at 7, with Game 4 set for Sunday night at 8. No matter the adjustment needed for changing games, however, the players seemed to think the change was well worth it.
“We’re all professionals here,” Flyers winger James van Riemsdyk said. “When the games come and we arrive at the rink, we’re ready to go.
We’re ready to put forth all our effort, attention and energy into playing the game and having a good result. Once we get to the rink and get there to play, we’ll be ready to roll.”
The players still alive in the playoffs were more than ready and willing to join what had become a national moment Thursday. The NBA had done so the night before, led by the Milwaukee Bucks refusing to play their playoff game in the Orlando bubble against the hometown Magic. That game was rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.
The NHL had drawn criticism for not making the call to join the NBA on Wednesday. Then Flyers coach Alain Vigneault, perhaps caught somewhat off-guard by the situation, drew social media criticism for honestly explaining that his sole attention was to his players, his team and to the job at hand.
That didn’t go down so well for a lot of people out there more interested in social change than hockey playoff game preparation.
“He’s a dedicated pro,” Flyers defenseman Matt Niskanen said in defense of his head coach. “His number one goal is to try to bring a championship to the Flyers organization. These are not easy times with everything going on. There’s a lot of layers to it. For us as players, we just wanted to do the right thing.
“I will let AV answer questions about how he approaches life in the bubble with everything else going on.”
Vigneault didn’t do that Friday but is expected to address the situation again in a pre-game Zoom interview Saturday.
Meanwhile, the decision to not play was one pushed by the players to the league office.
“It’s way easier to kind of have more of these dialogues within bigger groups,” said van Riemsdyk, the Flyers’ team representative for the NHL Players Association. “I would think yesterday morning and into early afternoon, a lot of these conversations were being had. There’s probably 45 guys here kind of talking together. Obviously, we were on the phone with guys from the Edmonton bubble and guys from the Hockey Diversity Alliance, too. There were quite a few different people involved just talking through these sorts of things, what the NBA had done and what was the best course of action from us going forward.”
Indeed, going forward, the Flyers do have hockey to play in a best-ofseven series tied after two games. And if they are to survive this series against a better balanced but similarly talented Islanders team, it’s going to take as much focus as they can muster.
“We’re trying to win games. We have a team goal of winning a championship,” said van Riemsdyk, the free agent prize of two years ago who has been struggling to stay in the lineup on a daily basis this postseason. “Certainly you want to play every game and it sucks when you don’t get a chance to go out there and try to contribute. That being said, it’s all about the team right now. You be a good teammate. You work hard in practice. You try to make the most of your opportunities when you get back in the lineup. That’s pretty much what I’m focusing on. All the rest is just white noise.”