Flyers ready to roll at Skate Zone
If there’s one real downer about the resumption of the NHL season, such as it is, it’s that this isn’t taking place in the good ol’ days.
With the coronavirus essentially on hiatus in Canada – of course, everywhere else is a hiatus compared to how it’s magically re-appearing in the U.S. – the NHL will house its Eastern Conference teams in Toronto and its Western Conference teams in Edmonton for two respective mini-tournaments to essentially determine a Stanley Cup playoff field. After that, a nearly full complement of playoff games, also held in those respective cities, will take place.
The Flyers, by virtue of their nine wins over their last 10 games before the season was “paused” on March 12, have gotten themselves into a top-4 spot in the East. That means a mini-tourney with Boston, Washington and Tampa Bay to determine the conference’s top seeds – you know, for television money-making purposes only – while eight other conference teams battle for four remaining conference playoff spots in a separate series of games.
Ah, the regular season never really meant much in this league, anyway.
Yet if this were the bad old days of, say, a decade or more ago, this thing would really be fun. That’s
“I think it’s going to be pretty cool. Obviously we’ve never been in this situation, no one has. We don’t really know what’s going on, but it’s going to be a lot of fun just to be with the guys and spend that much time with them. And we’ll see what happens.”
– Flyers’ Scott Laughton on training camp at Flyers’ Skate Zone
because health and financial concerns have the league really housing its teams in a bubble.
For example, the Flyers will share tight-knit Toronto hotel space with players from the Lightning, Bruins, Caps and Penguins.
Wouldn’t you have loved to have seen a 1990ish version of this, say with Washington’s Dale Hunter mixing it up in the hotel coffee shop with Craig Berube and Pittsburgh’s Jay Caufield? Rick Tocchet could jump in for good measure, whether he was wearing a Flyers or Penguins uni.
Ah, but the league is comprised of only nice, educated hockey kids now, all sharing their love of the game in unionized consort and brotherhood. Even when the NHL comically creates a 24-team “playoff” season.
For the Flyers, their Toronto festival will kick off Aug. 2, when they take on the Bruins. That’s the same conference favorite Boston team that dealt the Flyers a 2-0 defeat in their last game on March 10, ending what had been a nine-game winning streak.
Not a bad way to return.
First, however, comes a two-week training camp setup at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, N.J., which kicks off Monday morning.
“It’s awesome,” Scott Laughton said. “More guys are trickling in every day. Just to have a little bit of a normal schedule, and now to be able to go on the ice and practice your skills with a bunch of other guys ... It’s just good to be around the guys, especially the way we were going at the end of the year. Just the way we were rolling. It’s good to get back on track.”
That is, if they get back on track.
“I think it’s going to be pretty cool,” Laughton said. “Obviously we’ve never been in this situation, no one has. We don’t really know what’s going on, but it’s going to be a lot of fun just to be with the guys and spend that much time with them. And we’ll see what happens. I think most teams will be healthy so it’s going to be a good test for us.”
Although the Flyers will enter this odd postseason with the fourthbest East record, they could wind up as the conference’s top seed. They could also wonder where all those months of coming together went if they suddenly can’t recapture that feeling that sent them to a 18-6-1 mark from Jan. 8 through to what is now considered the end of the regular season on March 10.
Laughton thinks that roll can be resumed in a bigger way.
“I really do,” he said. “I just think the way we were playing at the end of the (season), hopefully we can keep rolling that in, and continue that momentum. It’s hard when you’ve been off for this long but our older guys have been in contact with everyone, and everyone’s been in contact with group chats. Hopefully we stick together here and we make a little run.”
“It’s super-exciting,” defenseman Travis Sanheim added. “We’ve got a good team. We were gearing up. We were having a good stretch run, we have a good chemistry between young players and some veterans and some guys in their prime. We’re looking for a deep run here in the playoffs and a chance to win it all.”