Minor scorer Varone on hand for road trip
The Flyers have embarked on a five-game road trip with a first stop in Buffalo for a Saturday matinee. Along for the ride is a somewhat familiar face ... to the Sabres.
That would be Phil Varone, who is probably the best player in the Flyers’ organization not playing with the Flyers. Well, soon maybe.
Varone, 28, the most valuable player in the AHL in 2017-18 and lighting up the scoreboards again this season, finally earned a callup for the Flyers’ 1 o’clock game against the Sabres.
He will be in the Buffalo building in which he made his NHL debut on Jan. 23, 2014 for the Sabres against Carolina. The diminutive (5-10, 185) center has appeared in 50 NHL games with Buffalo and Ottawa, racking up five goals and 10 points.
But it’s in the top minor league that he’s made his mark. Coming off that MVP season, his first in Lehigh Valley and a campaign in which he tallied 23 goals and 70 points, Varone has 11 goals and 28 points in 22 Phantoms games this season.
The Ontario native was originally a fifth-round pick of the San Jose Sharks in 2009 but never signed with them. He signed a free agent deal with the Rochester Amerks in 2011 and led that AHL club in scoring for his first three seasons, earning an NHL one-way contract along the way in March 2012.
He was traded to the Senators on Feb. 27, 2016, and for the rest of that season and the following year would play eight games with the Senators and the rest with their AHL affiliate in Binghamton.
The Flyers then signed him to a two-way free agent deal in 2017. He noted in a recent club radio interview that he has been getting more penalty killing responsibilities with the Phantoms and is motivated by it.
“Last year, I felt like I needed to score,” Varone said. “Now I feel like I can contribute in different ways. I feel like when I have more responsibility on my plate, it brings more out of me.”
As for the Flyers, they need to bring more out of themselves, and since they seem to play better on the road maybe this trip that starts in Buffalo and winds out to Western Canada (Winnipeg Sunday, Calgary Wednesday, Edmonton Friday and Vancouver next Saturday) can be a good thing.
“It’s a challenging trip,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “Go on a trip out west, you have to be at your best.”
That’s what the Flyers weren’t Thursday night at home in a 4-3 overtime loss to Columbus, their first game under new GM Chuck Fletcher. By the way on the trip watching.
“There’s a lot of areas in that game last night that we weren’t happy with, but there were a lot of good areas in that game as well,” Hakstol said. “We have to take those positives and shore up some of the soft spots in our game.” ... he’ll be