Farabee on track to clear a financial hurdle
It’s not like Joel Farabee sits in his hotel room scratching off the days on a Marriott-issue desktop calendar. It’s also not like he isn’t aware of the passing of hockey time.
Three more games and the rookie center out of Boston University will have given the Flyers just another solid reason to keep him on the major league club. One that’s more financial in nature than anything else.
“It’s definitely something I think about,” Farabee said Monday. “Obviously if I play
10 games it burns a year off my ELC.”
That would be the entry-level contract Farabee signed in March, after only one season at BU. Farabee, the Flyers’ No. 1 draft pick in
2018, had averaged a point per game with one of the nation’s top collegiate programs and wanted to expedite his development.
So he signed with the Flyers and after a summer training program bent on adding 15 pounds of muscle, performed well enough in camp to be a final cut, even going so far as making the trip to Europe when the Flyers opened the season in Prague.
Farabee would come home and start with the Phantoms, and after scoring three goals and an assist in four games, was brought back when Nolan Patrick’s migrane headaches put him down for the foreseeable future and opened a scoring-line forward spot. Now the immediate future is wide open for Farabee, who would only have one year left on his rookie deal beyond this one if he sticks beyond the 10-game limit. Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen, center, makes save on a shot by the Flyers’ Joel Farabee (49) as players crash the net during a game Saturday in Philadelphia.
“It’s something I want to happen,” he said. “You want to get to that next contract as soon as possible, but I think I’m just enjoying the moment right now. If I get to 10 games, I do, but while I’m here I have to help the team win.”
Farabee scored his first goal Friday against the Devils. He had what should have been his first goal, and an additional assist, in his second Flyers game, Oct. 24 in Chicago. But both were wiped out on offside challenges where linemate Kevin Hayes was caught out of position.
Hayes joked later — he was allowed to because the Flyers won that game — that his 19-year-old linemate was a step too slow on one and a step too fast on the other. But after a line change and
another four games, Farabee finally got that first goal. The promise for many more is there, as Farabee’s recent promotion put him on right wing next to Claude Giroux and across from James van Riemsdyk.
“I just mixed the lines,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “I’m just trying to get the right type of defensive and offensive chemistry. I didn’t think in the New Jersey game that (Giroux’s) line had been as effective as they could be, so I just made a little, subtle change there and it certainly gives us balance through the top nine forwards.”
It also dropped Jake Voracek to a third line with Hayes and Michael Raffl, which would seem to add to the pressure on Farabee to perform.
As it is, though, he says that’s not so.
“Right now I don’t think I’m relied on as much to score, to put up as many points as maybe some of the older guys,” Farabee said. “That helps me out a bit, not having that pressure that I’d need to (score) points.”
That would seem to be a healthy vote of confidence in keeping the kid from Cicero, N.Y., with the big club. But Farabee figures the money numbers are far less important to the Flyers’ brass than what he can produce on the ice.
“I think I’m getting a lot of chances and creating a lot of chances and if I keep doing that, the points are going to come,” Farabee said. “I’m just working my way to stay here, because I can still go down (to the Phantoms) at any point.”
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With the Carolina Hurricanes coming to Wells Fargo Center Tuesday, James van Riemsdyk has another chance to one-up his brother, Trevor.
“I think he’s got the edge now 4-3, but I’m not positive,” said JVR, counting the goals each has scored in the lineup against each other. “I blew a shot by him one time. He was the screen in front and I got a shot around him and scored. So that was a highlight.
“It’s always something we look forward to as a family. My parents are coming down tonight so we’ll grab a bite to eat when he gets in here.”
As the first hockey family of Middletown, N.J.,
30-year-old JVR and
28-year-old TVR have always had a sibling rivalry, though not so much now that they’ve matured.
“Me and Trevor have more of a mutual respect kind of relationship where we don’t give each other too much (crap) now,” JVR said. “But if it was my youngest brother we ‘d be letting him know it every time the puck got stolen from him. But not me and Trevor, it’s a little bit different. We don’t ride each other as much as we used to when we were growing up.”
That’s apparently reserved for 23-year-old Brendan, a fifth-year, undrafted senior at Northeastern University. And he takes the crap?
“Yeah, now we just gang up on the youngest one and see how long it takes to see him lose his temper,” the eldest van Riemsdyk said.
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Sean Couturier wound up taking 10 faceoffs against the Maple Leafs in a 4-3 shootout loss Saturday. That was about 10 more than he was originally supposed to take, thanks to what Vigneault admitted Monday was a shoulder strain.
“I got reprimanded (for that), by our medical guys,” Vigneault said with a laugh. “They told me, ‘You weren’t going to do that’ ... but at the end of the day it’s the young man (deciding) when that situation happens.”
As it stands now, Vigneault said he’s been told Couturier is to be faceofffree for the next four to seven days.
Couturier leads the NHL in faceoff percentage, but with his weakened shoulder, he lost his first four draws against the Maple Leafs before winning a few later in the game, including one very big one in overtime.
“I’m not the one who told him to take them, but I’ll take the blame,” Vigneault said with a semi-straight face. “But if we want this to heal we’re better off not letting him take faceoffs. I will try to be more vigilant as we move forward.”
••• Carter Hart will start in net Tuesday. But with four games in six days, Vigneault said Hart will split the starts with Brian Elliott ... Ivan Provorov remains the point quarterback on the No. 1 powerplay unit ahead of Shayne Gostisbehere. “Ghost, in our minds coming in, was the power-play guy,” Vigneault said. “He’s been given the opportunity and I need him to show more on that. I need him to show more offensive skill. I know he’s trying real hard and he’s coming in with a good mindset and a good attitude as far as work ethic, but he needs to show more.”