Patrick’s health at center of Flyers’ optimism

PHILADELPHIA » In trying to strike an optimistic chord, or even sketch an upbeat lead note on the eve of yet another irregular Flyers season, general manager Chuck Fletcher wisely turned his focus to last spring, when his team went on a tear just before the coronavirus left it all torn asunder.

Fletcher’s team went on a couple of late-season runs, including wins in 10 of 11 games prior to the March 12 pause of the 2019-20 season. The pause lasted months instead of weeks, the financially ailing league finally moving to a full series of Stanley Cup playoffs, in bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton.

The Flyers fared well at first, winning three round-robin games to emerge as the Eastern Conference’s top seed. They were thus heavily favored in a

first-round series against Montreal, but the Canadiens’ defense and goalie Carey Price made them work for what few goals they had. Still, back-toback Carter Hart shutouts earned a second round against the New York Islanders, and even the Flyers seemed surprised they reached a Game 7.

It was the deepest they had gone in a playoff round in eight years. In reality, however, the Flyers had reason to feel they underperformed.

So after a so-called training camp of just more than a week, as their season-opening game against the Pittsburgh Penguins Wednesday launched a 56game tour of East division play ... what now?

Well, try to go all prepandemic.

“I think considering the circumstances, we have probably accomplished what we wanted to accomplish in camp,” Fletcher said before the Flyers’ 6-3 win to open the campaign. “But the real test starts now. We are a deep team. We are going to need to defend well like we did last year and rediscover that identify that we had prior to the pause, when we were a really difficult team to play against.”

That leaves open the supposition that they weren’t so difficult to play against in the playoffs. Team captain Claude Giroux said the Islanders loss left “a bitter taste.” Leading scorer Travis Konecny didn’t get a goal in the playoffs. He said he “sat with it for a couple of weeks; I let it bother me.”

With Konency coming off 24 goals in 66 games, you get the idea he’ll soon re-find his scoring touch (he did Wednesday, with the fifth goal in the win). The Flyers need that from him and holdover leaders Giroux, Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek more than ever if they expect to survive a season of games against the Pens, Capitals, Bruins and three teams from New York that always are survival tests.

But Fletcher, after staying relatively inactive during the offseason, is banking on having a healthy Nolan Patrick back. The former No. 2 overall pick promptly assisted on the first of two first-period Flyers goals, and scored the second one against the Penguins in this first game Wednesday.

Fletcher called Patrick’s return from a more than year-long battle with migraine issues, “the biggest story in camp.”

“Not only to see that Nolan is feeling better physically and able to participate in camp, but after all the time he has missed, he has been able to go out and play at a high level, which is remarkable,” Fletcher said. “Regardless of why you missed time, to be able to come back and play at that level, and play with the speed, the pace, and the energy that he has played with has been great to see. His skill level has always spoken for itself. He sees the ice so well. He is a 200-foot player. He doesn’t cheat away from the puck. He doesn’t cheat defensively and has a very good shot.”

If Patrick can stay somewhere near that level, or even stay healthy most of the way, the Flyers could be as strong down the middle as any club in the East. That alone has the GM feeling good.

“I look at our top three centermen in Couturier, (Kevin) Hayes and Patrick, and all three of them are going to play important even-strength minutes,” Fletcher said. “All three of them are going to play power play minutes and all three of them are going to play (penalty kill) minutes. We are very fortunate. And obviously we have Scotty Laughton and even Morgan Frost who can move up in the lineup and play big minutes (there), too. We like our depth in the middle of the ice.”

How much of a difference having such depth down the middle can make in the playoffs is something worth waiting for. Of course, they have to get there first.

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The Flyers opened with the Penguins at Wells Fargo Center Wednesday night. They play their second game at home on Friday, also against the Penguins. They will play six other East Division opponents, most of them longtime bitter rivals, several times each across the other 54 games of the “regular” season.

They would never say there are games to be taken lightly, but even the players know this schedule is a gut-buster.

“It is very different than other seasons,” Giroux said. “You play every game against your own division, so every game is a fourpoint game. If you go down early, it will be hard to get back up in the standings. The start of the year is very important here.

“It is going to be huge. You lose two in a row and look at the standings, you will be falling down pretty quick. Even overtime and shootouts, those points are going to be huge now. They have always been huge, but they are going to be a little bit more now when you are in a playoff hunt and you are playing the team that is chasing you, or you’re chasing them. We can’t take any games for granted.”

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It was a little overdue but since this was Opening Night (Day?) in the NHL, the league finally released a list of players who were “unavailable to play or practice ... in accordance with the league’s COVID protocols.”

No shock that Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere was on the list, one of 22 players league-wide going through such protocols. Doesn’t mean he’s suffering any symptoms. Doesn’t mean he isn’t, either. That wasn’t released.

But Gostisbehere presumably was exposed or tested positive or both. He’s been out all week. It’s uncertain when he’ll be available.