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Bill Meltzer

Sports Editor

Articles by Bill Meltzer (42)

Snider Left Flyers Legacy in Good Hands

April 11, 2016 will always be remembered as a sad day in Philadelphia sports history; the day that the Flyers, the city, the NHL and the entire hockey world lost Ed Snider to cancer at age 83. He was more than just an owner. He was an icon of self-made success, toughness balanced by compassion […]

Bill Meltzer  •  11 Apr 2016
More than ACL Recovery to Gostisbehere’s Masterton Nomination

Embed from Getty Images   When it was announced on Monday morning that Philadelphia Flyers rookie defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere has been nominated for the 2015-16 Masterton Trophy by the Philadelphia chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, much of the focus was placed on his recovery from a partial anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear last […]

Bill Meltzer  •  30 Mar 2016
Playoff Possibilities Abound for the Flyers

Embed from Getty Images   More and more, it seems that the fate of the 2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers will come right down to the final weekend of the season. While most of the focus is on whether the Flyers can beat out the Detroit Red Wings for the lower wildcard seed in the Eastern Conference, […]

Bill Meltzer  •  29 Mar 2016
6-on-5 Woes, Faulty Close-Outs Costing Flyers

Under first-year head coach Dave Hakstol, the Philadelphia Flyers have been a pretty good team defensively at five-on-five. The club has yielded 112 goals at five-on-five (while scoring 120); tied for the fifth fewest goals against with the two teams skating at full strength. However, when the other team has its goalie pulled to skate […]

Bill Meltzer  •  24 Mar 2016
The ‘Ghosts’ of Flyers Calder Candidates past

No Philadelphia Flyers rookie has ever won the Calder Trophy. It is not that they have not had their share of viable candidates over the years. They've had a few top-end finishers in the balloting and  their fair share who've earned NHL All-Rookie Team selection honors after the season but never an NHL rookie of […]

Bill Meltzer  •  16 Mar 2016
Flyers Team Awards: Who are the Front-Runners?

  As a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, I vote in several of the Flyers' team awards. While I will not reveal for whom I currently plan to vote, here's who I think are the frontrunners to win each of the main categories.  

Bill Meltzer  •  10 Mar 2016
Selecting 3 Stars tougher than it seems

Periodically, I am asked to do the three-star selection at Flyers home games at the Wells Fargo Center. The process is harder than it may look.

Bill Meltzer  •  26 Feb 2016
Where does ‘Ghost’ rank among Flyers rookie defensemen?

Photo courtesy of Flyers/ Zack Hill By the time the 2015-16 season is over, Shayne Gostisbehere has a good chance at posting the best individual rookie season by a Flyers defenseman in franchise history, although the team itself is not as good as the ones for whom his predecessors played. That has required him to […]

Bill Meltzer  •  20 Feb 2016
The Couturier Effect

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Philadelphia Flyers were two distinctly different hockey clubs based on the presence or absence of a single player: Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Mark Howe. In the last three years of his Flyers career, struggling with a chronic bad back and other injury issues, Howe was […]

Bill Meltzer  •  11 Feb 2016
Flyers give Stolarz a vote of confidence as big decision looms

Photo: Nina Weiss/Flyerdelphia  Philadelphia Flyers rookie goaltender Anthony Stolarz scarcely resembles the player who, on July 9, 2012, stepped onto the ice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ, for the first day of his first Development Camp. Although the towering teenager was a fine natural athlete and a confident, well-spoken young man even then, he […]

Bill Meltzer  •  05 Feb 2016