Flyers Training Camp Day 2 Update: Morin Learning New Position on Fly

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

The Flyers shifted gears on their practice on Tuesday, turning the attention to offensive zone play after focusing on defensive play on Day 1. The practice was followed by a 40-minute scrimmage with two 20-minute periods. 

The scrimmage was much more physical on Day 2 as the juices continue to flow for players getting their first time on ice together as a group. Team Orange and Team Black skated to a 1-1 tie. The two goals were scored by Kevin Hayes and Erik Gustafsson. A shootout session followed the scrimmage to close out the day on ice.

The combinations for Day 2 were as follows:

Group A

Claude Giroux-Sean Couturier-Linus Sandin
Oskar Lindblom-Nolan Patrick-Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Michael Raffl-Kevin Hayes-Zayde Wisdom
James van Riemsdyk-Morgan Frost-Joel Farabee

Egor Zamula-Phil Myers
Robert Hagg-Shayne Gostisbehere
Ivan Provorov – Mark Friedman
Travis Sanheim – Derrick Pouliot

Carter Hart and Brian Elliott were once again the goalies in Group A. 

Group B

Carsen Twarynski-Scott Laughton-Wade Allison
Erik Gustafsson-Justin Braun
Sam Morin-Connor Bunnaman-Travis Konecny
Tyson Foerster/Max Willman-Andy Andreoff-Jake Voracek

Tyler Wotherspoon-Justin Braun
Chris Bigras – Nate Prosser

Goalies in Group B were Alex Lyon, Felix Sandstrom and Roddy Ross.

One of the bigger stories entering camp was the change of position for Sam Morin. Just days before camp began, it was announced Morin was being moved to left wing, where it would give him a better chance to make the roster.

This will be a work in progress for Morin, who is trying his best to learn on the fly. He continues to watch film of Matt Martin, and took some advice from Danny Briere during practice as well as talking to other teammates about the position as well.

Perhaps the biggest difference for Morin is the amount of mobility that is required as a forward and the conditioning needed to be fresh and energetic on every shift.

“I think yesterday was easier than I thought. I think I played pretty well yesterday. I think today was a bit harder for me. Conditioning wise, the hardest thing switching wise is conditioning and moving my feet and stuff like that,” Morin said. “I didn’t play hockey for so long. Even if you work pretty hard, you need to play games and stuff to get your game shape going, that is a work in progress for me right now, but I am doing some good stuff out there and I think I had some mistakes today. But I did some good stuff.”

“Sam has spent a lot of time with [Ian Laperriere] and he spent some time with Danny Briere also. Today he came in and he went over his shifts in the scrimmage yesterday. This is a work in progress. There’s two things – he’s never played as a forward, and the last three years he’s been basically hurt,” Alain Vigneault said. “He’s got to get his conditioning, his timing, and he’s got to learn this new position. Not a lot of time. He’s working extremely hard and we’re working with him. We’ll see how it all unfolds in the next little while here.”

As Morin continues to try to make progress at a new position, knowing his career is on the line, the rest of the team continues to make preparations for the season. Wednesday will be another day of practice with another scrimmage before the team has a complete off day on Thursday. Only three more days of camp will remain following the off day, with the countdown now down to eight more days until the season opener.

It’s why the physicality of the scrimmage was increased. With little time to get into game shape, Vigneault and the coaching staff want the team to take every opportunity to treat these scrimmages as if they were playing in a game. 

“It’s one thing that we talked to our team this morning prior to our video meeting and our pre-ice was best way to prepare ourselves is when you’re doing a drill or you’re scrimmaging right now, if you have an opportunity to finish your check, finish your check. It’s good for you and it’s also good for your teammate,” Vigneault said. “We talked about that today. Players have been scrimmaging for weeks now, but when they’re scrimmaging and playing pond hockey, it is exactly that, it’s pond hockey. This is about us getting ready for the 13th of January. When it is time to finish a play, stick on puck or take your man out of the equation, you have to do that. We talked about it. I was happy to see the guys follow up with it during the practice and the scrimmage.”