Dale Weise (far left), Wayne Simmonds (second from left) and Nick Cousins were rotated on a line in Thursday's practice (Kate Frese/Sports Talk Philly)
By Rob Riches, Sports Talk Philly contributor
VOORHEES, N.J. — As the Flyers took the ice for their first practice since their 5-2 drubbing against the New York Rangers on Wednesday, Dave Hakstol decided to implement some variety up front.
Not that it should be too much to look into — especially with the pending return of Roman Lyubimov to the big club — but three out of four lines saw relatively big-time shake-ups.
Claude Giroux kept his top-line spot, centering Michael Raffl and Matt Read. Sean Couturier pivoted Travis Konecny and Jakub Voracek, in a revival of the second line at the start of the year. Brayden Schenn centered Wayne Simmonds and Dale Weise (with Nick Cousins making some occasional appearances on the line). The fourth line of Chris VandeVelde, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Boyd Gordon was the only one to remain intact.
"We're not doing anything drastic," coach Dave Hakstol said. "The Couturier line played well before, the other lines had two there in some respects. We feel it's a good time to make changes up front."
These changes were only applied to the forward units, as defensive pairings remained intact.
As the Flyers look to change things up and snap their recent five-game losing skid, Hakstol finally had a chance to implement a plan of action. The team did not take the ice on Thursday after the loss, taking what he insisted was a mandatory day off.
These lines are subject to further changes as well, and may not reflect the lines that the Flyers deploy this weekend. Sure, a four-player third line sounds fun in theory — it was certainly interesting to watch in practice — but one of those players has to sit as a healthy scratch.
One of the Flyers' leaders, Wayne Simmonds, understood the need to change things up. Considering the team has scored just eight goals in that five-game stretch, the need for offense remains crucial.
"We're not scoring goals, something's gotta change," Simmonds said. "We gotta get some urgency in our game, get some pep in our step."
The Flyers take the ice this weekend for a pair of tough matchups. They host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon — a team that's been inconsistent their last few games, yet still sits three points behind them in the Wild Card standings — and travel to Columbus on Sunday, taking on a team who's franchise-record 16-game winning streak came to an end last night.
"It doesn't matter who we're playing," Hakstol said. "Our process doesn't change. We'll go out and play a full 60 minutes, do the things that we do, and do them very well."
