Tag: Kevin Hayes

Moments before the team took the ice for the scrimmage on Saturday, GM Chuck Fletcher announced that Jake Voracek was “unable to participate.” According to the NHL’s protocol, that is the only update teams are able to give on absent players. So there is no knowledge if Voracek’s absence is injury-related, illness-related or simply a maintenance issue.

From the beginning, Alain Vigneault brought in an authority and leadership that was lacking in the Flyers locker room. That leadership and guidance has given Vigneault a strong case for a Jack Adams Award nomination.

The Flyers were back on the ice for Day 1 of Phase 3 training camps as they prepare for the return to play and the 24-team playoff that is about to take place and the first practice was a test of conditioning to evaluate where each player is after a four-month pause.

As Phase 3 of the NHL’s return-to-play plan begin, the Flyers unveiled their roster for training camp on Monday morning.

With the regular season officially over, the Flyers started to hand out team awards, usually reserved for the final home game of the regular season, throughout the course of the week.

With everything going their way, pushing pause had to be difficult. Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher joined Mike Gill on The Sports Bash on 97.3 ESPN on Monday afternoon and offered his thoughts.

Ron Hextall was fired as Flyers GM over a year ago in late November of 2018 and yet his fingerprints remain all over this roster. In an interview with NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark, Hextall expressed his feelings for the current team and the young players experiencing some success.

The NHL’s regular season was scheduled to end last Saturday and the Stanley Cup Playoffs would have started two days ago on Wednesday. The Flyers would have not only been there, but were starting to feel they had something special brewing.

Over the course of the season suspension, the NHL put together lists of the top plays for each team. There are still several games Flyers fans can look back on with great fondness this season, especially as the team started to make a push for the playoffs and challenged for a division title. So with that, here are our Top 10 games of the Flyers 2019-20 season (so far).

The NHL has been releasing videos of the Top 10 plays for each team so far this season. The Flyers video was released a couple of weeks ago and here is a look at the list.

By now, everyone knows of the viral videos of Kevin Hayes and his nicknames for teammates or mic’d up moments on the ice this season. During the NHL’s current suspension of play, Hayes is letting that personality shine off the ice, and fans have Chuck Fletcher to thank for it shining through.

It remains a mystery at this point if and when the season will return. Who knows how much of a regular season will be left after this suspension? Who knows what the playoffs will look like? But whenever the league comes out of this stoppage and gets back to playing, let it be known that the Flyers window to compete is just opening up.

It was only natural to feel disappointment that the NHL season was put on pause at a time when the Flyers were the hottest team in the league. But for the sake of one of the driving forces behind the success and unity of this year’s team, it was a necessary stoppage that provided a lot of perspective.

The Flyers face the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night looking for their 10th straight win. They can also move into first place in the Metro with a win of any kind.

The Flyers could have a chance to move into first place in the Metropolitan Division, depending on Saturday’s afternoon’s game between the Capitals and Penguins, when they take on the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night.

The Flyers provided a timeline for James van Riemsdyk’s injury, suffered in the Flyers win in Washington on Wednesday night. van Riemsdyk will miss four-to-six weeks with a broken right index finger.

The Flyers will face a well-rested Carolina Hurricanes team that has not played since a 4-3 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens last Saturday. The Hurricanes are currently the first team out of the playoffs, three points behind the Islanders for the final wildcard spot.

The Flyers fell behind in the first, but responded with a strong second and third period to secure their third win of the season against the Washington Capitals, claiming a 5-2 victory in Washington on Wednesday night.

With the Flyers on a six-game winning streak and in second place in the heavyweight Metropolitan Division, it feels like night and day compared to just a year ago.

In the middle of a game where the scoreboard showed 4-1 and 5-1 for most of the third period, it is the small defensive plays that will quickly be forgotten, but those little plays have the Flyers where they are. Where they are, on Saturday morning, is second in the Metropolitan Division and on a five-game winning streak.

Friday’s game doesn’t lock the Flyers into anything just yet, but it was another statement that this team continues to put together solid games within the division and draws closer to solidifying their spot. Giroux was a big player in that result again, scoring twice in the Flyers 5-2 win over the Rangers.

A recent surge has the Rangers just two points out of a playoff spot, while the Flyers, on a four-game winning streak of their own, look to maintain their place in third in the Metro with their sights now firmly set on taking another step and trying to catch the teams at the top.

For Nate Thompson and Derek Grant, who were literally dropped into a playoff race at the trade deadline, there should be some added motivation. They both had a front row seat as their next team continued to make that playoff push with another win on Tuesday.

Kevin Hayes scored two goals and had a three-point game as the Flyers extended their winning streak to four games with a 4-2 win over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night at Wells Fargo Center.

That’s perhaps the biggest difference between the Flyers of this season and the Flyers of last season and years past. This team believes they are never out of a game. More times than not, they have risen to the occasion. There have been times when people want to pronounce them dead for a poor performance or a crushing loss, only to have them rise to the occasion the very next game.

In overtime, it was Kevin Hayes playing hero, scoring the game-winning goal with 1:09 remaining to give the Flyers a 4-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night.

When the dust settled from Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the scoreboard read 5-1 in favor of the Flyers. It hardly felt like a game that the Flyers had won by four goals in rather convincing fashion. 

Claude Giroux became the Flyers all-time leader in power-play assists with 235, getting the record-breaker on a Jake Voracek power-play goal to cap the scoring in a 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Flyers next six games come against teams right in the thick of the playoff race. For now, the focus is simply on the next one, which comes against the Florida Panthers at Wells Fargo Center on Monday night.