Shayne Gostisbehere
For Saturday’s Round Robin finale against the Tampa Bay Lightning, a battle that will be for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, both teams will be missing a key part of their offense. Jake Voracek will not be available for the Flyers. Steven Stamkos will be out for the Lightning.
When training camp started a couple weeks ago and the Flyers started to work back to where they were before the pause, the pairings remained the same and they have been unchanged since then. Alain Vigneault said he doesn’t plan to change them anytime soon.
Beyond the Flyers 3-2 victory in the exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday afternoon, it was just nice to have hockey back. For the players, it was just nice to get into a competitive game.
The Flyers arrived in Toronto on Sunday afternoon and had their first practice in the bubble on Monday. Leading up to their exhibition game with Pittsburgh on Tuesday, the team focuses on adjusting to bubble life.
In total, 17 forwards of 18 in camp and 10 defensemen of 12 in camp made the roster. All four goalies from camp made the trip. Here is the Flyers final roster for Phase 4.
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.
For the entire season, Ivan Provorov and Matt Niskanen have been united together. Assistant coach Mike Yeo, who runs the defense, said that they have been the quickest to get up to speed.
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.
The Flyers were long rumored to be interested in and to hire Joel Quenneville as their head coach, but the veteran bench boss opted for Florida instead. The Flyers did hire another coach with a solid track record in Alain Vigneault, and he has proven to be a perfect fit in Philadelphia. But what makes him so successful?