Category: Flyers/NHL

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Flyers are getting an early present for the holidays.

Cam York will return to the lineup on Sunday when the Flyers take on the Carolina Hurricanes (5 p.m., NBCSP).

“Play a simple game early. That’s the way you get back in the game, I think,” coach Rick Tocchet said about the defenseman who has missed four games. “So hopefully, he just does whatever the first pass is, makes the first pass, and just lets the game come to you.”

York has been out with an upper-body injury since Dec. 3, suffered against the Buffalo Sabres. The exact moment when the injury occurred has not been revealed, but he did not return after being involved in a scrum following Trevor Zegras being boarded by Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin with 3 minutes, 10 seconds left in the second period.

It’s also possible that the high hit by Buffalo forward Jason Zucker behind the Flyers’ net with 13:50 left in the period is what Tocchet referred to postgame. The hit was a little late as the blueliner skated back for the puck.

“He’s going to have a really hard practice today,” Tocchet said about York at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday before the Flyers lost in overtime to the Vegas Golden Knights. “Not hitting, but like a lot of pushing and shoving on the ice, and see how he reacts off it. I think this is the day we’ll know how close he is to playing.”

And it looks like he’s good to go.

York will be back alongside Travis Sanheim, with Nick Seeler dropping back to the third pairing with Noah Juulsen. Jamie Drysdale and Emil Andrae remain as the second pair.

Ty Murchison, who made his NHL debut Dec. 9 in the Flyers’ win against the San Jose Sharks, will come out of the lineup. A fifth-round pick in 2021, the 22-year-old looked steady on the blue line while averaging 15 minutes of ice time and earning a plus-minus of plus-1.

“It’s huge,” Tocchet said of York coming back to stabilize the defense before adding unprompted: “It’s really organizational depth when you’ve got a guy like Murchison comes up and plays well for us.”

At the time of his injury, York was averaging 23:31 a night, ranking him 25th in the NHL. Sanheim was fifth at 25:16 with 11 points in 26 games and is one second more in the four games without his partner, notching three assists.

According to Money Puck, Sanheim and York are among only 31 pairs in the NHL that have skated at least 300 minutes together. Although they rank 29th in expected goals for (12.9), they are tied for seventh with the Washington Capitals’ Jakob Chychrun and Matt Roy in expected goals against (14.1) while playing against the league’s top lines.

There’s been a ripple effect without York as Drysdale went from 21:34 to 22:45, Andrae from 16:16 to 21:41, and Seeler from 19:09 to 22:04 alongside Sanheim. York should help balance that out — and could help the power play.

“Yeah, 100%,” Tocchet said when asked about that. “We got Sanny, himself, and [Drysdale] and put Emil on the second unit. So we’re looking for somebody to step up. York is a guy who, early on with, especially with Trevor [Zegras], they had some chemistry, so, yeah, we’re looking at all options.”

In his 23 games this season, York has one goal and 12 points, with his lone goal and six points on the power play. The Flyers’ power play is tied for 23rd in the NHL with the Nashville Predators, and it has scored 14 times this season, tied for the third fewest in the league.

Breakaways

Defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen is also on the road trip, and Tocchet again added that “Risto is coming [back] soon, so going to add two quality good depth.” … Goalie Dan Vladař will start in goal for the Flyers. It is his first game against the Hurricanes this season.

Bobby Brink was blunt about the Flyers’ 4-3 shootout loss to Carolina.

“We were pretty bad,” Brink said of the second period that saw the Flyers’ 2-0 lead evaporate Saturday night at the Xfinity Mobile Arena. “We just lost battles, didn’t support each other. Stopped taking it to them. Let them take it to us.”

The Flyers jumped out to an early lead in the first period. Brink scored the first goal of the game with a snipe off a Trevor Zegras zone entry, and Zegras capped off his excellent first period with a goal of his own, burying a feed from Konecny behind the net.

The Canes’ man-on-man coverage system is notoriously suffocating defensively, and the Flyers felt it in the second period, struggling to break the puck up the ice and generate any consistent offensive zone time.

Ty Murchison, playing his third game in place of the injured Cam York, turned the puck over on a breakout to former Flyer Shayne Gostisbehere. He fired one quick pass to Nikolaj Ehlers, who sniped the puck over Samuel Ersson’s shoulder to put Carolina on the board. With just over five minutes to go in the period, Canes defenseman Alexander Nikishin tied it with a huge slap shot from the blue line.

“Carolina is a pressure team,” said Flyers coach Rick Tocchet. “You’ve got to go at them with pressure. I think we backed off. We started to stop skating. We need some wall play. If we made a couple wall plays, we would have had two or three three-on-ones, but Carolina puts a lot of pressure. I think they’re the worst team when it comes to odd-man rushes. So that’s when you really need to dig in.”

The Flyers improved a bit in the third period, but still struggled to get on the board.

“It was better than the second, but I don’t know, we’ve got to have a better effort than that,” Brink said.

Late in the third, Seth Jarvis snuck past the Flyers’ defense and easily tucked the puck in one-on-one against Ersson. That might’ve been just the kick the Flyers needed, because just 23 seconds later, Carl Grundström took advantage of a two-on-one opportunity and beat Pyotr Kochetkov to tie the game at three on just the Flyers’ second shot of the period.

Grundström was called up on Dec. 2 in place of the injured Tyson Foerster, and is on a three-game point streak, including the game-winner in San Jose and the game-tying goal against Carolina.

“He can skate, and he’s not afraid to get inside,” Tocchet said. “When you’re a player in the NHL and you can skate and you’re an inside player, you can pay the mortgage, that’s how you do it. I think that he wants to stay here. You can tell. What a couple of big goals for us so far.”

Forcing overtime on Saturday wasn’t enough for the Flyers, who fell in the shootout for the first time this season after five wins.

The Flyers’ three-on-three struggles continued, with their best chance coming off a two-on-one opportunity from Zegras and Konecny, but Zegras flubbed the pass, allowing Kochetkov to make an easy save, and Ersson made a strong save on Jordan Staal with just seconds to play.

Zegras had his first shootout miss of the year. Brink, Konecny, and Michkov also missed, and Jackson Blake won it for Carolina in the fourth round.

The Flyers won’t have much time to marinate in what went wrong, with another matchup against Carolina in Raleigh on the docket for Sunday night. They hope they can get another period like the first, and to avoid a repeat of the second.

“They were doing a good job of coming down on our wingers on the wall,” Zegras said. I thought in the D-zone, some faceoff stuff we’ve probably got to clean up. I think just build off that first period, because I thought we were doing some good stuff.”

Up next

The Flyers will play Carolina at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh on Sunday at 5 p.m. ET. The game will air on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the fourth line’s struggles and lack of contributions in the goal column on the scoresheet.

Enter Carl Grundström.

Recalled on Dec. 2, after Tyson Foerster went down with an upper-body injury the night before against the Pittsburgh Penguins — he will be out for 2-3 months — the Swede sat patiently waiting for his turn to enter the lineup. It came on Dec. 9, and he made his case known with a sweet deflection goal — the game-winner — against the team the Flyers acquired him from, the San Jose Sharks.

Two nights later, against the visiting Vegas Golden Knights, he put pressure on defenseman Brayden McNabb, creating a turnover along the boards in the offensive zone. Seconds later, the puck was in the back of the net off a one-timer by defenseman Noah Juulsen to tie the game, 2-2, in the Flyers’ 3-2 overtime loss.

“I bring a lot of energy,” Grundström said on Saturday morning after the Flyers’ morning skate. “Feel like, try to play hard. Be direct.

“I think I’m bringing the game I want to bring. Obviously, I can probably do better, but it’s getting better and better, I feel like.”

In Voorhees, Grundström was back on the fourth line with Garnet Hathaway and Rodrigo Ābols. He’s started every game that way, but on Thursday, he was moved up to the third line with Noah Cates and Bobby Brink.

And his minutes have been inching up. He played 10 minutes, 17 seconds in his Flyers debut against the Ottawa Senators on Nov. 8. That climbed to 12:41 on Thursday.

“Well, I think he’s an NHL player, so, honestly, a lot of credit to Danny getting him here, because he’s a guy that’s a depth guy,” coach Rick Tocchet said of the forward who was acquired in the deal that sent the Ryan Ellis contract west. “I think there’s some stuff he does that I really like, and you can tell he wants more. I like that. So, how we use him, there’s a lot of options for me.”

And how will Tocchet use the forward he saw play a bunch when the former was the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks and the latter was a member of the Los Angeles Kings across six seasons and the Sharks?

“He’s a smart guy. He’s reliable. He can penalty kill,” said Tocchet of Grundström, who played on the penalty kill for 39 seconds against the Sharks and has 56 total seconds this season.

“When you have a guy, whether he plays fourth line or third line, whatever he plays, it’s good to have that guy who can penalty kill. You can get some minutes out of him. It’s not just top-heavy penalty killers and stuff. So I think we’re giving him a little bit more and more PK.”

At even strength, Grundström brings a similar element to the fourth line as Nikita Grebenkin, 22, who was elevated to the third line when Foerster went down, but flip-flopped with him on Thursday. They both play tough on the wall and like to put pressure on the defense, although the 28-year-old Grundström has more NHL experience.

While it’s only been 9:24 of ice time, according to Natural Stat Trick, when the fourth line is on the ice with him, the Flyers have 54.55% of the Corsi For — with either Nic Deslauriers or Grebenkin it is below 50%. They also have 50% of the shots, 100% of the scoring chances (1-0) and, of course, the goal.

“Intangibles, a little confidence, too. Scoring, getting a goal, and then bringing the other attributes,” Hathaway said when asked about adding Grundström to the left wing.

“He’s relentless. I think you’ve seen on every shift. He helped create Jules’ goal the other night, with just battling inside the blue line, making a 50-50 puck ours, and staying on and holding on to pucks longer. I think that’s attributed to more [offensive]-zone time for us and getting chances after that.”

Breakaways

Defensemen Rasmus Ristolainen and Cam York will be on the four-game road trip that begins Sunday against the Hurricanes in Carolina (5 p.m., NBCSP). According to Tocchet, Ristolainen “is close to playing” and York is ready, adding, “whether he plays tomorrow or the next game, he’s close.” … Goalie Sam Ersson will start on Saturday in the first game of a home-and-home with the Hurricanes. Therefore, it is expected that Dan Vladař will play on Sunday. … The Flyers will have the same lineup, which means defenseman Ty Murchison will play his third NHL game.

Rick Tocchet’s news conference after the Flyers’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday wasn’t short like his predecessor was known for — in fact, he told the team’s media relations staff he was OK to keep answering questions — but for the first time since becoming the Flyers’ head coach, he sounded very frustrated.

“I can name 10 guys that didn’t do anything,” he said during one of his answers. “You guys can write whatever story.”

Tocchet tried to remain positive as his squad hung with a perennial Stanley Cup contender at Xfinity Mobile Arena. But 29 games in, it’s clear the coach wants to see improvements and implementation of his systems.

Two reasons Tocchet wasn’t frustrated

Five-on-five

Tocchet did say he thought that Flyers played played a good game and executed the game plan at five-on-five — and they did.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers had 54.84% of the chances in the first period and 51.85% in the third period. Vegas had the advantage in the middle frame, but also by a slim margin of 52.17%.

The Flyers outshot the Golden Knights by one, and while they did allow two more high-danger chances to the opposition, the Flyers outscored Vegas 2-1.

Four players he liked

For defenseman Noah Juulsen, the season started a little iffy, and there were questions about whether he was ready to play steady minutes after missing a considerable amount of time following sports hernia surgery in February.

But the rust has worn off, and he has become the perfect seventh defenseman — someone who can be inserted into the lineup and play well when there are injuries, as there has been since the start of the season with Rasmus Ristolainen, who is inching his way back from his own surgery.

On Thursday night, Juulsen was rewarded with his first goal in Philly, a tally that Tocchet, who coached him in Vancouver, too, called “a great shot.”

“I think when someone puts in the perfect spot, like [Christian Dvorak] did, and you pound it, it comes off pretty hot usually for most guys in the league,” Juulsen said of his one-timer from the left face-off circle.

Speaking of Dvorak, when asked about his response after his turnover led to the opening goal by Zach Whitecloud, Tocchet liked how he battled back.

“He was disappointed in that. We talked about that,” Tocchet said with a frustrating pause and sigh about the turnover just inside the Vegas blue line, “this morning. When there’s no speed, you’ve got to get it deep. … That’s responsible all year, something bad happens, and we come back.”

Carl Grundström, in his third game with the Flyers, was moved up in the lineup. By the third period, he was solidly on a line with Noah Cates and Bobby Brink.

“I liked his game,” Tocchet said of the Swede, who finished with a season high 12:41 and got an assist on Juulsen’s goal. “I thought he’d be better on that kind of matchup” against the Jack Eichel line or Mitch Marner, who Brink and Cates were assigned to for most of the night.

It says a lot when a kid playing in his second NHL game has his name brought up unprompted by the head coach. Tocchet said of Ty Murchison “for a young kid again, he looked poised out there.” And he did. Skating 13:41, he was on the ice for Zegras’ backdoor goal to tie the game at 1, and just 1:43 into the game, he laid a monster hit on Kaedan Korczak to set the tone.

Two reasons Tocchet was frustrated

Overtime

“It’s a little disappointing how it ended, sour taste,” he said of the overtime winner by Mark Stone after Travis Konecny fanned on the puck and Eichel was able to maintain possession and find Stone backdoor.

But Tocchet wasn’t happy with the overtime session as a whole. Despite having time in the offensive zone, the Flyers did not register a single shot across the extra session that lasted almost three minutes. Vegas had one blocked shot and two shots on goal.

“[Travis Sanheim] right in the middle of the ice and we pass it like, those are the things you just can’t do,” Tocchet said. “You’ve got to take the shot. It’s right there. He’s got a hell of a shot. We’re looking maybe too cute, I don’t know, but we’ve got to put our finger on it.”

The Flyers are 2-4 in overtime while knowing that, if the game gets there, a perfect 5-0 is on the horizon in the shootout. Asked if the Flyers weren’t playing aggressively enough because they know that if they get it to a shootout, there’s a good chance they win: “I don’t know, maybe in the subconscious of their mind, but not for us,” he said of the coaches.

The power play

“Did you see the first two power plays?” Tocchet retorted when asked about the change in the units in the third period that saw Cates and Brink on the top unit with Zegras, Konecny, and Jamie Drysdale, who made a return to the power play in the game.

Earlier in the night, that unit was Owen Tippett, Drysdale, Zegras, Konecny, and Michkov. Emil Andrae and Sanheim also saw power play time on the point with them across the night.

“What would you have done?” Tocchet added with a shrug and a “There you go.”

Tocchet did continue saying that he didn’t want to get negative because they had a good game, but it sure feels like the former NHLer hit a rite of passage as a Flyers coach.

As he said, “I know the coaches are a little frustrated because [we sound] like a broken record.”

So, is everyone else starting to have flashbacks, too?

The power play is 23rd in the NHL (17.9%). Through 29 games and 81 power-play opportunities, the Flyers have 14 goals. It’s not the fewest in the NHL — it’s the third fewest. (One positive is they are tied with the Carolina Hurricanes, whom they play in a home-and-home this weekend.)

The Flyers had three power plays on Thursday, but could muster only one shot on goal, three shots that missed the net, and two that were blocked. That’s six shot attempts across six minutes of action — or a lack of action.

Tocchet said the flanks, which are the players in the circles, aside from Zegras, struggled, and they weren’t getting shots from the middle of the ice. The coach is obviously frustrated that “we’ve practiced it, but for some reason when under pressure we kind of lose our bearings.”

And it has to be even more frustrating for the bench boss to watch Vegas score like that on one of their two power plays. After getting a shot from the middle of the ice by Pavel Dorofeyev, who put the puck on goal from just above the slot, Stone had two chances atop the crease, with the second going in for his first goal of the night.