PHILADELPHIA — Newest Flyers Andrei Kuzmenko and Jakob Pelletier were originally planning to tip their hardhats to their new fans Thursday night at Wells Fargo Center.
Unfortunately for them and the Flyers … it’s winter.
“They’re in Toronto,” head coach John Tortorella said early Thursday. “The flight was canceled.”
Icy conditions north of the border prevented them from missing Thursday night’s home game against the Washington Capitals, but Tortorella said Pelletier was still working through getting his visa approved, no matter the weather. The coach said Russian native Kuzmenko was ready to go, but Pelletier not quite. Either way, there would be no rush on that so that they could catch the flight.
As it turned out, both new Flyers, who were traded from Calgary to the Flyers for Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee last week, were said to have arrived during or just before the game Thursday night. So hopefully they’ll be in the lineup Saturday when the Flyers host the Pittsburgh Penguins. No matter who lines up, that will be a battle of doormat teams in the Metropolitan Division. This isn’t the old days.
The former Metro rivals were tied at the bottom of the division heading into Thursday night games, with both teams at 53 points, having played 55 games.
The league goes on a break next week for the “4Nations Cup,” which will be held Feb. 12-20 in Montreal and Boston. Competing teams in this dubiously timed tournament are national teams from the U.S. (with assistant coach John Tortorella), Canada (Travis Konecny), Finland (Rasmus Ristolainin if he’s healthy enough) and Sweden (goalie Sam Ersson).
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Tortorella might be happy that Russia isn’t part of that 4 Nations thing, which means Matvei Michkov will get what his coach feels is a well deserved and vitally needed rest.
“I haven’t talked to him about it but I’ve heard he’s looking forward to (the break),” Tortorella said hours before Michkov scored twice against the Caps. “It’s been a lot for him. We expected this. That’s why it’s been so good to have him go through some of the stuff this year, a year or maybe two earlier than we expected for him to see it. The conditioning that’s needed, the travel, everything about it. Just the fatigue mentally.
“So yeah, I hope he has a great break. I hope he completely gets away from it, because I think it’ll do him a tremendous amount of good. … It’s been a grind for him. You can see the tempo of his game has changed from what it was at the beginning of the year. … Sometimes you watch him play right now and just to get up and down the ice, it’s like the weight of the world is on him. I think he’s tired mentally and once that clears up I think he’ll be more free-flowing.”
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Perhaps one of the Flyers’ most frustrating losses of another season of too many of them came Tuesday night, when the Utah hockey club scored in the last second of overtime to register a 3-2 home victory.
The Flyers might have picked up a point, but goalie Sam Ersson certainly played well enough to pull out a road win for his team.
In John Tortorella’s eyes, Ersson’s show of frustration – slamming his stick after the last goal was scored – was unwarranted. Torts felt the game was one Ersson should remember for a long time.
“He walked on the bus (afterward) and it was the first time I saw him after the game, and I told him that was probably one of the best goaltending performances that I’ve seen,” Tortorella said. “And it is. … Thirty-plus (scoring) chances (by Utah)? Never seen anything like it, how many chances were on Sam, and it’s the best I’ve seen him play by far, and probably one of the best I’ve seen in my career.”
And remember, Tortorella has been an NHL head coach since the dawn of time.
He said Ersson, who made 39 saves against Utah, will get another start against Pittsburgh before heading north to play with Team Sweden.
“I want him to leave here with a good performance Saturday, which he should,” Tortorella said. “But that game against Utah, it was one of the best games I’ve seen a goaltender play.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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