After an off-day on Sunday, the Philadelphia Flyers (4-7-1) convened at Flyers Training Center in Voorhees for a practice session before departing for a flight to Raleigh. The Flyers have a very challenging southern road trip ahead of them this week: Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes (8-2-0), Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning (7-5-0) and Saturday in Sunrise against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers (9-3-1).
The Flyers won three of four games before sustaining a 3-0 home loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon. Monday's practice, split between the Flyers and Phantoms rinks at the FTC, included a small-area drill as well as work on moving up the ice as connected units.
With Samuel Ersson dealing with a lower-body injury that forced him to leave Saturday's game in the first period, rookie Aleksei Kolosov and huge-framed Ivan Fedotov are available for duty. On Saturday, Kolosov stopped 20 of 22 shots after Ersson departed at 7:36 of the first period.
Moving forward, the Flyers will look to start generating more puck consistent possession and a much higher volume of shots on net. Too many shot attempts so far this season have either missed the net or gotten blocked. Showing improvement in these areas will be a tall test against Carolina. The Hurricanes annually rank at or very close to the top in team puck possession metrics. Rod Brind'Amour's team ranks No. 1 (again) so far in this category.
The Flyers power play was the source of most of the team's offense through the season's first eight games. Over the last four games, the power play has hit a dry spell. The latter portion of Monday's practice featured special teams work.
As always, practice combinations are subject to change on game day. Monday's practice featured the same defense pairs as in recent games while the forward lines were somewhat different from the combos that started Saturday's game. However, every line saw at least a few shifts together against the Bruins.
Monday's practice combos:
Foerster - Couturier - Michkov
Tippett - Frost - Konecny
Farabee - Laughton - Brink
Cates - Poehling - Hathaway
Deslauriers
Sanheim - Ristolainen
Seeler - Drysdale
Andrae - Johnson
Zamula
Kolosov
Fedotov
