Philadelphia Flyers News & Rumors: Drysdale, Kolosov, Ersson, Zegras, Mistake Hiring Tocchet & More
Hello everybody and welcome into another Flyers news and rumors here at the Hockey Raiders. I’m your host Matthew Ztor as always joined in by Justin Getro. Uh Justin, how’s it going? I know we talked before recording it and might not be in a good spot after the RA after the Flyers last game, but how’s it going? Uh I’m doing fine. Uh maybe a little bit overreaction. I’m overreacting a little bit. Um after their last game, I wasn’t very happy. I’ll just point it that way. I wasn’t happy with some of Meechov’s deployment. Um, but we might get into that a little bit later, for sure. Um, yeah, it’s uh Flyers aren’t off to a good start. They’re toiling at the bottom around the bottom of the Eastern Conference right now. Um, so yeah, it’s it’s not been good. Uh, but I mean there’s some good things uh we can talk about. We’ll start with Jamie Dale because he has been playing really well. I and and when he was in Anaheim, I knew he was going to be a top defenseman in the NHL. He’s starting to look like that, a top four guy. Um, what have you seen from Dale so far this season? So, it’s really been a tale of three seasons for him. The first year, not really because he got traded mid-season. He wasn’t very good at all. He was really struggling and then he gets hurt like late February, I believe. It was just kind of a mess. The second year he doesn’t have a great start, gets hurt again, then he comes back, looks really good, I thought, and he was playing only good with Nick Cer in with in that pairing. Now you fast forward to this year, he’s playing good whoever he plays with. The previous two years he was playing pretty bad hockey, basic borderline AHL hockey away from Seer. Now he’s his own player. He is a legit top four defenseman getting around 22 minutes a game uh on average. Now he’s useful in really all situations. I would like to see him develop a little bit more on the power play. Actually, you would think it’s the opposite where he was drafted as this uh I wouldn’t say offensive defenseman, more of a two-way I’ve always viewed him as, but people see him as like an offensive guy and he has always been that really solid two-way play, I think, from him and he’s been really valuable to the Flyers lineup. They wouldn’t be where they are now. I know they’re at the technically at the bottom of the East. They’re 65 and one. They were just in a playoff spot. They they win a game. They win two games. They’re in the top three in the metro. That’s how tight it is. It’s pretty tight right now. So, it could turn around, but yeah, Dale has been a very good story for them thus far. Yeah, I mean, and when they acquired him, I was actually surprised when they acquired him because I didn’t think the Ducks were in the market to trade him because I he was going to be part of their core. But, yeah, he’s he’s definitely a developing to what I thought he was going to be. And uh I like it when I’m it looks like I know what I’m talking about. So yeah, it Dale has looked really good so far uh with the Flyers. All right, moving to the goalending. Some injuries. Vidar is I mean we’ve talked about him being the starter. He’s a starter. Um now Kolasov’s called up. Ersen was placed on IR. Um do you think this is going to really change much? I mean Vladar seems to have been playing a lot of the games. Does this I mean of course weakens the goalending because Ersen is a legit NHLer uh with about this injury and the column. Well, I thought that well last year a lot of Flyers fans will remember last year wasn’t very good for Kasoft. There was a lot of drama before the year. We didn’t know if he would even be with the organization. There was a lot of there was a lot of drama and he comes over to the Flyers. Some people think he forced his way to the Flyers, not the AHL. Didn’t want to play there. And he had a very bad year and he wasn’t great in minimal time in the AHL. But you go to this year and he’s I watched a few of his AHL games. He looked really solid. I think he is a vastly improved goalie from where he was a year ago. Sounds crazy to say because it’s only been a few months between his last hockey game, last season versus this season. But I do think he’s a lot better and he’s played in the NHL now and he tactically leads the Flyers and save percentage right now. Um he played in relief against Toronto. He got the start against Calgary. Uh 2-1 loss. Not his fault. He held his own and you go back to last season, he really wasn’t doing that. He wasn’t giving you that kind of goalending. He didn’t face a lot of he didn’t see a lot of action, but I thought he held his own. And Ersen expiring contract, he could lose his job to Klesoft. It’s It’s a definitely a possibility. Maybe not this season. I think you kind of want Koul to be that number one guy in the AHL with the Phantoms who are having a pretty decent season to this point. It’s important for your for your AHL team to be good, for your goalie to get consistent starts there. But you fast forward to next season, go Kolosov may be an option because Ersen so far hasn’t been great this season. Kind of a rough last couple seasons. Definitely second half of the 23 24 season, full 24 season wasn’t great even though he was starting a lot of games. So kind of at risk of losing his job uh if Kohasov continues to play well and Ersen continues to not really find his game. Yeah. And and the thing is it’s like you say with this expiring contract. So it’s and Vidar looks like a really good move at this point. I you might just say well we’ll just move on and and go with a different tandem so far. that wasn’t really something you really thought about when Ursen was just the goalie. Um, so yeah, we’ll see how that all plays out over the season. All right, let’s move to some more positivity before we get to the last part, which is probably going to be negative, but uh Trevor Ziggress, we talked about him in the last uh last video of how well he’s doing this season. He’s got 13 points in 12 games as of this writing as of this video. Um, he’s really shining on home ice, though. I a lot of points there. Uh what have you seen from him in Philadelphia? Well, his home ice point streak it was eight games. It recently just ended. Um but he but he has 12 points in nine games on home ice. He is one of the best home ice players in the league. Um the splits are weird. I I’d expect them maybe not to even out, but I do think he’s closer to his home ice form. He’s looked really good and you know he’s becoming a kind of a dependable player for Rick Tocket. He got firstline ice time in their last game. He’s been getting I would say probably around like 18 minutes a game. I haven’t looked at the numbers but I believe they’re around there 17 18 minutes a game. That’s really solid. And he wasn’t really getting that in Anaheim toward the end of things. He’s getting his confidence back. He looks like how he did as a rookie in his sophomore season as well where he was the face I wouldn’t say the face of the league. I mean, he was on the NHL cover, but he was the talk of the kind of the talk of the town and he’s returning to that form, I’d say, if not improving on it. You look at the numbers again, he’s a point per game player right now. Maybe that sticks, maybe it doesn’t, but he’s continuing to play well and I don’t expect that to stop anytime soon. I do think that the Flyers made a really good decision here to acquire him. He’s got a bit better on the road though because you can’t ultimately have points at home. Um, so I mean, yeah, it’s a great start though. If he can continue that on the road, that’d be good for the Flyers as well. So, we’ll see how it that continues for Zegris. All right, let’s uh finish the video with uh what what we started the video kind of on. Uh and that was how this season has gone with new head coach Rick Tocket. Not very well, especially when it’s connected to Michkov. I very early. We know it’s very early on. But was hiring talk at the wrong move uh for this team? I mean, I have my own biases from before when Tocket was still in Vancouver and the Flyers had just fired John Tordella. My thoughts were that this is the worst case scenario hiring Rick Tocket. I said he was Tortoella 2.0. I mean, he kind of looks like it right now. Um, it’s just very frustrating. Um especially you you have a franchise face of the franchise talent that could be the best player in the league someday in Michkov and when he plays poorly he’s punished and that’s fair. When he plays well he’s also punished. Um he he’s been really solid recently and then he just gets thrown on the third line with Rodrigo Ables and Christian D’vorak and unsurprisingly he’s not able to do much. I thought he actually played well, especially offensively in a game that they scored one goal. It’s just that he didn’t have the talent around them around him. And that’s no shot at D’vorak or Ables. It’s just not their game. And Mishkov is being put in positions to fail in my eyes. And it’s just it’s really disheartening especially when Tak he he’s different from Tortoella in that he says one thing and he’ll do another thing. Tortoella told you point blank I’m going to do this and he was unapologetic about it. Talk it I’m starting to be a little concerned. It is 12 games but he’s reminding me a lot of what I didn’t like about John Tordella and why I thought they had to move on. Um but you know we’ll see. Maybe Mitzkov starts getting rewarded when he does play well. But just overall I just am not a fan of this type of hockey. this style of hockey. The Flyers are one of the lowest shooters of the puck in the league. Taka isn’t telling his guys not to shoot the puck. It’s just a product of his system that I’m just I’m not a big fan of it, but I’m hoping it’ll turn around. Maybe it might. They have won games. Um they’re they were just in a wild card spot. So, it’s it would be it would be disingenuous to say all of a sudden they’re a bad team. Um because again they were they lost a couple games in a row on a backtoback. That’s that’s tough for anybody and they were winning games and the vibes were pretty good for a little bit and they just kind of spiraled. So we’ll see. Maybe it was just a total misunderstanding and you know Mechov can get rewarded when he plays well because again he hasn’t really been gotten that first line ice time ever at all this season and you’re kind of hoping that that you know you play poorly you get punished you you play well you get rewarded but that just hasn’t happened this season. Yeah, I can go on about talking with his stuff, too. And Vancouver is the same thing there. The Canucks were one of the lowest shot shooting teams in the league and it’s the same thing. They don’t get shots on goal. I don’t get it. I don’t understand. Um, and he’s had history with Russian players in particular. Andre Kusmano fell into his dog house and never left and it never and he got traded. Uh, Basil Pod Coulson, same deal. And, uh, got traded. So, I mean, it’s something that it’s not just with the Flyers, it’s happened in his past. So, it’s like, yeah, it there is a bit of concern there. So, yeah, we’ll see. Hopefully, uh that it does uh play itself into the positive category, but it’s not looking good right now. So, Mikov is just too talented. You and the Flyers aren’t going to want to trade him because he’s he’s really young and he’s one of the big parts of the future. So, I would think it’s gone before he is, but uh we will see how that goes as the season goes on. All right. Well, there’s another Flyers news and rumors. We went one video without talking about talking and Mishkov. I think it’s the last one and of course went back. So, we’ll we’ll hopefully not have to talk about it next week. Um but make sure to check out everything at thethhogres.com. We got great articles or the flyers and all the other teams and also our Substack newsletter. So, check those out. and uh our other videos.
In this edition of the Philadelphia Flyers News & Rumors rundown, Matthew Zator and Justin Giampietro discuss Jamie Drysdale coming into his own, Aleksei Kolosov getting the call-up from Lehigh Valley, Sam Ersson being put on IR, Trevor Zegras’ hot streak at home, whether the Flyers made a mistake hiring Rick Tocchet, and more.
Check out Justin’s writing – https://thehockeywriters.com/author/jgiampietro/
Follow The Hockey Writers:
Substack – https://thehockeywriters.substack.com/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/TheHockeyWriter
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/thehockeywriters_
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TheHockeyWriters/
Graphics by Vince Richard – https://www.behance.net/vincergraphics
#flyers #flyersnation #nhlnews #nhl