PHILADELPHIA \u2013 Was it just a coincidence that the Flyers recently went 0-5-1 when Bobby Brink was out of the lineup, then 2-0-1 when he came back?<\/p>\n
Brink scored a big goal in the Flyers\u2019 win at Colorado on Friday night and another in an overtime loss at Utah last Wednesday. The talented right wing just seems to make the right play at the right time. He\u2019s set a career high with 13 goals this season with 32 games to play.<\/p>\n
When speaking at Monday morning\u2019s skate at Xfinity Mobile Arena, coach Rick Tocchet said his team\u2019s strategy against the Islanders would be to get to the interior as Brink did against the Avalanche.<\/p>\n
\u201cA perfect example,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cTwo guys got to the interior, they knock the puck down and Bobby\u2019s right in front of the net and scores. Those are the goals in these division games we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 5-8 and 169 pounds, Brink is certainly not built like the prototypical interior player, but he doesn\u2019t mind getting his nose dirty. It certainly helped the Flyers regain their footing on the road trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it was me,\u201d he said. \u201cI think every team goes through a tough stretch at some point in the year. It hurt having to sit up in the standings watching the guys go through what they were going through. So it\u2019s good to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Goaltender Dan Vladar, on IR since Jan. 14, has been working out and should return to action sometime this week, according to Tocchet.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s pretty close,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cIf we had to, he could have backed up tonight. But he\u2019s going to get in sometime this week. Barring anything (a setback), he\u2019s been doing a lot of work so he\u2019s really close.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Vladar\u2019s absence, Sam Ersson has played well, especially in the 2-1 win at Vegas last Monday.<\/p>\n
The three games on the recent road trip might have built up Ersson\u2019s confidence and earned him a little more playing time as Vladar\u2019s backup. He had struggled to start the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of Sam,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cWe\u2019re going into a road trip \u2013 Vegas, Utah, Colorado \u2013 and it\u2019s kind of a death trip, a gauntlet. He obviously wanted to play better. He dug deep. Those are three tough teams, tough buildings, high-end players. And he comes out of it really solid. That should build confidence in him. So we should have confidence in getting him in the nets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Flyers also activated Rasmus Ristolainen on Monday from injured reserve. The defenseman had been out since Jan. 12.<\/p>\n
Hunter McDonald was loaned to Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Late in the 7-3 win over the Avalanche Friday, Travis Konency was presented with a clear path to an empty net, but chose to pass off to Matvei Michkov, who put the puck in for his second goal of the game.<\/p>\n
It was unselfish play that you don\u2019t see often. Michkov is one player who could use a little more confidence, and Konecny provided that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an unselfish team,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cI see a lot of those traits on and off the ice with this group. I liked it even before the empty net. Because we pressured the puck, TK read the pass from D to D. I liked what happened there with the pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Due to the storm, the Flyers were off from practice for two straight days. They had been scheduled for an off day Saturday, the snow knocked out a practice Sunday.<\/p>\n
Tocchet was asked if his players might be a little rusty after that much time away from the ice. He indicated he wasn\u2019t worried.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me it\u2019s all mental,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cIf you\u2019re off for two days, what are you doing? I\u2019m sure some guys did something, moved around. But this is a mental game. You should have used these two days to rest, not rust. I would say the schedule has not been great for us in the sense of practice time. But every team has to go through it. And you have to be ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was snow shoveling any part of a recommended fitness regimen?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get the squats in there, right?\u201d Tocchet said with a smile. \u201cI mean why not? But I don\u2019t want them doing it for four hours. So why not? I bet a lot of people were out shoveling yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2013 Was it just a coincidence that the Flyers recently went 0-5-1 when Bobby Brink was out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205,43,11211],"class_list":{"0":"post-429749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-dln"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115964164604037771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}