Its Bob.
Sergei Bobrovsky will make his second start of the season Monday night as the Flyers host the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Wells Fargo Center.
We had this game picked for Bob, coach Peter Laviolette said.
Perhaps. But we couldnt help but notice that after Ilya Bryzgalov emphatically said following Saturdays 4-2 loss to the Blues that there remain communication issues with the defense, the Flyers are working on that overtime.
Prior to Mondays morning skate, Bryz was on the ice without any other players except goalie coach Jeff Reese.
Play it. Leave it. Over.
Those were the three commands that Bryzgalov said his defense needs to communicate with him to prevent any more disastrous puck exchange goals like that which happened against St. Louis. Reese, playing the shooters role, was firing pucks from the blue line and shouting commands.
NHL
Play it, Reese shouted and Bryzgalov went after it.
Leave it, and Bryzgalov allowed the puck to rebound off the boards.
When Craig Berube joined, Reese shouted, Leave it, then acted the part of the Flyers defenseman, swooping in from the blue line to take the puck behind the net.
They worked on this for 15 minutes. That was a pretty good clue that Bryzgalov likely wasnt playing against the Leafs.
Given this is a busy week, Bob was going to play at some point. If he plays well against Toronto, its likely he starts against Montreal on Wednesday with the Bryz coming back for Thursdays game against Winnipeg here.
Loose pucks
Based on the morning skate: Matt Walker will replace Andreas Lilja on defense and Jody Shelley will replace Andreas Nodl at forward. ... Toronto is a big team, a physical team molded to the image of general manager Brian Burke. Shelley has to play. ... This will be Shelleys first game of the season, given he began with a five-game suspension.
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net