If someone were to ask you what the Flyers have learned about themselves this season, well, there are a number of things you could answer it with, but one tangible stands out:
Theyve found out that their rookies are ready.
These guys are fun, Kimmo Timonen said. Let them play. Theyre gonna make mistakes. Were all gonna make mistakes. So far, we all have done an unbelievable job.
The Flyers traded away Jeff Carter and Mike Richards and picked up a couple of rookies in return, in draft pick Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn.
Couturier has become one of the teams top penalty killers. Schenn? Hes battled all kinds of injuries to make an impact and it showed in Sundays 6-5 shootout loss to Boston with a fight that spurred the Flyers.
Matt Read was an overage rookie at 24. All hes done is make the All-Star squad, along with Couturier, while leading his first-year class in goals (15). Read is also third overall in rookie scoring with 31 points.
With Chris Pronger out, the Flyers first tapped Erik Gustafsson on the shoulder, then when Gustafsson suffered a debilitating wrist injury that required surgery, they tapped Marc-Andre Bourdon to replace him.
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Both have stuck around and continue to log serious minutes.
Need to fill out that fourth line? Harry Zolnierczyk has been there most of the season.
Jaromir Jagr and Danny Briere get hurt in New Jersey? Tommy Sestito and Ben Holmstrom come up from the Phantoms.
Peter Laviolette had to use eight rookies against Boston because he was short of healthy bodies. Thats more than a third of the roster with new players.
Which is why he had two of them on the ice during a penalty kill in the third period and used them again in overtime.
Then again, that has been life on the Flyers this season.
I guess coach puts a lot of trust in some of us rookies, Read said. We scored a big power play goal there -- our fifth goal. We all know the systems. We havent practiced at all as a group, but we went out there and got it done.
Laviolette had no choice but to play them, as Timonen would tell you.
With eight of them in the lineup, we'd actually kill the other guys if we didn't play them, Laviolette said. It was a great game for our rookies to be in because it was a tough game. It was a man's game out thereit was physical, you had to fight for every inch of space and every inch of ice out there.
Again, like they have all year, the young players, the rookies, proved their worth. I have absolutely no hesitation to throw those guys out there under any situation or any circumstance that comes up on the ice.
I think that's really the only way that you get better and that you learn. You do prepare yourself for the playoffs to continually use them in situations. To their credit, they meet me back and they do the job on the ice that we ask them to do.
Laviolette wants his rookie to grow up in a hurry, and they have, even their attitudes about losses.
The Flyers are 0-3 this season in shootouts and blew a third period lead on the Bruins.
We have to learn how to win those games, Read said. Theres been a couple like that this year now that weve lost going in with a lead.
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net