MONTREALAmong the changes to the Flyers' defense over the coming weeks will be the ice times.
The Core Four, for lack of a better termKimmo Timonen, Matt Carle, Braydon Coburn and Andrej Meszaroswill see their ice times rise.
Their ice times during a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of Montreal fluctuated. Coburn played 25:30 and Carle 23:17. Timonen got 22:17, while Meszaros had 21:02.
Carle was minus-3 in the game.
Coach Peter Laviolette will rely mostly on them, while rotating both Matt Walker and to a lesser extent, Andreas Lilja, within the group of four.
As such, Walker had just 7:20 ice time and Lilja doubled that at 15:49.
I really have no idea how the minutes will go through the course of a game, Laviolette said prior to Wednesdays game against Montreal. You can go in with a game plan but you never know what is going to happen, penalties or special teams or whether you are up or down. We will just play it by ear.
NHL
We wish Chris were there because he is the anchor of our team. His presence on the ice and in the locker room are a real value to us. In saying that, we have great leadership in there and six really good defensemen. We feel comfortable moving forward.
The defense didnt look comfortable in the loss here.
Timonen averages 21:43just four seconds less than Carle. He figures to get the largest share of new minutes but that wasnt the case against the Habs.
I play as much as they are going to give me, he said. Were going to miss Prongs, but it shouldnt change anyones scheme. If you change your game, youre going to get screwed. Obviously, hes a big part of the team but hes not here. Somebody else will play his minutes, we will divide his minutes. When it comes to changing your game, no.
Some of the guys get more ice time and you see different guys with different players. But were all good players. All defensemen. The only thing which might change is ice time. It might increase for some.
Fortunately, Prongers injury comes now and not 60 games into the season when the defensemen start to get tired legs.
Its still early in the season, Timonen said. Its Game 9 and nobody is tired or exhausted ... Right now I feel pretty good and Im ready to play as many minutes as the coaches give me. Well see how it goes. The next couple of weeks, the ice time will increase, but that is fine.
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net.