Quick Hits: Saturday Roster, AV, Prospects and More September 20, 2019, 10:33 AM ET [78 Comments] Bill Meltzer

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Quick Hits: Sept. 20, 2019



1) The group of Flyers that will play in Saturday night's home game at Wells Fargo Center against the New York Rangers practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees at 11 a.m. on Friday. The line combinations are as follows:



23 Oskar Lindblom - 13 Kevin Hayes - 11 Travis Konecny

12 Michael Raffl - 21 Scott Laughton - 44 Chris Stewart

76 Isaac Ratcliffe - 24 Mikhail Vorobyev - 72 David Kase

64 Maksim Sushko - 46 Cal O'Reilly - 78 Matthew Strome



6 Travis Sanheim - 59 Mark Friedman

8 Robert Hägg - 39 Nate Prosser

55 Sam Morin - 60 Reece Willcox

43 TJ Brennan - 71 David Drake



79 Carter Hart

32 Felix Sandström

35 J-F Berube



2) The non-game group for Saturday will practice at the Skate Zone on Friday at 12:30 p.m. The group, consisting of Thursday night's game roster, is as follows.



Forwards: 14 Sean Couturier, 28 Claude Giroux, 25 James van Riemsdyk, 93 Jakub Voracek, 48 Morgan Frost, 49 Joel Farabee, 50 German Rubtsov, 62 Nicolas Aube-Kubel, 10 Andy Andreoff, 51 Kyle Criscuolo, 82 Connor Bunnaman, 81 Carsen Twarynski.



Defensemen: 9 Ivan Provorov, 15 Matt Niskanen,5 Phil Myers, 53 Shayne Gostisbehere, 61 Justin Braun, 26 Tyler Wotherspoon, 20 Chris Bigras, 80 Rob Michel.



Goalies: 37 Brian Elliott, 34 Alex Lyon.



3) Before the game group's practice, the remaining players in the Scott Gordon-led morning group had a practice. This mini-group consisted of goalie Kirill Ustimenko, forwards Greg Carey, Pascal Laberge and Gerry Fitzgerald plus defenseman Josh Couturier.



4) The preseason is not about wins and losses per se but is about progressively establishing cohesion, systems process and identity. Final score notwithstanding, Thursday night's performance was not what anyone on the Flyers had in mind. Having a largely A-list roster get outplayed to varying extents in all three periods by a Bruins road preseason game B-lineup was a bit disappointing.



"I think any time you got a new staff coming in it’s a process," head coach Alain Vigneault said after the game. "I think what you saw tonight was one team that knew their system, executed it without thinking and played it well whereas we right now, we’re in the thinking mode a little bit on the ice. That makes us look a little hesitant in certain situations. It’s a process. We got a lot of work to do. We know it and we’re going to do it. I am very confident that this group wants to play the right way and I’ll be able to get them to play the right way.'



5) Vigneault also had straight-to-the-point assessments on what he's seen from some of the young players in camp as well as in Thursday's game.



On Joel Farabee: "Tonight, obviously he’s playing with Coots and G. It’s their first game, just like Niskanen and Provy. It takes players a little bit of time to get their timing and execution back. I played him with two pretty good players. I thought that line had some looks, but they didn’t finish. Like the rest of our team, like I just said, we’re in the process phase. Nobody expected it to be easy. It’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot of work that has to be done. We need to do it day-by-day."



On Morgan Frost: "He had a couple good looks. I definitely can see the skill level. He’s got some upside. It was his first game like a few of our other players. The pace and the opposition is a little different, but I thought he did some good things."



On German Rubtsov: "I thought he looked a little tired tonight. We put him in a tough spot. We’re trying to find out about our players. As far as his understanding of the game, I think it’s real good. There was no doubt that tonight, energy-wise, it was little bit more challenging for him. We’re going to give him off obviously the next night. He’s going to get another opportunity to play because I like what I have seen from him so far."



On Phil Myers: "Obviously there’s some upside there, but I think he might be trying to do a little too much. He needs to be strong in his one-on-one battles and keeping his puck decisions a high percentage. I’ve seen him play at the Worlds. I’ve seen him play better than he has tonight. He’s going to get another opportunity to play."



6) Friday night marks the start of the regular season for the various Flyers prospects in the CHL leagues. Additionally, Jay O'Brien (seven points through four regular season games) and his Penticton Vees are back in action. A rundown of weekend standouts and notables in these leagues as well as in Europe will be incorporated in Sunday's blog.



7) Sept. 20 Flyers Alumni birthdays: Sergei Bobrovsky (1988), Jan Hlavac (1976).