Craig Berube has shaken up the entire lineup Tuesday in practice, trying to rid the Flyers of their early season offensive woes. Not a bad time to try a change with another full day of practice left until their next game against the Rangers on Thursday night.
Via Bill Meltzer, here’s the new look up front:
Raffl – Giroux – Lecavalier
McGinn – Schenn – Voracek
Read – Couturier – Simmonds
Hall – Talbot – Rinaldo
Healthy: Rosehill, Newbury
Injured: Hartnell
Ahh, the sigh of relief. That’s not a bad looking lineup at all. Some thoughts:
- Both Newbury and Rosehill are scratches. We’ve wanted that all year, and with Lecavalier apparently ready to return from injury on Thursday, it looks like we’ll finally get it.
- Secondly, this set up makes the Flyers much deeper offensively. Vincent Lecavalier moves from second-line center to first-line wing (we’re assuming the right side) and since he’s been the Flyers most successful forward so far, maybe he’s the cure for Claude Giroux’s offensive woes.
- I’m really interested to see that second line, but could the “third line” actually be a better offensive unit than that unit of Tye McGinn, Brayden Schenn and Jakub Voracek? I’m sure Matt Read, Sean Couturier and Wayne Simmonds will take some of the heavy lifting defensively against NYR’s top forwards on Thursday night, but that’s also a line that can put the puck in the net. Finally, Couturier gets to center a line with some offensive talent on both of his wings — no offense, Max Talbot.
- Scott Hartnell will be back soon enough, and looking at this group, you’d assume he’ll replace Michael Raffl when he returns. /
On defense, things are staying the same.
Timonen – Gustafsson
Grossmann – Coburn
Streit – Schenn
Healthy: Meszaros, Gill
On the power play, Timonen and Erik Gustafsson are together on the second unit with Brayden Schenn, Lecavalier and McGinn, while Mark Streit has jumped up to the first unit with Voracek, Simmonds, Giroux and Raffl.
What do you think of the changes?
