Samuel Morin recalled from minors and inserted into Flyers’ lineup vs. Rangers

Looking to get more size and snarl in their lineup, the Flyers recalled Samuel Morin from the AHL’s Phantoms, and he was on the third pairing Thursday night against the New York Rangers.

Morin, who started the season as a converted left winger, went back to defense during his last six games with the Phantoms and had a plus-5 rating while providing lots of physical play.

The 6-foot-7, 230-pound Morin got “better every game, and he obviously feels more comfortable there,” Phantoms coach Scott Gordon said on Tuesday. “I think he feels he makes more contributions on defense than at forward.”

The Flyers hope Morin can help clean the area in front of their goalies, who have been under siege all season because opponents have had wide-open, close-range shots.

“Being versatile and being able to play more than one position is a bonus for any player,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said when asked if Morin was now strictly a defenseman. “Sam was working on his forward skills, but he’s been a defenseman his whole life. That’s why it’s easy for him to go back to that position and play.”

The Flyers’ poor defense and goaltending have overshadowed the fact that the offense, which has carried the team for most of the season, is in a rut of its own. Entering Thursday, the Flyers had scored a total of nine goals in their last five games, four of which were losses.

“A big part of us generating the right type of offense is defending in the right moments, whether it be forechecking in the offensive zone or in the neutral zone, or starting in our zone in the proper position, [making] it easier to come up a little bit cleaner,” Vigneault said before the game. “We’ve gotten a little away from that.”

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Vigneault said the Flyers are still getting “quite a few good looks.” They have run into hot goaltenders lately, including the Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin, Washington’s Ilya Samsonov, and New Jersey’s MacKenzie Blackwood.

“We definitely need to provide more offense,” center Kevin Hayes said before the puck was dropped Thursday. “We can’t just play for 10 minutes of the game when we’re down by three goals” like they did Tuesday against the Devils.

“As stupid as it sounds, we need to get down to basics,” Hayes said. “We need to get the puck out of our zone as fluidly as possible and sustain an offense in their zone. I feel like we have too many momentum shifts throughout a game.”

Heading into Thursday, several Flyers were in goal-scoring droughts: Nic Aube-Kubel (15 games), Hayes (eight games), Michael Raffl (eight games), Travis Konecny (seven games), Scott Laughton (seven games), Nolan Patrick (six games, and one goal in the last 24 games), and James van Riemsdyk (five games).

After the morning skate in Voorhees, the players tapped their sticks on the ice to salute teammate Oskar Lindblom, and some hugged the 24-year-old left winger.

“It’s a big day for Oskar. I don’t want to speak for him,” Hayes said. “He got some great news today, and it puts life into perspective. … Even though we’re struggling, that was a very cool moment. That’ll stick with me for a while.”

After Thursday’s 8-3 loss to the Rangers, Lindblom revealed he had a scan Wednesday that showed he was still cancer free,

“Great feeling to know that,” he said.

Entering the game, Lindblom had three goals in four games since he was a healthy scratch.

“I’m not sure if that one game reset [was] a re-energy builder and had something to do with it,” Vigneault said, “but there’s no doubt that since that time, he’s played with more energy. He’s strong in his puck battles and skating better. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

Added Vigneault: “We’re going into a phase the next 10 days where we play every other day, so the schedule will allow us to have a few practices, which we haven’t had in a while. We need to practice, and I think Oskar and our whole group will benefit from that.”