Joel Farabee, Nate Thompson still in running for lineup spot as Flyers finish camp in Voorhees
The Flyers will leave for the Toronto hub on Sunday, but still have a few lineup decisions to make.
The Flyers juggled their lines slightly Saturday for their final training-camp practice in Voorhees as they prepared for Tuesday’s exhibition game against Pittsburgh.
Scott Laughton, who has played a lot of center in camp, was shifted to the second-line left winger. He took the spot held by Joel Farabee, who dropped down to the fourth unit and rotated with Michael Raffl. Raffl also rotated with Nic Aube-Kubel as the fourth-line right winger.
The lines:
Line 1: Sean Couturier centering Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek.
Line 2: Kevin Hayes centering Laughton and Travis Konecny.
Line 3: Derek Grant centering James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Pitlick.
Line 4: Nate Thompson centering Farabee/Raffl and Aube-Kubel/Raffl.
The top three defensive pairs looked the same: Ivan Provorov and Matt Niskanen; Travis Sanheim and Phil Myers, and Robert Hagg and Justin Braun.
In Tuesday’s exhibition in Toronto, teams are allowed to dress 13 forwards and seven defensemen. That means all of the above forwards figure to play in that game, along with the six aforementioned defensemen and Shayne Gostisbehere.
When the round-robin tourney starts Aug. 2 and 12 forwards play, it appears Farabee and Thompson are battling for the last lineup spot. Hagg seems to have beaten out Gostisbehere for the No. 6 spot on defense.
Farabee, a 20-year-old rookie with good speed, has had a strong camp. Thompson brings experience and is a solid penalty killer.
Assistant Michel Therrien said the coaching staff likes Farabee’s hockey IQ, positioning and “the way he sees the game. Definitely he’s going to have a really good chance to play” at some point.
Toronto-bound
Having completed the Voorhees part of their training camp, the Flyers will head to the Eastern Conference hub city, Toronto, on Sunday.
The players said camp gave them a chance to get their speed, timing and skating legs back.
“I think we are pretty sharp, pretty business-like,” van Riemsdyk said. “We’ve gotten better as we have gone on here.”
He said the exhibition and round-robin games “will jack up the competitiveness that comes from playing other teams.”
Daddy Coots
New dad Sean Couturier was given the honor to lead stretches after practice and was saluted with stick taps and cheers.
Couturier’s wife, Laurence, delivered their first child, Ella, on Thursday.
The Flyers head to Toronto on Sunday.
“I couldn’t imagine leaving” so soon, Braun said. “It’s a tough situation for him to have a child and then have to leave immediately for maybe 2 1/2 months.”
On another topic, Braun was asked how difficult it was to pack clothes when you don’t know if you’ll be away for a few weeks or 2 1/2 months.
“It’s a little different. They told us today they’re going to be doing our laundry, so at least you’ll get some clean clothes once a week,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too bad.”