NEWARK, N.J. — There was a notion arond the NHL that on June 23, after dealing away Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren tapped Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk and handed them a set of keys to the Wells Fargo Center.
As if now, and not in their first few seasons, Giroux and van Riemsdyk did not have pressure to produce points and wins.
"That's just people talking," Danny Briere said. "We're getting younger, there's no doubt about it. Yes, guys like Claude and James have to shoulder more on the ice, but that doesn't change anything.
"I still have a major role. So does Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr and Chris Pronger."
Have people forgotten that Giroux was compared to Peter Forsberg in his rookie training camp? Or that van Riemsdyk was prematurely labeled a bust because he decided to stay at the University of New Hampshire for an extra year of seasoning? These two players certainly aren't rookies in the pressure cooker that is the Philadelphia sports landscape.
Part of the perception of added pressure stems from Holmgren's comments on the day that he dealt his two star players.
"Let's be honest, the emergence of Claude Giroux [was] a factor," Holmgren said then. "And James, I can't say enough about how James played in the playoffs."
But his subsequent moves last summer proved otherwise. Rather than dumping the load on his two former first-round picks, he signed Jagr to a $3.3 million deal and added veteran Max Talbot. Also, newcomers Jakub Voracek, Sean Couturier and Wayne Simmonds can chip in points on off nights.
So why the change in direction? Ultimately, the Flyers found out - through four separate playoff runs - that the supposed "next generation" might not have been able to deliver the Stanley Cup as hoped.
The sample size was not small. In 4 straight years under Richards and Carter, they bounced from the Eastern Conference finals, to a first-round exit, to the Stanley Cup finals, to a second-round sweep.
Two weeks ago, a group of Comcast-Spectacor employees cruised the Wells Fargo Center concourses, covering up any last semblance of Richards and Carter's likeness, either by removing an advertisement or billboard or covering up a face with a sticker on a charity donation box.
Both were only 26. Richards posted two points in his first game not in a Flyers uniform with the Kings yesterday in Stockholm at the NHL Premiere.
Part of their jettisoning was natural evolution. Giroux led the team in scoring last season, van Riemsdyk led the team in goals in the postseason.
Part of it was money motivation.
"I think the salary cap has something to do with that [turnover], too," coach Peter Laviolette said. "I think you see more of it now than you did 10 years ago, before the lockout."
In the process, the Flyers dumped $108 million in remaining commitments to Richards and Carter. Even with their newly signed extensions, Giroux ($11.25 million) and van Riemsdyk ($27.15 million) are wedded to the Flyers for less than half of their predecessors.
But how much has changed for Giroux and van Riemsdyk on a game-to-game basis?
"A little more responsibilities, more ice time, more chances to do well," Briere explained. "It's nothing negative. I mean, obviously, if things don't go as planned, that's when we'll see what they're made of. You're going to hit bumps along the way. But what we've seen the last 3 years, I'm not really worried.
"We don't even really look at them as young guys. Even 'Bob' [Sergei Bobrovsky] after 1 year, everyone is on the same level."
Briere said that this Flyers team is no more "Giroux' team" than it is "Pronger's team" or any other player. The idea that there is anything more unwelcomed on the shoulders of the "next, next generation" is simply hyperbole.
"For me, I think it was a matter of getting an opportunity," van Riemsdyk said. "I wanted to step up and help take the lead. I got a taste of it, a tiny glimpse. I want more of that."
Same faces. More ice time. More of a chance to shine. Other than that, it's just business as usual. The previous regime's shortcomings have no impact on the future.
Quotable
"We've got a lot of areas to improve upon. That's not to take away from the heart and the emotion and the energy and the skating and the effort that went into our first game. But I think the execution needs to be better with what we're trying to do. When the game is live, and you have full lineups, and you're playing the Boston Bruins, you need to be on top of your game systematically. The forecheck was off. The forecheck in the neutral zone was a little off. There were too many turnovers and some missed assignments on the rush coming back [defensively]. That's to be expected. But we've got a ways to go."
- A tough coach, Peter Laviolette, after 24 hours of reflecting on the Flyers' Opening Night win in Boston.
ON ICE
STAT WATCH
3: Number of home openers in a row the Flyers partake in to start the season (Boston, New Jersey, their own).
33 percent: The Flyers' faceoff win percentage (16-for-48) Thursday night was their lowest since winning only 17 of 51 draws against the Islanders on Nov. 6, 2010.
4:34: Sean Couturier's time on the penalty kill Thursday in his NHL debut, second among Flyers forwards only to Max Talbot.
4.51: Thursday's season-opening game was the highest locally rated regular-season Flyers game in Philly ever on Versus. The game was up 36 percent from last year's Game 1 in the market (3.32) and up 63 percent from the Flyers' 2010-11 regular season average in the market on Versus (2.76).
THE WEEK AHEAD
at New Jersey
Tonight, 7 o'clock
The Flyers traveled from Boston to Newark, N.J., to face the Devils in their regular-season home opener at the Prudential Center. Each team won a game in their preseason series. It could be another long winter for the Devils, who missed the playoffs for the first time since 1996 with an 11th-place finish. Yes, they always have a chance to win with Martin Brodeur, 39, in net for at least one more season, but new coach Pete DeBoer will have his hands full.
vs. Vancouver
Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.
After falling to Pittsburgh at home, 4-3, in a penalty shootout on Opening Night, the vaunted Canucks travel east for a Monday match with Columbus before heading here. Last year's Stanley Cup finalist, Vancouver fell to Boston in seven games. Roberto Luongo, the Sedin twins and Ryan Kesler are back with essentially the same cast of characters that carried them to the precipice of Canada's first Cup since 1993. Without any riots in the locker room, they should be just as strong.
DID YOU NOTICE
The ugly number stickers the NHL now requires on the front of all player helmets? The inch-and-a-half digits are a new mandate "designed to aid on-ice officials, broadcasters, et al., by providing an additional point of player identification."
CAP SENSE
The NHL's salary cap is calculated daily and not based on yearly salaries as a whole. The season is divided into 185 days, with each player's salary cap hit divided by 185 to produce a daily salary cap number. The daily team limit is $339,986 and the Flyers are spending $339,631 per day. Right now, injured Ian Laperriere's $1.167 million counts against the cap. Until the Flyers move him to the long-term injured reserve list, a necessity when needing to add salary, they will bank $350 per day in cap space which can be used later in the season.
For more news and analysis, read Frank Seravalli's blog, Frequent Flyers, at www.philly.com/FrequentFlyers. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DNFlyers.