Like a prized light-heavyweight fight, today is “weigh-in” day for a select group of athletes.
Twenty-five or so Flyers rookies will undergo physicals at Skate Zone in Voorhees, N.J., before camp officially opens Friday at 10:30 a.m. on the ice.
“The hope for the organization is that young players come in and push and poke and claw their way to make an impact on an NHL team where you have to look at them,” Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. “Everybody is hopeful these kids come in and they’re developing and knocking down the door because they want inside.”
The setup this fall will be different because of a massive ongoing renovation of the facility.
The Phantoms' side of the ice, which is still under construction itself, is usable for rookie camp. But when the Flyers' main camp opens Sept. 12, it will do so at the Wells Fargo Center because their end of the Voorhees facility still won’t be completed.
“I’m really excited about camp and how it’s set on the schedule,” Laviolette said. “We’ll go about our business with the bigger group for the first few days and set of games. At some point after that, it whittles down and you have to get your team together to get it going.
“It so happens that it comes at a time when we don’t have access to our building. But what you give up in the building to have this kind of return in the end is not that much. That part of camp turns out should work in our favor the way it is structured right now.”
The coaching staff will not have any offices at Skate Zone while the construction is going on. What works in their favor, from a schedule standpoint, is a four-day trip to Lake Placid that sees the Flyers on the ice in New York from Sept. 19-22.
Discussions between Laviolette and general manager Paul Holmgren about going to Lake Placid for a couple days of training camp had been ongoing. This year, it made real sense given the Skate Zone construction project.
“There were two conversations with Paul,” Laviolette said. “I mentioned it and in the past there was never the right opportunity to do it. Paul and I talked a couple times in the past but mutually agreed it would be a good setup. And now was it because it’s a good time with us rebuilding the practice facility …”
Assistant general manager Barry Hanrahan says the tentative date for completion and the re-opening of the Flyers' end of Skate Zone is Sept. 29. For now, everything takes place out of the Phantoms’ end.
A couple of questions going into rookie camp:
· The main Flyers roster lacks obvious openings anywhere, yet one forward should make it through from rookie to main camp. Will that forward be Scott Laughton, Nick Cousins or Petr Straka? The odds weigh heavily in favor of Laughton, even though he spent only five games on the roster last season. The wrench in the equation is Tye McGinn. He’s not part of this group. He’ll join when the full camp opens. McGinn played 18 games and had a mixed bag of results, scattered in various parts of the Flyers’ lineup. The X-factor could be whether Claude Giroux (hand/tendon surgery) is fully ready to play when the season opens. Giroux’s status could create an extra spot on a temporary basis.
· Can defenseman Mark Alt, signed out of Minnesota last spring, do something extraordinary in rookie camp that makes him a wild-card factor when the Flyers begin their camp next week? Laviolette said his staff is counting upon Alt and Oliver Lauridsen, who was so impressive at the end of last season, to push veterans. Laviolette envisions someone making it impossible to be left off the Flyers' roster. The Flyers generally don’t carry a rookie or young player as a seventh defenseman, but that could change. Lauridsen is listed to compete in the big camp -- not this one.