PHILADELPHIA – As we have come to learn by now, no Flyer player is immune to the dreaded “night off.”
So few eyebrows were raised late Thursday afternoon when coach John Tortorella announced that Cam York, a mainstay on the team’s first defense pairing, was going to be scratched for the game against the Los Angeles Kings at the Wells Fargo Center.
York had been benched for much of the second half of Wednesday night’s game at Detroit, a 6-4 loss, and Tortorella clearly wasn’t pleased with his play.
The Los Angeles game was set to become the first full game benching of York’s 188-game career.
At the pre-game press briefing, the coach announced that rookie defenseman Emil Andrae, a healthy scratch for the previous two games, was returning to the lineup.
York missed 13 games from Oct. 26 to Nov. 20 due to injury and Tortorella implied he doesn’t seem to have really found his game since he returned.
“He has struggled since coming back,” Tortorella said. “I just think he’s kind of stuck in neutral. This is a player who hasn’t played well and that’s why he’s out of the lineup.”
The Flyers didn’t play their best hockey in Detroit and usually a team wants to get right back out there. Considering the Flyers were 1-4 in the second half of back-to-backs, was this a case of be careful of what you wish for?
“I don’t think we’ve played badly, even when we lost some games here,” Tortorella said. “I don’t think we played well last night. I just want us to rebound the right way against a stingy team, a big team, a team waiting for us here (the Kings were off Wednesday). I want to see how we’ll react.”
The Flyers registered 32 points in their first 32 games. That’s a point-per-game pace and 82 points at the end of the season just won’t be good enough so the Flyers have to pick things up a bit.
“It’s still an early time of the year,” Tortorella said. “But I don’t want to play two bad games in a row. And we usually don’t. Last night we just weren’t there.”
Tortorella wants to see Andrae get back on his game. He was completely engaged when he was first called up from the Phantoms back in late October.
“Same thing as we’ve seen before,” the coach said. “Making plays. It’s a test for him with big forwards (Andrae goes 5-foot-9, 189 pounds) in our end zone. But Andrae has acquitted himself well in the games he’s played in (entering the game plus-3).
“I think he struggled when we took him out. He gets back in here and we’ll see where he’s at.”
Andrae earned an increasing amount of ice time with his high-tempo game at the outset and the Flyers hope he gets back to that quick-reaction game in a hurry.
“When he came in, he earned more minutes,” Tortorella said. “He was making plays. I want to see him do that. Defending, he’ll make mistakes. He may lose a battle or two. But I want to see him get up the ice and get our transition game going. That’s the strength of his game.”
>Ersson struggling
Since returning from a lengthy injury layoff, goalie Sam Ersson has been unsteady at times. Such was the case in Detroit, where Ersson was right in the middle of a 4-4 third-period tie when he was beaten on a fairly simple 25-footer by old Flyer nemesis Patrick Kane for the game-winner.
“Has to make another save,” Tortorella said. “All the games he’s played since he’s been back, he needs to make one more save. He’s made some really good saves but it’s a funny thing with goaltending, you get judged on the saves you don’t make.
“That’s been a little bit of a struggle with Sam. He’s a guy who self-evaluates very well. I think last night we needed another one.”
