PHILADELPHIA – After waiting a week to make its season debut, the Flyers’ top defense pairing of Cam York and Travis Sanheim finally hit the ice together on Thursday night.
York had missed the first three games with a lower-body injury, so Sanheim opened the schedule alongside Nick Seeler.
Following the morning skate at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees, N.J., coach Rick Tocchet sounded relieved to have his two best defensemen available again.
“I knew he had a really good camp,” Tocchet said of York. “He came in in really good shape. He’s a real mobile guy. What I liked about him at camp and even in some of the exhibition games, he was actually trying stuff on the blue line. There was a lot of movement.”
Tocchet said he spoke to president Keith Jones and general manager Daniel Briere about York and his play last year.
“They said he (York) would reset the puck,” Tocchet said. “Now he’s making plays at the blue line, which is what we want. I’m seeing that – he’s got a lot of confidence to do that.”
York was only cleared to play early in the afternoon and was not made available to media for pre-game interviews.
Tocchet said he wasn’t going to ease York back into the lineup. The coach expected him to play full minutes.
“You don’t go crazy to overplay him but I think you put him back in the fire,” the coach said. “You don’t try to protect the player. You got to throw him right in. I’m not worried about the rust part.”
>Three-game report card
Tocchet was asked to evaluate his team’s effort through its first three games, including two against Florida plus one vs. Carolina, with a 1-1-1 record.
“I think they’ve been scrappy,” Tocchet said. “It’s been a scrappy group.”
The coach obviously wants the Flyers to cut down on penalties. Fifteen in the first three games are just too many.
“I don’t usually complain about it (the officiating) because they’re trying their best,” Tocchet said. “The alarming thing is they’re stick penalties. You have to keep your stick down. That’s just the way it is.”
>Following the Cates line example
Sean Couturier, coming off a four-point game, said his line might be taking its cue off the Noah Cates’ line style of play.
Tocchet sees some merit in that.
“We do film sessions,” he said. “Game reviews. The Cates line (including Bobby Brink, Tyson Foerster) is on there a lot. In the last game, the Cates line was connected. There’s chemistry there but they know they’re connected. It’s not two guys here, one guy over there. They’re around the triangle all the time.
“There’s nothing better than getting a loose puck from a connected group, because now the team has got to play defense. But it’s still early. We’ve got to stay on top of it.”
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