PHILADELPHIA – Scott Laughton spent the first 12 years of his NHL career with the Flyers, so Thursday night’s return to Philadelphia as a Toronto Maple Leaf for the first time was somewhat emotional.
After the game started, at the first break, the Flyers played a video tribute to Laughton, who received a loud ovation from the Xfinity Mobile Arena.
During his time here, Laughton was one of the most popular players in the locker room – a workhorse who competed at a high level even when the team struggled for a number of years.
When former coach John Tortorella decided to go without a captain the season after the trading of Claude Giroux, he had to at least appoint one player to wear a letter for stuff like talking with referees and the like during games.
So he gave Laughton an “A” for alternate, which at least told you he had a certain respect among players.
One of those players was Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim, who was looking forward to seeing Laughton skate for the first time here (the Toronto player was injured when the Maple Leafs visited earlier in the season) and gauge the fans’ reaction.
“I’m more interested to see how he is,” said Sanheim after the morning skate at Xfinity Mobile Arena. “He likes to be involved in ‘chirping’ (trading insults during game action). Get under the other team’s skin a little bit.”
Then Sanheim chuckled before completing that thought.
“Maybe TK (Travis Konecny) and him can have a little bit of a battle,” Sanheim said with a grin.
In comments after the morning skate, Laughton confirmed he’s both a friend and a rival of Konecny.
“He’s a rat, he’s a long-time rat,” Laughton said with a smirk. “So I’m sure he’ll be chirping. But he can back it up for sure.
“He’s a really good player and a really good friend. We grew very close with my time here.”
Laughton, a native of Oakville, Ontario, Canada played in 661 games with the Flyers. The 31-year-old finished with 106 goals/265 points.
The Flyers selected him in the first round (20th overall) of the 2012 NHL Draft.
>Injury update
Matvei Michkov returned to action after missing one game due to a foot injury suffered in last Saturday’s game at Edmonton.
Both Jamie Drysdale and Bobby Brink were injured in Tuesday night’s win over Anaheim and did not play against the Leafs.
Coach Rick Tocchet was unable to provide a possible timeline for when the two players might be available for a return to action.
>Konecny on the rise
Konecny just completed one of the best half-seasons of his career. The 37 points are commendable but it’s the plus-13 that jumps off the page. He could very well challenge his full-season career best of plus-17 set in 2017-18.
Konecny and Trevor Zegras seem to have found some chemistry on the ice which might explain why Zegras is off to such a hot start with 17 goals in the first half.
Konecny was named an alternate captain last season and from what he’s shown on the ice, he takes the role seriously.
“I love the kid,” Tocchet said. “For me, he does some stuff where you go ‘what is he doing?’ But then he does some stuff like, ‘Wow!’ There’s a balance there but he’s an unreal guy in the room.
“This is a close room and this is one of the reasons why. Whether it’s a football pool or a (team) dinner, he’s leading the brigade. If it’s an unacceptable first period, he’s sayin’ it. He’s very responsible for that room being close.”
It took a while for Konecny to catch on to Tocchet’s system but now that he has, good things are happening.
“There’s a sweet spot that he’s trying to find,” Tocchet said. “Early in the year he was just throwing pucks away. He wasn’t moving his feet. That’s stuff he had to clean up.
“He would come to the bench and say, ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’ And I would say, ‘well, then don’t do it. Now he’s just making better decisions.”
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