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TABLE TALK: Flyers Camp Is Almost Here! · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

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Hey there, everybody, it's Jeff. We wanted to let you know we
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recorded this podcast episode on Monday, September eighteenth, twenty twenty three. By
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the time you hear this, somethings may have changed, but we hope you
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enjoy the show. All Right, everybody, you're listening to Table Talk here
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at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running weekly Philly sports podcast
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show in the world, that's right over ten years strong. We got a
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great discussion coming your way about this Philadelphia Flyers team as camp is right around
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the corner. And yes, as I get into it with our guests this
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week, we know what to expect to a certain extent from this Flyers team
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in this organization this season, as they are in a rebuild. But still
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we're gonna be talking about that rebuild. We're going to be talking about the
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many pieces of this Flyers team moving forward here during the twenty twenty three twenty
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twenty four seasons. So we got a great discussion, let's get to it.
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You can follow her on the Twitter dot com at hinks Hi n X,
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and she also is doing good stuff over at Broadstreet Hockey dot com.
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She's one of our favorites here as we get into this Philadelphia Flyers team is
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a twenty twenty three, two twenty fourth season is right around the corner.
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We got training camp right around the corner as well. The one and only
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Kelly Hinkle. How you doing, Kelly? Hello. I'm excited about hockey,
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absolutely, man. I'm excited about Hockey two. And I know that
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our friends over at sp Nation or what was sp Nation and sp Nation Hockey
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have some new stuff going on. I didn't know if you wanted to throw
1:45
out any promos to them. I saw Steph Drivers post, Bill Matt's post
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as well. I believe earlier today it was Charlie's. I didn't see Bills.
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I saw Charlie O'Connors. But I don't know if you wanted to throw
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that out for folks, because there's gonna be some hockey content coming our way
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there. Yeah. Sure, So, staff Driver and a couple of other
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people that used to be a part of the SBI Nation Hockey Network, which
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of course was shut down by VOS last April. They've been working hard over
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the summer to kind of bring us all together under a new umbrella. It's
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a new hockey network that will be a lot like the SBI Nation Hockey Network
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was. So you'll have access to all of the sites, you know,
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national news, all kind of stuff. It's going to be really cool.
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It's called four Hockey Fans. If you want to check it out, go
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to four Hockey Fans dot com. You'll see the homepage there and then you
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can access all of the team's specific sites from there. It's just it's exciting.
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You know. Obviously these things are better with numbers and yeah, and
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the ESBI Nation, I mean, the ESBI Nation Hockey Network was good and
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strong and and and it wasn't a it wasn't a situation in which, you
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know, like no one was reading our websites. So they decided to cancel
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us. They just did one of those stupid corporate things where they were like,
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we're going to cut stuff something. Yeah, yeah, like you know,
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it was it was a stupid decision on their part. I think they're
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going to regret it. But yeah, it's it's really exciting and launched today,
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so go check it out for I was really trying to like, you
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know, keep the emotions together in my car as I was listening to Broadstreet
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Hockey Radio's very last podcast that you did. I know you were trying to
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keep it together after hitting the record button. But you know, sometimes you
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have an end of an era, but you also have the beginnings of new
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eras as well, and that's what's happening with you all, and it's it's
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great because I appreciate from the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show and our platform here,
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I appreciate you all still wanting to be a part of the discussion when
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it comes to the Flyers Hockey organization, the team, and just the NHL
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hockey product in general. We have some great conversations. So I thank you
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for being here, my friend, and looking forward to heading over there to
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new content checking everything out. But I'll tell you right, yeah, absolutely,
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but I gotta tell you, like when it comes to this Flyers team
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here, like so I have been thinking in terms of, you know,
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knowing this season. Of course, as we know, it's not going to
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be producing a ton of wins. We know this this organization and team again,
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they're in rebuild mode. And with that being said, it can still
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be an interesting Flyers Hockey season with some of the storylines that we're going to
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be following from a rebuild standpoint here so and for me, like I can't
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wait to see Seanctoria back on the ice after missing what one hundred and thirty
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five games, and inevitably what his future looks like for the team, how
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he performs, even how he protects himself when he is out on the ice
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as well, I think that's going to be an interesting storyline to follow too.
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So to start us off here kind of a two part question for you,
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which from an offensive standpoint a defensive standpoint, what offensive storyline are you
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most interested in, Kelly and looking forward to following this coming season. So,
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I think I'm most interested to see which of these kids really blows it
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out of the water at camp and makes a name for themselves strong enough that
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they make the team, you know, directly out of camp, not a
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not a December call up, but night one in the lineup. It seems
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like Tyson Forrester right now is the kind of odds on favorite to be that
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guy. He apparently had a very good rookie camp. They had the rookie
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games over this weekend against the Rangers. He was apparently a little bit disappointing,
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But you know, if he has a good camp in front of John
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Tortorella and you know, really shows that he can hang with the NHL guys.
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I think he's he might be a have a good shot to make the
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team. There's also Elliott Denier who apparently had a very good rookie camp.
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He's an exciting player. He's probably not going to have as high as ceiling
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as Tyson Forrester, but he's still pretty dynamic offensive player. And this is
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the kind of stuff that when your team is rebuilding that you kind of have
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to you know, this is what you have to look forward to, like
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what are these kids going to be? Because if the team's going to be
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good in three years, these are the guys that are going to be you
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know, you're connecting your Ferraby like, that's going to be these guys in
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three years. So we need to see what they look like. And I'm
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hoping that given the direction your organization is going in, Torts will be open
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to given a lot of these young guys ice time to see what we've got.
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And I think that's that's pretty exciting. It absolutely is. So on
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the flip side of that, what defensive storyline are you most interested in following
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this year as well? Because there's certainly some defensive storylines as it pertains to
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this team, and where where is these pairings are going to be going in
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the future? What is that? What is that defensive storyline for you?
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The year really can't wait to follow. I just don't know what this defense
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is going to be right right at all? Like what are the pairs going
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to be? I don't know who's going to be on the top pair,
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no idea. Really will a guy like Emil Andre make the team out of
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camp since he's been pretty good over the summer here? Maybe I don't know.
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The defense is the biggest question mark on the team right now with Provov
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out, and then you've got guys like Sean Walker. Is he a defenseman?
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I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's like some new
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guys that are kind of just like, you know, just guys that aren't
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really that exciting. And then you have some of the rookies that can probably
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come up and play. You've got Cam York. We'll get to see what
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he is. I'm sure he'll get a lot of ice time because he's the
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best of the young guys. But the defense is a big question and if
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the team's bad, which they might not be as bad as last year,
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but they're probably going to be bad, right, you know. The biggest
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problem is probably going to be the defense, So it'll be interesting to see
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how the pairs shake out. I can't wait for Flyers Twitter and just the
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Flyer's discourse on the on the innerwebs when there's a pairing that's just not working
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out and they're getting their asses kicked and just people are going crazy. But
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I want to remind people, as the season hasn't even started yet, it's
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actually going to be fun to watch these pairings because you know what, I
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think even Tortorella doesn't know what the hell is to expect at this point with
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some of these pairings. It's gonna be fun. There is going to be
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disasters when it comes to the pairings, and it's just going to be an
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experimental type of season with it. And I think that's actually pretty fascinating,
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Kelly. It makes things more interesting, Yeah, for sure, And I
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agree. I don't think anybody knows what these pairings are going to be.
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Like, I'm sure Towards has some ideas that he wants to try out,
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but like you said, they could be a disaster. Have no idea,
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you know, like, are we going to see top pair Risto? I
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don't know, Like me, jeez, I mean her to be fair,
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he got better last season, like he was consistent. He was consistent.
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Yeah, so I don't. I think they're just going to be throwing the
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last stuff of the wall to see what sticks and if nothing else, like
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you said, that'll make things interesting for us watching. It's gonna be fun.
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It's gonna be fun for sure. So look, the last time you
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were on the podcast, and I want to just kind of follow up on
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this, we talked about Carter Heart and how it might not actually be a
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bad thing if the Flyers were to potentially trade him in the off season.
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It's something throughout the course of early twenty twenty three, it was thinking about
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that and those prospects and was making my mind explode. And after our conversation,
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you know, I was able to sit back and say, you know
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what, Kelly as always makes some great, great points here. The trade
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obviously didn't happen. It may happen down the road, but what are your
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thoughts about how the Flyers have really positioned themselves in terms of the goalie situation
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for this team in the future, Well, like you said, it looks
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like Carter Heart is going to be the guy, barring you know, any
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of that off I at this point over yeah, yeah, yeah, right
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right now he's the guy, which is fine because he's I would say,
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at worst a league average goaltender. Like he's a solid goaltender. I don't
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think that he loses a lot of games for the Flyers, which is that's
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what you need it. Like I think we said this a lot last year.
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He might be too good for a team that's rebuilding because he's he's gonna
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win you some games. But outside of that, they have some good stuff
10:24
coming up in the pipeline. I think that Samuel Urson is probably the guy
10:30
that they think of as the next guy, but I don't think he'll be
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backing up Carter Hart because I think they're going to want him to get a
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lot of reps in the age. Also, he'll be the starting goaltender for
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the Phantoms almost certainly. But they seem to be pretty well poised because if
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for some reason Carter Hard is no longer available, I do think that they
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have a solid belief that Erson can step in and they'll probably be some like
11:00
we have with Carter Hard at the beginning, But I do think that they
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believe that he could step in and be a starting goaltender at least like a
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one A, one B situation with Arson. So I think that the teams
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set pretty well for goaltending. They drafted a couple of guys this year that
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are apparently supposed to be pretty good. Two guys in a row too.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously with goaltenders, like you don't you
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have no idea, Like they don't make any sense. They could be good
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one day and terrible the next two knows, But right now, like that's
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that's a position that I don't think anyone is really worried about because, you
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know, worst case scenario, it's Samuel Urson and what we saw from him
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in the NHL was pretty good, and in the AHL he's very good,
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so you know, solid chance you have something there, and best case scenario,
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we have Carter Hart for the foreseeable and if he can keep himself healthy,
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which is a little bit of a problem for him, but if he
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can stay healthy, we have a very solid starting goaltender and that's a good
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thing. And he's young, so we'll have him. You know, through
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this whole rebuild, and hopefully once the team is good again, he'll still
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be there as well. Long gone are the days of Mason and Briz Goolov,
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and that's a good thing. Hopefully, yes, hopefully we won't have
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another nine goaltender season. Oh God, we're moving along, Kelly. I
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do wonder how much of a believer we should all be in one Joel Farraby.
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I mean, he's a smaller kind of guy. He needed to add
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some strength this offseason. A lot of us read the articles out there,
12:31
you know, and from reports it probably didn't happen the way that we all
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wanted, maybe the way he wanted to based on the fact that he was
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rehabbing his neck injury. So I think if he's able to find his place
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on the power play, perhaps that he could have what some of us would
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deem to be a quote successful season. So I'm wondering, what do you
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think a successful Joel Farraby season might look like? And you know, what
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should our expectations be for him this coming year? So I do think it's
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probably a good idea to kind of temper expectations going into the season. I
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do think that the Joel Farraby that we saw before the injury. That was
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an exciting, dynamic goal scorer. I don't think. I don't think that
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was a fluke. Like I do believe that that's the player that he is,
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or at least was before the injury. But I do think that we
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have to allow for the fact that he had a pretty serious surgery and it
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took a guy like my brain just went totally blank. Sabers Vegas guy they
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had the next surgery, Oh my god, Michael Jack Jack Jus. My
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brain literally was like who nothing was in there. I don't know we had
13:50
we had, we had some stuff going on there together. Because I completely
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forgot him too. If I fall to the ground, please call nine one
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one. I don't know how my whole brain went blank. Anyway, it's
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him a little bit of time to find his rhythm after that surgery. It's
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a major surgery, and you probably not only have to recover physically, I'm
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assuming that mentally you're a little bit like, ooh, I don't know if
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I want to go into the corner. I had my neck operated on.
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It's kind of serious, you know what I mean. So it might take
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a little bit of time for Farraby to find his game again. But I
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do think that he's a very good player, and I think the Flyers need
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him to be a good player because he's going to have to be like I
14:31
hate comparing people to Claude Tru, but like he's not Claude Ru. But
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like I keep talking about this three years things, that's because when we that's
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when we expect Mitchkoff to be here. So in three years we expect the
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Flyers to be turning a corner into something good. Ferraby will be one of
14:48
those like veteran leaders on the team, and we need him to be scoring
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goals. And I think if he's able to make a full recovery from this
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injury, which I think he will because Michael did, there's no reason to
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think that he won't. It's just going to take a little bit of time.
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So I would say temper the expectations, but also expect that we have
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a good player and if if we don't, like if he if he dogs
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at this entire season, then yeah, maybe we have a problem. But
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if he doesn't really get going into like December, it's fine because he's he's
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got to ease in I think. But I do believe he's he is the
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dynamic offensive player that we've seen in the past. I don't think that was
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one of those fluky things that never gets repeated. Just how he protects himself
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I think is really going to be interesting. Like you're talking about if he's
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in the corner, you know what what what? What is his play in
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his style going to reflect this season? And and secondly, how the freaking
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hell did we forget about Jack Eichael's name. My god, it's free,
15:48
it's Monday, Okay, my brain was just like zero information to Jesus.
15:54
Jesus. All right again, folks, still our best, we are,
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yes, Kelly hanklefer brough Street Hockey dot Com at Hanks on Twitter. She's
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a great grade follow one of my favorites. And as we're moving along here,
16:08
as we know, well as a lot of us, you know,
16:11
fans of the Flyers who follow this team, we know the Flyers just wrapped
16:14
up their rookie series. You know, they were up here in the Lehigh
16:17
Valley at the at the PPL Center, and there were certainly some takeaways.
16:22
For sure, some of those takeaways have been written about, and you know,
16:26
we were able to follow and watch some of these new faces, and
16:29
of course Zaide Wisdom finally healthy. One of those takeaways was that you know,
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he's he's looking healthy again. Could be doing some good things out there.
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I mean, he's a small guy, but a good skater, and
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he can definitely improve in terms of his acceleration for sure. So I'm just
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wondering, you know, where do you think his future is within this organization
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and team? As he's gotten a lot of ink and a lot of press.
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I said ink, as though it's breaking nineteen eighties and we're all reading
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newspapers. Folks. Seriously, if you see me next time in the streets,
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slap me in the face. I just said, we're reading inc Dear
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God, anyway, we're reading stories, said Wisdom, year, what do
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you think his future is with the organization? Reasonable expectation for Wisdom is that
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he will be like a regular call up. Yeah, like when there is
17:21
an injury hole that needs to be filled, Like he's going to be one
17:23
of the first guys that they turn to to bring up, you know,
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depending on what they need to fill. I think best case scenario, maybe
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we have a bottom six forward. That's what I was thinking. Yeah,
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but right now, it's kind of hard to see where he would fit on
17:42
the Flyers, you know, like out of camp, right I don't I
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don't think there's a place for him yet because I don't think that I just
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don't think his skill set is high enough level to make an NHL team out
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camp. But I do think that he's good enough to be probably one of
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those very very good AHL players and the guy that you're excited to see called
18:07
up when someone needs to be called up. I think that's what we should
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expect from him. And if we end up with a guy that you know,
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can play really good fourth line minutes, that's good too. I mean
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that could happen. It would be nice if the Flyers had a fourth line
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that could like do stuff something. But the thing is, like, he
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also seems to have that toughness streak, so like maybe that would kind of
18:30
get him in as it were, and then he can you know, also
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be a good hockey player. Ye. But yeah, it's it's it's cool
18:38
to see a kid like him kind of find his game because people were very
18:44
excited about him when we drafted him, and he seemed like a guy that
18:48
would be kind of like an instant fan favorite for Flyers fans just because of
18:52
the toughness and also he's pretty good. So yeah, it'll be nice to
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see him come into his own in the HL. And I do think that's
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there's no doubt in my mind that he's going to be a very good Agel
19:02
player, So at least we'll get to see that. And I do think
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that if we see an injury somewhere mid late season, he's probably going to
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be a guy that could say, well, all right, very good.
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Well to close us out here, Kelly Camp starts this week for the Flyers.
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Veterans are going to be returning, and it's just gonna be fun to
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follow who's doing what on the ice as some of these storylines for this season
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really begin to develop. And I'll go back to my initial question to you
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in terms of the fact that it's going to be an interesting season because of
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the rebuild storylines themselves, folks. And again, it's not a team that's
19:40
going to be winning a ton of games or be competitive in the Metropolitan Division.
19:44
We know that here, but I'm just wondering, like, what what
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are you going to be looking at closely as Camp starts this week and why.
19:52
I think the thing that I'm most interested to see is how John Tortorella
19:57
seems to be, you know, making the moves that are kind of the
20:03
beginning of the construction of the roster. Because one of the things that I
20:08
think we've talked about a lot with Torts is that he's a coach that wants
20:12
to win a bunch of games. Like he's he's not He's not going to
20:17
be in on any kind of tank. So that makes it a little bit
20:22
you know, questionable, like is he the guy you want coaching a team
20:25
that's rebuilding because you kind of like the if the Flyers could get one more
20:30
top five pick, that would be very good for this And also this offseason,
20:37
Brier made some moves kind of bringing on some contracts that were good moves
20:41
because you know, they allowed us to get some assets, but we took
20:45
on some contracts that were, you know, not great. We also brought
20:48
in Mark Stall, who you know, is an old guy. That's just
20:53
fine. But I would like to see Torts kind of lean more heavily on
21:00
the kids and less on these veteran players. But I think that when you
21:06
think about John Tortorella, I think that you expect him to go to the
21:10
vets before he lets the kids have a chance. Yeah, and it'll be
21:15
nice if he proves us wrong. And that I mean, he did give
21:18
guys playing time last year, like he was not just playing the crappy veterans
21:25
for the Flyers last year. So exactly. So it'll be interesting to see
21:30
because, like we said at the start of the show, there are a
21:33
lot of young players that seem like they could probably make the jump. But
21:40
it's going to depend a lot on what John Tortorella thinks of them and if
21:44
he believes they're ready to make the jump. And I think a lot if
21:48
that's going to depend on if he decides that he wants to have a safe
21:52
team of veteran players that he knows he can rely on, or if he
21:56
wants to kick things off taking some chance is on guys like Forrester and Denier.
22:03
I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. There's a lot
22:04
of I don't know. As an honestly, it's kind of it's kind of
22:07
fun. It's fun. I don't know, but they're not bad. I
22:10
don't know is right now? They're fun. I don't know so exactly.
22:12
It'll be interesting to see who who's able to impress John Tortorella and what he'll
22:18
do with all of these pieces that he's been given, and hopefully we'll see
22:23
a roster that we're excited to watch on the first sight of the season.
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It's a great storyline. It's a very like overall storyline as to what this
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season's picture is going to look like. So, Kelly, I gotta thank
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you for coming back on the podcast. Thank you for coming to the table
22:38
Talk podcast, and let's talk again down the road. Good luck at everything
22:45
at Broadstreet Hockey dot Com and got the news site. Looking forward to hearing
22:49
your all voices on the podcast at some point down the road. Here,
22:53
do you have any idea the worst podcast is gonna drop? Not at this
22:57
point? All right, figure it out? All right? Good, it
23:02
sounds good again folks, Kelly Hankle Broadstreet Hockey dot Com. I'm a subscriber.
23:06
You should be a subscriber as well, and at Hanks on Twitter.
23:11
Take care, Kelly, We'll talk to you down the road, my friend.
23:12
Thanks stuff. Yes, folks, a rebuild can be fun, and
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I think Kelly nailed it in terms of that last topic we were talking about
23:22
with John Tortorella, what we're going to expect from him this season, and
23:26
we's setting this lineup, you know how he's setting this particular defensive pairing.
23:32
There are gonna be some awful, awful games, there are gonna be some
23:34
fun games. There's gonna be a little something in between, and quite frankly,
23:40
it's gonna be fun to watch. I mean, look, so many
23:42
of us have wanted a rebuild to happen for quite some time. Some of
23:47
us have wanted this Flyer's organization to do what they have been doing the past
23:52
few years, hoping of course, for different results. But at the end
23:56
of the day, this is a rebuild and there will be fun storylines to
24:00
follow within it. So it's gonna do it for us here on Table Talk.
24:03
Thank you again to Kelly Hinkle from broad Street Hockey dot com. Follow
24:08
her on Twitter at Hanks and you can also check us out on Twitter dot
24:14
com. If you are new to the show at Philadelphia PST, you can
24:15
follow me at Jeffrey Underscore, Warren and my co hosts as well. I
24:21
want to give them a follow. Their links or their Twitter handles are right
24:25
there in the bios so Philadelphia Sportstable dot com. That's where all of our
24:29
podcasts are hosted. In case you have any issues with your feed, you
24:33
can always go on over Philadelphia sportstable dot com and check out our shows there.
24:37
We've got some PST specials as well. We're on the Instagrams and we've
24:42
got more great content coming to you this week. So take care, folks.
24:45
We will catch you next time. M M.