Pre-Thanksgiving Preview: Flyers vs Islanders; Plus Your Mailbag Questions and Giving Flyers Thanks!

it's the locked on Flyers podcast for Wednesday November 22nd your daily dose of Flyers news analysis and high quality content has a lot of thanks to give this Flyers Thanksgiving yeah I have a few yeah we will get into that and preview tonight's matchup against the New York Islanders plus your mailbag questions all on today's show you're locked on Flyers your daily podcast on the Philadelphia Flyers part of the locked on podcast Network your team every [Music] day hey there and thanks for making lockdown Flyers your first listen every day I am Rachel Donner you can find me on the app formerly known as Twitter riam I'm here as always with Russ Cohen who's on all your favorite social media apps at sportsology we are at locked on flyers on Twitter Instagram threads and blue sky as well today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel make every moment more right now new customers get $150 in bonus Bets with every winning $5 money line bet that's 150 bucks if your team wins visit fanduel.com lockon to get started you can find us over on YouTube on the SiriusXM app anywhere you listen to podcast subscribe to get our latest episode as soon as it's available here on the locked on podcast Network your team every day Russ Mark stall is officially off IR now and uh tort said it would be a game time decision or uh this morning if stall is gonna play versus the Islanders seems like he will though he's playing it's no game time decision he's playing we all know he's playing yeah I think so as well uh I don't think he could resist it um there won't be any other lineup changes from the last game which means that Morgan Frost is still out of the lineup and Ryan paling is still up on that third line with Kate's down on the fourth line right and apparently it's gonna switch at some point because Tor wants to put Kates in more offensive situations but I can you want to put him in a more offensive situation uh take him out of the center spot and that would do that but he's not doing that so at some point they'll make this switch and Morgan Frost is now being held to a standard that none of the other guys on the team are being held to so basically he's only allowed to play top six or nothing else and I don't think it's fair I I understand the theorizing behind that but if you have an opening on your third line than you put him on your third line he would rather play than not play he would rather develop than not develop and he would rather you know acrw you know an NHL career to eventually be traded than to not play at all and yet these things don't seem possible at least in the short term yeah I feel like we're just in this no- win situation here because you know at least the two of us want to see Morgan Frost back in the line of we're not the only ones there's fans that are you know wanting to see that and you know every couple days the reporters ask I mean and there's a reason because we all see that there's talent in this player he is only what 23 23 24 something like that and there's talent in this player at the center position and it's kind of like okay like these other centers that we're talking about um don't necessarily have the same Center upside all around like like Kates is a great defensive Center but his offense is going to be better on the wing Frost is a natural Center and if he's just going to take an extra year year and a half to develop the Flyers are probably gonna miss out on that yeah and that happens sometimes and and teams make choices and it seems like this is where the choice has been made but who knows maybe things will change around we're not talking about a guy that had only like 25 points last year he had 46 points right so conceivably if you let him do the same things he would have 40 something points again which I think would be around his NHL average every year I mean and then some years will be more maybe some years it' be a few less but he's not allowed to do that because the coach is holding him to this standard we shall see meanwhile tonight the Flyers are facing the Islanders for the first of two games in one week now most recently the Islanders did win a game against Calgary in a shootout five to four prior to that seven game losing streak they are six6 and five seventh in the Metro but even though they just won is Lane Lambert still on the hot seat here he's still on the hot seat they're the a really the epitome of NHL mediocrity by the record by a lot of the different things not to say soken I mean sokin is terrific but everything else is pretty mediocre about this team yeah it's so fascinating to me because not only did they do basically nothing in the off season they have not had a first round pick since Simon Holstrom in 2019 who to be fair is on their top line so you know he's developing their first rounder from 2018 is on the third line which is uh walstrom inter really he's not as much and if you do a comparison between him and Joel fary who was picked like three or four spots later than w wstm in that draft like there's no comparison there as far as development far has turned out to be a much better player and I don't think it's walstroms fault I do think there's some development issues that um happened in in um New York that didn't allow him to play to his strengths and so now I think he's kind of lost in this sauce and I don't know if he'll get out of it yeah I just feel like there hasn't been that right kind of atmosphere there and the Islanders under Lou Lam marillo have just been mostly assigned guys to get better team and like these guys are just not jelling well and or not producing in a way you look at BO Horvat um really hasn't stood out tremendously since he joined the island was never gonna be that he was having a career year and we most of us recognize that so knowing that they paid him at that Mark and maybe even a little more and you never going to get equal production for that now if you want to say he's an intangibles guy and he's great in the room all those things are true but as far as actual production they're not gonna they're not gonna get that production again that he had that one year that's not his normal year no and you know you look at Kyle palmier he's got four goals on the season he hasn't played a lot I'll give him a little pass yeah I guess but it's just like I don't know I don't know man I mean I guess like Noah Dobson Dobson's having a great year he is is having a good year barzal is not really maybe matching expectations but he's playing well he's playing well I still don't think they've used him right really for two years now so okay but yes he's at least playing well but there's a lot of guys that aren't like Pou no you know Brock Nelson's really really good like Brock Nelson scores goals Anders is never going to meet the contract that he's at there's a lot of guys like that they have a lot of five six million guys million dollar guys that you can't trade because they're either getting older or they have a lot of term you know they finally had you know removed Josh Bailey and you got three more guys like that potentially down the road or now yeah and you know this season they've just been a team that keeps games close but then they blow leads all the time as well you know you're just not going to win if you do that and you keep all your games close and you have terrible third periods which they seem to have been doing they like playing that you know L merillo will talk about the differential and he wants to be on the right side of the differential and if they are he feels like they're right in the race and there's some sense in that but I think uh I think the NHL's changed to the point now where that's not a definite anymore right I think so too um and you look at the matchups and I know there's like a few guys on the Islanders that always seem to play well against the Flyers like cikas and Clutterbuck like their fourth line always seems to have will always do well against the Flyers yeah yeah it's like clockwork now I am interested to see what the current Flyers fourth line does in terms of matching up against them I think it'll be a little different this time around sure but the the Islanders also have a couple defensemen that have bitten the flyers in the past like pulock always seems to play well pelic always seems to play well um and with pelic and Dobson I think you know that is a real solid top pair there it is a solid top pair and you definitely have to watch Dobson especially on the offensive side of things no question about it and they're they're fast like they they are they're very fast for for defenseman too so they're you know that's their one strength is that top pairing is a strength yeah I think flers are going to have to score three goals to win this one I yeah you have to you're GNA struggle to get three on soken most likely yeah that's the gonna be the tough part I think is uh just sokin I think is the one excellent part of this team and even scoring first you know the the Flyers have this great record scoring first it's G to be hard to get that first goal against the Islanders like you might have to go two periods or a period and a half before you get that goal if it happens so it's a little different I I it's got to be a little different kind of game yeah I think so all right we'll see how that one goes I will be there in person so you can follow me on the socials to keep track of that in the meantime we've got your mailbag questions on uh roster changes with stall back we've got you know trade deadline is the strategy changing we're going to talk about a bunch of those things coming up next you know that feeling when your favorite Flyers player scores a hattick if you want to get that feeling and win a 100 times your money play daily fantasy hockey on the sleeper app it's the official daily fantasy app of locked on NHL sleeper is our Top Choice for daily fantasy sports especially daily fantasy hockey fans can also play 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bucks if your team wins if you've been thinking about joining FanDuel there's no better time to get in on the action the app is so easy to use there's a wide range of vending options including spreads player props over unders and more uh maybe on the uh Black Friday game take the Dolphins no matter what the uh the spread is I think the Jets are going to have trouble that game so visit fanduel.com lockon and get into the action this NFL season FanDuel official partner of the NFL the Flyers play the Islanders at 7:30 pm tonight as we know catch every second of the Flyers Hometown broadcast with SiriusXM on the sxm app search for Flyers just a reminder there's no show for the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow we'll be back Friday morning uh with a show drop and then back next week for your mailbag questions uh aqn 1976 on YouTube uh had a really good comment that kind of ended up with this question at the beginning of the season I would prefer to get max value for our top players at the trade deadline now I'm not so sure that is the move anymore with them playing so well thoughts well my thought is you got time on this one nobody's getting traded even in the next month it's hard Cap's tight so you've got a good you know couple of months here to see if they could stay at this pace if they stay at this pace then maybe there's an organizational decision to be made but still there's still players you could trade still bring bring up some youngsters to plug in hope you can make the playoffs and still advance for the future there's still a way to do that even if they were playing above you know what your expectations are and that's the way I would go yeah I agree and I do think there are some older players that just because of the nature of time being what it is that when the Flyers are at their Peak you know these guys will be beyond their Peak and it just won't work from a timing perspective so you want to get max value for them now right but I think like Travis kkny maybe that's a player where you you would end up changing your mind if the you might pull back on conne but you still trade Atkinson yeah exactly exactly so that's kind of where I'm at James wants to know would Morgan Frost benefit from AHL time no no because if he goes to the AHL we know what he could do in the AHL he needs to play at the NHL he's earned that NHL time I mean in the end if you're telling me he's going to get scratched for seven games in a row then sure AHL time will benefit him but otherwise it really wouldn't yeah I agree I think that he's an NHL player and even just to get him ice time I mean everybody knows who he is as a player right now so I just don't think that would do any good plus I bet he would get snapped up on waivers yeah haven't looked to see if he's waiver exempt that's a good point yeah I'm I'm not sure there I'd have to double check um he's got like a weird RFA I'm not sure yeah good point good point uh Tyler sent us an email with a whole bunch of really good comments uh but had uh one particular thread with a question about who will get sent down on D with stall back uh good question I think most likely it's belpedio I think to be sento I'm not sure they're going to send anybody down back because they were able to get sandstrom through waivers and he's on the Phantoms now they have that extra roster spot so they don't have to send anybody down we're they don't yeah we're at 22 roster spots right now and even if risto comes back they've got not only do they have a spot for him but they have cap space for him yeah they don't but like let's say belpedio sits for three or four games he is better off playing right and the Phantoms could use him like that's the other that's why I think it'll be him because the Phantoms could actually use him like you know he's very valuable to the Phantoms yeah I'm just curious to see what the Flyers end up doing because like I said they have the space and Tor seems to like belpedio are they gonna have eight defensemen on the roster yeah just seems silly it does but you never know look I get it uh Ryan has a good comment over on YouTube related to our suggestion to add NHL games on Thanksgiving doesn't the NBA also play on Thanksgiving every year yeah um I think again the NHL should be playing on Thanksgiving we've seen a lot of people tweet about it uh it makes sense uh the NBA doesn't play on Thanksgiving they don't want to go up against the NFL so they they don't have games but that doesn't mean you shouldn't you have a whole country of fans that love your game that are forced to watch American football and I bet you if you gave them the choice of watching American football or you know a a good hockey match up at least one maybe even two they're probably gonna watch that so I think it's something that makes a lot of sense and should happen in the future but will it I don't know yeah I think it it makes sense too again you know it's just a Thursday for Canada why not give him a couple of hockey games make a thing of it and whatever Americans aren't super into football maybe they're into hockey that's the tagline let's make a thing of it yeah that's me I'm the marketing Guru here but um I think that yeah I'm I'm still all for it as well uh Kevin asked since we mentioned at the tail end of uh the show the other day if um that Thanksgiving is all about the side dishes so what is your favorite side dish on Thanksgiving it's interesting you know look like when I was down south I certainly appreciated like the um green bean casserole that was probably in the 80s the first time I ever had it with like the Fri onions and stuff but that's not my favorite that's not my favorite but it's just something that I was introduced to then honestly I'm pretty simple it's mashed potatoes with a without gravy with butter some nice whipped mashed potatoes like you can't beat it yeah when I was a kid I definitely liked the sweet potato with the marshmallows on top yeah we did that when I was a kid too and I kind of grew out of it that way syrup on it okay yeah and there's also kind of Blends I've seen where you add like pineapple in with the mashed potato it sounds weird but it tastes so good I guess because they're both sort of stringy and have the same similar texture it might work out it does it does and so you add syrup and the pineapple okay all right m yeah and so I like it much better that way I also I just really like a good stuffing that's not stove top I like now my real stuffing loves Stove Top and I don't mind it so I would eat it I kind of lean towards the cornbread kind of stuffing yeah that's you know you want to put cornbread and can cranberries and stuff like that in there I'll e it same same yeah and I like a good a tart real cranberry sauce that isn't the can stuff right not the can in the jar all the way yeah yeah all of that is very good well I'm now hungry again uh this show is just constantly making me hungry uh we've got the Thanksgiving holiday coming up so we are going to talk about what we are thankful for this Flyers Thanksgiving season and we will do that coming up next this episode is brought to you by better help have you ever wondered why you struggle sometimes therapy can help you figure out what's holding you back so you can work for yourself instead of against yourself it's super helpful for determining how to make decisions more effectively you can learn positive coping skills and how to set boundaries it empowers you to be the best version of yourself it's not just for those who've experienced major trauma or a specific incident anyone can benefit if you're starting if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online and designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule you just fill out a little questionaire you get matched with a licensed therapist and they'll let you switch therapists any time for no additional charge make your brain your friend with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com lockon NHL today to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.com lockon NHL locked on has launched the first ever National Sports 247 streaming Channel over on YouTube locked on sports today is here for you 247 covering the top sports stories of the day with local Experts of locked on from around all the sports plus our national shows covering every league go to lockon sports today on YouTube and subscribe so Russ uh I am pretty thankful this holiday season for some things around hockey and the Fly flyers and I think the first thing of which is that the Flyers have been a lot of fun so far this season they've surprised us in a lot of ways U they've made it really interesting I just think from an analytical standpoint these days in like what this team is doing and the choices they're making it's been a lot of fun to talk about um a lot of good questions coming out of it so I am very appreciative of the Flyers this season so far yeah they're they're less um I don't want to say they're less stressful because I don't think that's true I think they're um less frustrating though to to talk about and I think that does help with the kind of coverage we could give and you know not like harping on certain things all the time every moment so I do think that's that's a good thing yeah I think so too um anything your particularly thankful for yeah I'm thankful uh for the amount of prospects that they do have uh maybe not enough of them playing the lineup but it gives me a opportunity to track them at the NHL level a lot of these guys I I've been tracking since pre-draft and so I do get great enjoyment from flyers and other prospects around the league when they really develop it's fun for me to see and and see how they develop from year to year to year and so I'm always thankful for that yeah speaking of which I am very thankful for the Flyers top prospects not with the Flyers yet uh that are playing in other places we've got Matt Bay mitchoff of course he's got 24 points in 25 games since his move over to Sochi just having a tremendous season there so far 11 goals 13 assists really happy to see that we've got cutter gatier who's got 15 points in 12 games so far at Boston College and then our good old the London Knights boys Denver Barky is seventh in points in the ol this season season he's got 13 goals and 15 assists in 21 games Oliver Bon 19 points in 21 games he's 11th in defenseman in the ol so far really glad to see those two are having a good season as well yeah I'm thankful for all them they're the high-end guys and I still follow the Devin Kaplan and others as well uh the more the prospects the merrier and at least now the Flyers have a fair amount of you know A and B Prospect that does make it more fun for me to watch and track and eventually rank yeah I think so um also on my list is Travis kkny and I think that not only is he having a really good season so far and his scoring has been consistent and you know that's where when he gets into these streaks of not scoring he gets frustrated and it's kind of this circuitous Loop he is not seeming to run into that so far this season so I'm really happy for that and be and when Travis kkny is playing well other flyers play well around him we get that benefit plus he gets a little uh extra chirpy and snarky and fun and that just adds to the enjoyment of having Travis connecting on the team for me yeah he's the Catalyst for this team still even with cier back and ainson back he's still the Catalyst uh he was always a catalyst even pre-draft when he played with the 67s uh just a fun guy to watch I just was going through uh a bunch of older stuff because now that I have a new website nhlra buzz.com I'm looking for like I just posted Sean couturier's uh draft video on my YouTube My so if you look for Russ Cohen I did just post that uh so I'm looking for those things and I just found a video of Travis connecting after his first goal as a flyer oh yeah and so those kinds of things you know I I get that same response maybe not exactly that same but similar happy response and always fun to watch that and the excitement and then you fast forward to now and you know and he's having a good career so that's I I always enjoy that yeah and you know that draft pick of Travis kkny I think that you know we weren't really sure what the Flyers were GNA do with that pick at the time and you know when they picked him I think we were all just kind of like oh like this kid has some promise like really excited about his development um and so it's been really wonderful to see him grow and to turn into a leader on this team yeah I was sure of two things when he was drafted one that he'd be a good fit for the market and a good player and two he wasn't going to be a center like I just knew that like you know a lot of guys get listed we've talked about it as centers for drafts and I just knew the way he played there's no way this guy's gonna be a center and it's better that he's not he's a way better scorer that he's not you know not being a center yeah that is absolutely true I almost forgot that he was listed as a center that's that's how long ago it feels since he was drafted by the Flyers um anything else 2011 man that's a while ago oh yeah time is flying anything else on your thankful for list Russ you know I'm actually thankful um for the Wells Fargo Center because we all have these fears of uh getting RSV or you know covid or whatever you want to call it and I know they had invested heavily in and they were one of first to do it in their circulation of the air the air system there and I I kind of feel a little safer there than I do in some other Arenas to be honest just because of that and so for that I'm thankful it takes like one thing away from me one more less thing to worry about in this world so I'm thankful for that I guess we could all use some less worrying in this world um yeah I am also thankful for the Phantoms this year I think that so far that you know know they're not quite up to the level in the standings that I would like to see them right now but there's some really good Prospect development happening there and the other thing too is that I I really feel like Ian Le perer is growing into this head coaching role there in a way that um it it just wasn't when he first started and I just really feel like he's gaining a lot of perspective and I think he's really learning from his experience um there and you know knows how to really push the players buttons in a way that he didn't before and he knows how to put combinations of guys together that that are going to work better together whether it's on the forward lines or even with some of the defensive pairing moves and I know he's got assistants that handles some of this stuff to a degree but ultimately he's the head coach and the buck stops with him and I just really F think that he has taken some steps forward as a head coach um which is really wonderful to see as well yeah I feel like you're right there and I'm and I'm also um thankful for Swedish Fish because it's just a very consistent can very consistent in its taste and so yeah I don't eat them every day but when I do I'm thankful yeah maybe there's still some candy corn left over from Halloween on sale I can pick up for the holiday as well because I like candy corn anyway that will do it for today to's show we will be back Friday where we will recap this game tonight versus the Islanders and talk about the Black Friday Flyers vers Rangers matchup that's going to be a doozy I bet uh just a reminder the Flyers do play the Islanders tonight at 7:30 you can catch every second of the Flyers Hometown broadcast with SiriusXM on the sxm app search for flyers and if you want your mailbag question answered on the show like we did today you can send them to us via Twitter at lockon Flyers you can email them to us at lockon Flyers at gmail or comment over on YouTube I am Rachel I'm on Twitter riam that's r m r i I'm Russ I'm sportsology SP o r TS o l o g y have a great holiday everyone