It was against the Philadelphia Flyers that the Winnipeg Jets played some of their most exciting games last season, including a thrilling 9-8 victory which resembled a game of shinny more than NHL action.
As part of our gameday coverage, we had a few questions relating to the Flyers before puck-drop later this evening.
With that, here's Travis Hughes of Broad Street Hockey in today's instalment of Gameday Questionnaire:
1. The Flyers are off to an uncharacteristic start in 2013. What has been the biggest reason for their early sluggishness and what are they doing to correct it?
In a nutshell: Take Matt Carle, replace him with Luke Schenn. Take Jaromir Jagr and James van Riemsdyk, replace them with Ruslan Fedotenko and Mike Knuble. Remove Scott Hartnell thanks to injury. Andrej Meszaros too. Danny Briere and Wayne Simmonds for considerable amounts of time so far this year, too. All of this adds up and it doesn’t bode well.
How do they correct it? Get some better shooting luck and improve on the power play. Ultimately, though, I'm not sure that's correctable.
2. A lot of Winnipeg Jets’ fans lament the fact management let Sean Couturier slip through their hands at the 2011 Draft. Where do you see Couturier three years from now?
Three years from now, we expect him to be one of the best two-way centers in the NHL. He’s going to go through some growing pains, but we saw what he can do on the defensive side of the puck a year ago. He’ll grow with the Flyers’ core — Giroux, Brayden Schenn, Simmonds, Jake Voracek — and will be a force come age 23 and 24. Sorry. Hope Mark Scheifele works out.
3. After cutting ties with Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, how difficult was it for Flyers’ fans to watch the duo raise the Stanley Cup for the Los Angeles Kings?
Ed. Note: We thank Travis for giving us his time in this edition of Gameday Questionnaire. Look for our next edition Friday with our pals at Pensburgh.
