Sandstrom suffers injury as Flyers are blanked; here comes Tortorella originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
John Tortorella, come on down.
Like … now.
It’s only the preseason, as they say, but the Flyers have generated little offense or buzz through their first four exhibition games. They were blanked by the Bruins, 4-0, Saturday afternoon at TD Garden in Boston.
The Bruins’ final goal was an empty-netter. The Flyers wanted a 6-on-4 power play in the third period, so they pulled their goalie.
The club is 1-3-0 in the preseason and has been outscored 10-4. Tortorella watched his final preseason game from the Flyers’ management suite. He’ll make his way to the bench for the last two exhibition matchups.
Against Boston, the Flyers went 0 for 3 on the man advantage in the first period and finished 0 for 4.
Marc McLaughlin and John Beecher scored two goals apiece for the Bruins.
• The Flyers decided this offseason it was time to let some of their prospects take a real stab at being Carter Hart’s backup.
Felix Sandstrom entered Saturday as the front-runner to open the regular season as the Flyers’ No. 2 netminder. But he played only the first period against Boston after suffering a lower-body injury. He stopped the two shots he faced, giving him 32 saves on 34 shots through three preseason outings.
Troy Grosenick, who played for the Bruins’ AHL affiliate last season, saw the second and third periods, denying 20 of 23 shots.
The 33-year-old allowed a pair of goals to McLaughlin. He had little chance on the first, which came on a Boston power play. On the other McLaughlin marker, Grosenick struggled to cover up the puck in the crease and the Bruins batted away at it.
Beecher snuck behind the Flyers’ coverage for an easy flush to make it 3-0 in the third period.
Grosenick has stopped 46 of 52 shots in the preseason. If Sandstrom’s injury prevents him from being available for the start of the regular season, the Flyers’ backup job will be between Grosenick and Samuel Ersson. The 22-year-old Ersson has a real shot.
Boston backup Linus Ullmark went the distance and stopped all 21 of the Flyers’ shots.
• Zack MacEwen has to open the eyes of the new coaching staff.
Somewhat surprisingly, he was not with the big club group for Friday’s practice as the Flyers started going over system work. Instead, he was in one of the two groups on the opposite ice at Flyers Training Center.
MacEwen, who is battling for a fourth-line job, fought Bruins defenseman Nick Wolff during the second period and committed a pair of other penalties (crosschecking, tripping).
“We put the groups up on the board and it’s pretty simple as far as what the groups mean,” Tortorella said Friday. “I think you can interchange some players as we go through here depending on what goes on as far as practice habits or what we see, but that’s kind of what we started today. We split the groups up, we’ll have some people leaving today and then we’ll see where we get the numbers to as we begin to get to opening night.”
• The young line of Noah Cates, Morgan Frost and Tyson Foerster had some flashes but couldn’t score.
Cates finished with a team-high four shots and Frost won six of his eight faceoffs.
Both fourth-line center candidates Tanner Laczynski and Jackson Cates were not on the ice for any of Boston’s four goals.
• Cam York, Egor Zamula and Ronnie Attard didn’t do much to really help or hurt their chances. York should still be leading the way among the young defensive prospects.
• Hart (lower body) and Cam Atkinson (upper body) have yet to play in the preseason.
Hart hopes to play in at least one of the final two exhibition matchups. Atkinson has continued to practice. Neither of their statuses are in doubt for the Oct. 13 regular-season opener.
• Isaac Ratcliffe and Linus Sandin cleared waivers Saturday and will head to AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley. They were among the 20 cuts made by the Flyers on Friday.
• The Flyers are right back at it Sunday for their fifth of six preseason games. They visit the Islanders at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York (7 p.m. ET).
Subscribe to and rate Flyers Talk
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | YouTube
