It is Thursday, Oct. 6, Opening Night in Boston. The Flyers are in the visitors' locker room, excited and nervous about the new season, as the Bruins break out their Stanley Cup banner and send it skyward.
The lights come up and the Flyers hit the ice, led by new goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, followed closely by their new captain and the rest of the lineup. It's logical to think Chris Pronger will be the new captain.
Here is a look, with caution, at who will line up wearing Flyers uniforms that night:
Taking the opening faceoff is the Flyers' new first line of Claude Giroux, Danny Briere and James van Riemsdyk. This is the Flyers' power line, the skillful goal scorers. This line will be counted on to help replace the 36 goals Jeff Carter scored and the 23 goals Mike Richards scored last season.
The second line will be center Brayden Schenn, Andreas Nodl and Wayne Simmonds, the former King. Schenn, who will turn 20 in August, was the fifth overall pick in the 2009 draft. He played in nine games for the Kings over the past 2 years. He is a scorer. In 4 years in the Western Hockey League, he scored 116 goals and 199 assists in 224 games. He played mostly for the Brandon Wheat Kings, former team of Brian Propp, who also could put the puck in the net. He will have to make a big step to make the Flyers, though.
"We view Schenn as one of the top players not playing in the league," Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said in a conference call. "He'll be at our development camp, but you never know with a young player until he's given that opportunity and we plan on giving him a ton of opportunities."
The third line will be the newly re-signed Ville Leino, Scott Hartnell and Jakub Voracek, the former Blue Jacket. This is a skill-and-grit line. Leino's wizardry with the puck, Hartnell bull-rushing the net and Voracek adding the occasional goal. He scored 14 last season.
The fourth line, the energy line, will consist in some fashion of Darroll Powe, Jody Shelley, Blair Betts, Dan Carcillo and a young player or two from the Phantoms. In our cautionary tale, Kris Versteeg and Nik Zherdev do not fit into this equation.
Since the Flyers did not deal for any defensemen yesterday, we're figuring the main six will be Pronger, Matt Carle, Braydon Coburn, Andrej Meszaros, Kimmo Timonen and Oskars Bartulis.
Backing up Bryzgalov will be . . . Sergei Bobrovsky.
Of course, after yesterday's bombshell trades and reconstruction of the Flyers, any speculation about this team is tentative. Game-night program sales should be through the roof. *
