Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock answers some questions from the fan mail bag.
If you have a question for Hitchcock click here.
You can find the entire article here.
Some of the quesions
After seeing Jeff Carter have some success at the World Championships on the penalty kill, is there any chance of working him into our PK this upcoming season?
Ken
Pennsauken, NJ
Ken Hitchcock “I think that’s just the natural evolution of a player like Jeff. This year, we tried to increase his ice time on the special teams side and mostly on the power play. It’s a lot harder to kill penalties in the NHL than it is to play on the power play. It’s much more physically demanding, and it’s hard for a first year player to be on both and then try to keep his competitive focus. We anticipate him getting more and more time, especially because he can take faceoffs on the right side, so that will help.”
I was just wondering what role you expect Ryan Potulny to play next season being that we’re already overloaded with centers?
Jim Garbe
Delran, NJ
Ken Hitchcock “I think our first obligation on Ryan is he’s got to get his feet wet as a professional. I think we’ll evaluate his progress through training camp and exhibition games. We’re obviously going to give him a full shot to make our hockey club. He’s a very unique talent. He’s a person that, for whatever reason, the puck follows him around the rink and that’s a special type of player. The next step is, wherever he plays, he has to play a lot. Whether it’s with us or the Phantoms, we’ll evaluate that as we move along.”
During the 1980s there were very few players in their thirties because of the tempo and energy level of the game. Do you foresee this trend reemerging now? Are thirty-somethings becoming endangered because of the rule changes?
Joe O’Donnell
Albuquerque, NM
Ken Hitchcock “I don’t believe that at all. You look at Carolina and they are in the Conference Finals right now. They have 13 players 31 or over. I think it’s really up to the individual player. I think when you’re talking to players, there are players who keep themselves in remarkable shape and they do a tremendous job as far as their conditioning. I think when they get to be older players they recognize that in order to be good players in the league, they have to work out twice as hard as some of the younger players. I think there’s still lots of over-30 effective players and I think there will be more players that are able to do that because they realize the level of conditioning that they have to get up to in order to perform at a high level.”
I’m wondering what your feeling is on the kind of devastating open ice hit that R.J. Umberger took [in Game One against Buffalo]. Do you think those should legal?
Dan
Wayne, NJ
Ken Hitchcock “I really believe that that’s a hit in hockey. It’s a hit that, for whatever reason, young players seem to get hit in that way more than veteran players. There’s an awareness issue. More important for me is that R.J. is feeling fine now and he feels good. It could have been much more serious, and I’m so grateful that it wasn’t more serious for R.J. He took two big hits in the last six weeks of the season. The hit in New York could have been very dangerous, also. When you’ve got younger players like that you worry as a coach about their safety at times.”
Do you feel it is important to add some speed to your defense?
Rich Garton
Hamilton, NJ
Ken Hitchcock “I think speed is this often used subject, but misunderstood entity. Speed comes from three things. It comes from puck movement, it comes from quick puck support, and it comes from players on the ice acting as a five-man unit. That’s where your speed comes from. It doesn’t come from just skating speed. There are lots of fast-skating players in our league who aren’t able to play with speed, per se. What we want to get better at and get back to is a team that moves the puck very quickly up the ice, follows the attack very aggressively, and has tremendous puck support. Those are the qualities that quick teams have. When you have those types of qualities in your team, you always have numbers on the attack and you are outnumbering people offensively and defensively. That’s what we’re looking for.”
Would you consider playing Sami Kapanen full-time on defense?
Nadav Caine
Henderson, NV
Ken Hitchcock “The answer to that is, yes. He is a special player. He can play any position and any situation and be very, very effective. We would not hesitate one bit if we thought it would help our hockey club in putting him back there. If we would have had a little bit more health up front, I think we could have even done it this year and we might even look to do that down the road.”