Jakub Voracek admits it takes a lot to get him upset.
Nothing irritates Voracek more than to hear people dissing on the Flyers’ chances of having a playoff season and writing them off in October.
Which is pretty much the case throughout North America right now.
“We didn’t make the playoffs last year,” Voracek said. “If we made the playoffs we’d be second in the division and no one would be talking like that about us. We were seventh? That’s the bottom of the league, let’s be honest. We weren’t good enough last year, let’s face it.
“We got a lot to prove. Does it piss me off? It’s hard to get me pissed off. I get pissed and I’m fine in five seconds. But it makes you feel you want to prove them wrong. You can’t be surprised they don’t put us in the top of the league.”
Captain Claude Giroux is Canadian. You know how the Molson clan can get. Giroux gets really upset when he hears people say the Flyers, under new head coach Dave Hakstol, are no better than they were under former coach Craig Berube.
People say that because the team is almost identical to last spring’s roster.
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“It’s definitely motivation,” Giroux said after reading some online predictions. “As a team, if you don’t start thinking Stanley Cup, you put your team in failure right away.
“With players we have here, we have a lot of work to do and we are here to learn. We want to win. You never know what can happen in the playoffs. If we start good, we just need to get better as a team.”
There are many intangibles and gnawing leftovers from last season still hovering over this Flyers roster as the season begins Thursday night in Tampa Bay (see game notes).
To a man, from general manager Ron Hextall on down, the organization points to starts as a key factor in whether this is a playoff team (see story). (CSNPhilly.com has the Flyers fifth in the Metropolitan Division of its NHL Preview.)
Two years ago, the Flyers began 1-7-0 and scrambled to make the playoffs during a season that cost Peter Laviolette his job. Last year, they began 1-3-2 and didn’t make it under Berube.
Given the relative strength of the Metro Division — too many clubs are improved — if the Flyers falter early, their season will unwind quickly.
That much everyone seems to agree on (see 10 predictions).
“My biggest concern would be getting off to a good start,” Hextall said. “That’s one thing that we need to do. We felt like we needed to change something like we did last year and the year before. So we are going to be local here. It’s a mentality though.
“There’s going to be a little more emphasis put on that. We didn’t put emphasis on it [last season] ... we really need to stand the fact that we need to get off to a good start. Holes are hard to climb out of.”
Truth is, the lineup the Flyers will unveil in Tampa is virtually identical to the one they had much of last season, especially on the forward end.
“We have belief in ourselves,” Wayne Simmonds said. “If no one else believes in us, that’s their problem. We know what we have in this dressing room. We are going to go out there and strive to be better. We have to grow as individuals to grow as a team. Everyone is striving to be the best player they can be.”
Defenseman Mark Streit has been around hockey for 20 years, going back to his days in Europe. Ask him why the Flyers will be better, he says it’s because they stayed the course.
“There was not a whole lot of changes,” Streit said. “I know it wasn’t successful last year, but there is a lot of positive in this room, especially the chemistry that the team we have and how bad we want to win.
“Sometimes, you mix up the whole chemistry and whole team and that doesn’t mean it’s going to be better. We realize as a team we need a better start.
“Our road record, as well. We focused in camp on this. This coach really worked with us and has a certain calmness. I believe this team has huge potential.”
The Flyers' most decisive offseason acquisition was defenseman Evgeny Medvedev, who via process of elimination, is their best blueliner.
The Sam Gagner experiment didn’t work in preseason. Vinny Lecavalier remains buried under Hakstol as he was under Berube.
The power play was extraordinary while the penalty kill — a major source of overall club failure — was only marginally better in preseason.
Even more alarming is the reality the Flyers scored 23 goals in exhibition play, yet only 12 were even strength, an issue that has dogged them for the past two seasons.
Their biggest hope resides not in Voracek or Giroux’s abilities to score goals, but in goalie Steve Mason’s ability to stop pucks.
Mason was well ahead of his teammates in terms of being game ready when the preseason ended (see story). Goalies carry teams and Mason may have to shoulder the entire load this season.
The defense is only slightly more mobile, though not a single blue-line prospect made the final cut. Scott Laughton is the only newcomer offensively, forcing Gagner to the press box, where the Flyers will begin the season with $8.6 million in healthy scratches.
No legit Stanley Cup contender has that much salary watching games instead of playing them.
If that weren't enough, Hakstol has a collection of players who are projects and others looking to reach that next level in their development, which is a lot to ask of a staff let alone a rookie coach who has never been in the NHL. Some players who come to mind: Gagner, Sean Couturier, Matt Read, Brayden Schenn and R.J. Umberger.
Still, the Flyers believe they will rise above this and gain a playoff berth.
“There’s a lot of guys that can be better and we believe will be better,” Hextall said. “I said in the summer, if you don’t improve from within in a cap world, you are probably in trouble. So we’re looking for a little growth from everybody.”
The Flyers remain a team in transition.
Coming out of it figures to be a longer process than most care to acknowledge.