Flyers Notes: Hitchcock praises Flyers coach

Columbus coach

Ken Hitchcock

is a fan of the Flyers' system under new coach

Peter Laviolette,

calling it an "in-your-face, press-the-issue game."

"Peter plays a very, very demanding style. He presses with two on the puck, and if you're not prepared for it, you're going to get swamped," Hitchcock said before the Blue Jackets faced his former team last night "You saw what happened to Dallas here. They weren't prepared for it and got swamped," 6-3, on Jan. 12.

Former Flyer R.J. Umberger entered last night as one of Columbus' top scorers with 15 goals and 33 points, although he was minus-15. He is in his second season with the Jackets.

Last night, Umberger scored two goals in the second period.

Umberger and a fourth-round pick were sent to Columbus in a salary-cap-related deal, one in which the Flyers received draft selections that turned out to be for Luca Sbisa and Marc-Andre Bourdon.

"R.J. had a real tough time" adjusting last season, Hitchcock said. "The Flyers tattoo was not removed, and he had a very, very difficult time for the first two months. Right now, him and Rick [Nash] have become the voices in the locker room, with the help of a couple older guys."

It was Hitchcock's second visit to the Wachovia Center since he became Columbus' coach in 2006.

"I really only know about three guys on the team," he said, referring to Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Simon Gagne. "For me, the familiar ground is you guys [reporters] and the people who work at the arena.

"It's a city for me, when you live here and are part of it, you get engulfed forever in the passion of the city," Hitchcock said. "To me, I became an Eagles fan, obviously an Andy Reid fan, and then I was really fond of Charlie [Manuel] and what he went through to get where he got . . . and obviously the Flyers were a big part of my life."

Hitchcock is an assistant coach on Team Canada and had some input on the selections of Richards and Chris Pronger.

"The longer you are with Mike, the clearer the understanding that he fights like hell for his teammates," Hitchcock said. "It's a quality every coach in this league would dearly love to have."

Center

Jon

Matsumoto

, 23, was the Phantoms' lone representative in last night's AHL All-Star Classic.

Selected by the Flyers in the third round of the 2006 draft, Matsumoto leads Adirondack with 33 points (17 goals, 16 assists).

Matsumoto won an accuracy contest at the all-star skills competition on Monday, hitting all four targets on five shots.

Guro

Tollefsen

, the wife of defenseman

Ole-Kristian Tollefsen

, delivered a son,

Philip,

yesterday at a local hospital. It is the couple's first child. . . .

Shawn Tilger

, 38, the Flyers' senior vice president of business operations, yesterday was named one of Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal's top 40 executives under age 40.

- Sam Carchidi