Flyers coach Laviolette introduces special power-play drill

One day after they fell to Pittsburgh, 2-1, with all three goals scored on the power play, the Flyers worked on just special teams yesterday in a 40-minute workout at the Skate Zone in Voorhees.

In a unique drill that coach Peter Laviolette introduced to the Flyers, the penalty killers strapped on special shinpads to protect against injury when getting in the way of slap shots and used sticks that had a blade half the regular length.

The goal? Giving the Flyers' third-ranked power play some confidence after a 1-for-9 performance on Sunday. The power play's struggles helped snap their three-game winning streak.

"When the schedule allows, I like to do that 2 days before the game - have a spirited power play and penalty kill where we actually run it live," Laviolette said. "It was good."

The players seemed to like the change-of-pace drill, even after back-to-back games last weekend. Mike Richards called it a "work-maintenance day."

"It's smart," Simon Gagne said. "We put the shinguards on to protect against shots. You want to practice this like the game. If guys don't have those shinguards on, you could have a broken foot or something like that. It's something that's important in our game. You need to work on those. This season, we don't have a lot of time to practice. It was the perfect time to practice special teams."

Defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen took his last shift of Sunday's game against Pittsburgh with 8:30 remaining in the second period. In all, Tollefsen played just 5:33 - hardly giving Chris Pronger, Kimmo Timonen or Braydon Coburn a rest.

Tollefsen, who has been injury-prone this season, wasn't hurt. He said the stomach flu he was suffering from didn't affect him. Peter Laviolette just couldn't get him into the flow of the game, in which 23 penalties were called.

"When you get a chance, you've just got to be ready," Tollefsen said. "The more you play, the more confidence you get and the better you play. The top guys we have here log a lot of minutes. It was one of those games you never got into because of all of the penalties."

Said Laviolette: "Even other guys ended up sitting on the bench quite a bit. You find the bench getting chopped up with specialty teams and not having an even flow out there."

A day after he was accused of biting the Flyers' Arron Asham, Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke denied the deed yesterday in New York as the Penguins prepped for the Rangers.

"No,'' Cooke told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when asked if he chomped on Asham's finger. "There was a scrum, and I went in and grabbed [Scott] Hartnell and had a hold of him. All I knew was that someone was the third man in the pile, grabbing me, scratching my face, digging and clawing. He's allowed to say whatever he wants. It's a free country. It doesn't bother me at all."

Asham maintained yesterday that Cooke bit him in the third period, calling him "gutless" - and pointed to the cut on his finger.

Forward Mika Pyorala took most of his reps in yesterday's skate on defense, but neither he nor Peter Laviolette said to put much stock in that.

Laviolette said Pyorala won't be joining fellow Finland native Sami Kapanen as Flyers who have moved from forward to defense during a season.

"I guess it was just because we played power play and penalty kill," Pyorala said, shrugging. "It's been a while since last time I played defense, so I don't think it's going to happen."

At 6-foot, Pyorala is not nearly as small as Kapanen. Since he was signed as a free agent on July 14, Pyorala has been lauded for his defensive responsibility as a forward. He was forced to dress as a defenseman in place of Ryan Parent on Dec. 26 when Parent was a late scratch because of back problems.

Pyorala said he would play the position if asked by Laviolette. Pyorala played in the Flyers' first 36 games but has been a healthy scratch for the last five; he has been scratched for 15 of the last 17 games.

Defenseman Ryan Parent underwent successful arthroscopic back surgery yesterday morning, according to general manager Paul Holmgren.

"A disk fragment was removed from a nerve root in his lumbar spine," Holmgren said. "Ryan will begin a walking program in a few days and start his rehab on Feb. 7. He will be out approximately 6 weeks."

The Flyers will have a complete day off from practice, workouts and meetings today . . . ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun ripped into the Flyers' Twitter account yesterday for posting links to video of last Thursday's fight between Dan Carcillo and Marian Gaborik. LeBrun thought it was improper to post something other than a highlight or press conference . . . Former Flyers coach John Stevens made his debut on Versus last night as an NHL analyst.

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Frank Seravalli's blog, Frequent Flyers, at http://go.philly.com/frequentflyers.