Flyers send Laughton back to juniors

CLAUDE GIROUX saw Scott Laughton packing his bags after Wednesday night's opener and gave him a quick word of advice.

The Flyers sent Laughton, 19, back to his junior team, the OHL's Oshawa Generals, after he was scratched by coach Peter Laviolette for the first game of the season.

"I wasn't really in a good mood," Giroux said, still grappling with the loss. "We text all the time. I think he's going to have a good year. He's going to be a great player, that's no doubt."

They may not have been the words of encouragement Laughton was expecting, given his disappointment, but Giroux has been there before.

In fact, Laughton is well ahead of where Giroux was at his age. Giroux was drafted 22nd overall in 2006; Laughton was drafted 20th overall in 2012. Giroux spent the next two full seasons in Quebec's major junior league before getting a two-game emergency call-up to the NHL in 2007-08.

Most people forget that when Giroux ran out of junior eligibility, he started a year with the AHL Phantoms.

"You want to play in the NHL, that's your dream," Giroux said. "Now that I look at it, that was the best thing for me. I went back to my junior team and you play in a game that is slowed down. You learn a lot in two [NHL] games. I think it's going to be good for him."

The Flyers grappled with exactly what to do with Laughton for "almost 2 weeks," according to general manager Paul Holmgren. Laughton would not have been penalized for sitting as a healthy scratch, but if he played 10 games, the first year of his 3-year deal would have been burned.

It would have cost the Flyers nothing - except a hotel room and meal money - to keep their first-round pick around the NHL for another couple weeks.

"Scott's a good kid. We like him. We think he's got a bright future," Holmgren said. "At the end of the day, we thought it was in the best interest for not only Scott, but also the Flyers. He can play a much more expanded role and continue to develop."

Still, without having played at least one game, it has to be viewed as a bit of a regression for Laughton. He played five games last season - the maximum allowed in a shortened season for junior prospects without burning a year - before being sent to Oshawa.

Holmgren and Laviolette both mentioned multiple times that Laughton had a leg up last year since NHL players were behind the eight ball in training with a January start, while Laughton had been playing in juniors since September.

On an even ice surface this time around, Laughton just didn't stand out as much. He didn't tally any points in the preseason.

"You need to justify the amount of minutes you think he's going to get and weigh it against the long-term projections of what you see down the road," Holmgren said. "It just didn't add up for us."

Laughton can play in the AHL next season, and at the end of this season if his junior team misses the playoffs.

The Flyers grappled with the same decisions regarding Sean Couturier in 2011. He ended up staying for the full season. One player picked ahead of Couturier in 2011, Winnipeg's Mark Scheifele, went back to juniors twice, but appears to be a much more well-rounded player with the Jets so far this year.

"Going back to [juniors] has almost never hurt a player," Flames president Brian Burke told the Calgary Herald this week. "They say players are bored when they go back, players get bad habits when they go back. Sometimes they do, but that's our player development guy's job to make sure that doesn't happen."

In Laughton's place, the Flyers recalled forward Kris Newbury from the Phantoms to serve as the 13th forward. Newbury, 31, was acquired from the Rangers last summer and has 72 NHL games under his belt.

"If you ever see Kris Newbury in the American league, he is a good player," Holmgren said. "When he comes up to the NHL, with the Rangers or with Toronto in the past, he's just a plugger or role player, willing to mix it up, and an energy player. He'll fill a role for us."

Newbury has mostly been an enforcer, but said he'd love to show the coaching staff his scoring prowess. He has been nearly a point-per-game player in the AHL over his career.

"I'm not sure that he can't be a top three line player, based on his point production in the minors," Laviolette said.

"That comes and goes. When you get chances to score, that's one thing. You've got to bear down and bury those opportunities. I'd be a lot more concerned if we weren't getting the opportunities. I do think we played a good game, certainly well enough to win. The bottom line is that we didn't. Now we've got to figure out a way to get back on the winning side."

- Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren, on his team's opening-night loss to Toronto.

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