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Overlooked Flyers enter season with attitude

Thanks to the prognosticators' gloomy outlook for their team, the Flyers are playing with a chip on their collective shoulders as their season starts Thursday in Tampa.

Claude Giroux and Matt Read.
Claude Giroux and Matt Read.Read more(YONG KIM/Staff Photographer)

Thanks to the prognosticators' gloomy outlook for their team, the Flyers are playing with a chip on their collective shoulders as their season starts Thursday in Tampa.

Claude Giroux, the team's captain, said the players are motivated by the naysayers.

"It doesn't matter what your team looks like on paper," Giroux said after Wednesday's practice in Voorhees. "It's about who's going to want to do the work and who wants to pay the price, and I think we have that in this room."

The Flyers, under rookie coach Dave Hakstol, need more overall consistency, improvement on their penalty kill, and more secondary scoring if they are going to reach the playoffs. They finished 33-31-18 last season and missed the playoffs for the second time in three years.

"We feel very confident in how we're going to play, and what kind of team we want to be. We're pretty excited to start," Giroux said. ". . . Last night I was just sitting on the couch and thinking about the game and I was pretty excited. The excitement in this room is fun to watch."

The Flyers will face a Tampa Bay team that lost to Chicago in last season's Stanley Cup Finals. The Flyers have lost seven straight in Tampa

"It's going to be a great test," goalie Steve Mason said. "They're going to be excited. It's their home opener and they have an extremely talented, fast-paced offense. For myself in particular, I just have to be ready for everything."

Especially the quick release of Steven Stamkos, one of the league's most gifted players. Sean Couturier and Scott Laughton probably will take turns defending Stamkos.

"He's dangerous from everywhere when he has the puck," Couturier said. "You've got to take his time and space away."

In a variation from last year, Hakstol's system has a defenseman clogging the middle of the neutral zone, with a forward protecting the outside. The Flyers are hoping to generate more neutral-zone turnovers and create odd-man rushes the other way.

Hakstol is "more demanding on small details . . . whether it's a smart chip-in or taking the right lane," Couturier said.

"Everything's all good and the boys are ready," winger Wayne Simmonds said.

Simmonds said the Flyers had a long summer.

"It felt like an eternity," he said. "Going home early and not making the playoffs, you sit on your couch and you try not watch the other teams play, but you end up watching. For me, it makes me want to strive to get there instead of watching someone else raise the Stanley Cup, when that's what our team's goal is."