"There's really nothing to change. We're just going to play."
Jakub Voracek was telling me this minutes after he and the rest of the Flyers had taken their first steps off the PPG Paints Arena ice Tuesday morning. Speaking through that gritty ginger beard with a broad grin to match, he came across as anything but anxious regarding the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series that opens here in fewer than 24 hours.
Nor should he be.
Nor should any of them be. It's a pretty good team:
Their 98 points were only two fewer than the Penguins, and their top-shelf talent — Voracek, Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Wayne Simmonds, all the long-familiar faces — ranks right up there with that of most NHL rosters. Giroux, specifically, had the season of his life after endless setbacks, with 102 points. Voracek put up his standard 85 points. Couturier, a shadow no more, scored a breakout-level 31 goals. Simmonds stayed steady with 24 goals. And for their freshest dimension, the Flyers had the highest-scoring defense in the league, led by the young top pairing of Ivan Provorov, with 17 goals, and Shayne Gostisbehere, with 13.
Heck, five-on-five, the Flyers were better than the Penguins this winter by most every margin, outscoring opponents, 159-145, while the Penguins were actually outscored, 176-161.
Oh, there are issues, too, notably the youth on the lower lines up front and all through the defense. Provorov is 21, Gostisbehere 24. And then there's the goaltending, with Brian Elliott, the 33-year-old starter who's been no better than average his entire career and is just back from missing 53 days to core muscle surgery, plus no backup support in sight.
Maybe this isn't Philly's time. Not yet.
But there's clearly enough of a dynamic that the older guys, those few who were around for that 2012 debacle with the Penguins, are still carrying the load while the kids are hopping on board to help out.
Check out this playful drill Dave Hakstol arranged near the end of practice Monday, in which both nets were brought crazy-close to each other, and players went one-on-one against each other and both goaltenders. That was followed by a whirlwind collective spin around the rink:
Hey, what's to lose, right?
"We're just going to play our game, be who we are," Voracek would continue that conversation from above. "We can't come here and focus on defense just because of who we're playing. Pittsburgh ... they're so talented that, even if you play great defense, they're going to find a way to break your defense down. I think we've been a pretty good offensive team this year, too."
Translation: Lots of goals coming.
"Maybe. I think this series is going to be about mistakes. If you make mistakes, there's a good chance with these two teams that you're going to get scored on. We need to stay with our system."
I asked Giroux, Couturier and Valtteri Filppula essentially the same question:
Hakstol, Philadelphia's outwardly stoic head coach, seemed to express much the same: He wants the Flyers to be who they are, enjoy the experience and, of course, win.
"Our players have had a great mindset of earning their way and battling through some tough spots," Hakstol said Monday, undoubtedly referring to that bizarre 10-game losing streak in December, half of which came in overtime. "But here we are. You start at zero, and we start earning it again. Now ... we've got a tough task. We know that. But our guys won't be afraid to go out there and compete, and we'll earn it again."
It sure won't happen beforehand. If anyone on the continent, media or otherwise, is picking the Flyers to prevail in this series, I haven't seen it yet. And neither, apparently, has Hakstol.
"We wouldn't expect anyone to pick us. They're the two-time champs," he replied when asked about that. "That's OK. There's a quiet belief in our dressing room. I'm not going to expand or go any further than that. We're the underdog. We're pegged that. We know that. So we've got to go out and earn it. And that's what we'll do."
Doesn't sound like he's ready to start ordering any 1-2-2 traps, does it?
That's how this will go. What you've seen from the Flyers is what you'll get:
• The forwards will go hard on the forecheck, a Philadelphia trademark forever, but also be required to stay responsible tracking back.
That goes double now, not so much because of the Penguins but to make identifying lanes and gaps easier for their young defensemen.
"What we have to do is stay tight," Couturier, always a solid defensive center, was saying. "Pick a man, stay on them, let everyone else do their jobs. Doesn't matter if it's Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin or whoever. Just pick a man."
• The young defensemen won't just join the rush. They'll lead it.
And I can guarantee that, based on how much that has irritated Mike Sullivan at times over the regular season and especially after these two goals by defensemen Travis Sanheim and Brandon Manning on March 24 in the Penguins' 5-4 overtime victory:
Matt Murray obviously could have done better with both, getting beaten unscreened to the glove side from above the circle on each. But watch the body position — or worse, the body language — of Derick Brassard, Phil Kessel and Malkin, among others, and you'll know why Sullivan was mostly seething after this one, even though the Penguins would win. Sullivan spoke of needing to "stay on the right side of the puck" because "their defense might be the most aggressive in the league."
This facet will weigh heavily from both perspectives.
• They'll go hard at Murray. All of them.
No, these Flyers, other than the madman Radko Gudas, aren't your father's Flyers. This isn't 2012, and, as Voracek told me, "I don't think either of us will ever see a series like that again." It's still a rivalry, as all involved will acknowledge, still "something special when it's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh," as Giroux put it, but no bloodbath is forthcoming.
Going at Murray, though, is different. The Flyers will be there. Not just Voracek, who accidentally crashed into Murray earlier in the season — it was a breakaway, so it's not like injury could have been an intent — and shelved him for a month. Not just Simmonds, who might owe Murray rent by series' end. Again, it'll be all of them.
"You have to play the game hard," Simmonds would say. "That's still our identity."
Their identity once this best-of-seven is behind them?
That, evidently, will have to be earned.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Flyers practice, PPG Paints Arena, April 10, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS