Friedman on Flyers' Raffl, Couturier, Mason, and more

Elliotte Friedman was on Sportsnet 960 Friday morning.

On Michael Raffl’s great start and if the Flyers have found another great young guy:

“Well, the one thing about the Flyers I believe Dean is they have great scouts. They find a lot of good players. Their biggest problem is they have no patience. And Ron Hextall is going to change that this year, or at least he’s trying to. And Raffl is one of those guys. I agree. Matt Read, you guys know him well. He was a nice little find. They find players who can do things and Hextall is going to be patient with them.

“The other thing too is, they have a lot of creative offensive players there. Giroux, Voracek, on down. I think – and the other thing too is they could have traded Couturier. They won’t because a) they believe he’s a great defensive player, but he’s got a lot more offensive upside. They’re to wait to find out what they have in a lot of these guys.

“I remember last year, Craig Berube said to me in a conversation, ‘Raffl is going to score in the league, it’s just going to be a matter of when.’ And I think the organization always believed they had somebody there who could do it. And now, early in this season, we’re finding he can and let’s just see if he can make it through 82 games scoring at a high pace.”

On the goaltending:

“Well, I think they want Mason to be their long-term guy. They’ve liked him for a long time. Holmgren liked him for awhile. Before they made that trade with Columbus to get him, I think they’d been chasing him for a couple of years. So Emery is not, as well as he’s played – and I really like Emery, I’m glad to see he’s doing well – he’s not their long-term solution. Mason is.

“Jeff Reese, the goalie coach there, has done a good job. He did a good job getting Mason’s confidence back. He’s just got to work on it again. I still do believe they see Mason as sort of their long-term guy.”

Source: Sportsnet 960/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey