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To put it mildly, it’s been a strange year for the Philadelphia Flyers. The peculiarity continued Friday when the Flyers sent down Tye McGinn to the American Hockey League. Maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise, but as of now, McGinn is the team’s leading goal scorer with three tallies in four games.
McGinn’s three goals this season, two of which came as the only goals in a 3-2 loss to Vancouver, matches his total from an 18-game stint last season.
The optics of sending down a guy who injected a little life into a lineup certainly isn’t great. That said, just because a guy has three goals doesn’t necessarily mean he’s ready to wrestle a full-time roster spot away from someone else. However, the curiosity of the move is compounded a bit by the fact that Philly is holding onto Michael Raffl, who has no points in four games.
That’s probably not the best message to send to McGinn about what it takes to make it to and stay in the NHL. Especially since McGinn has good size, plays with a lot of energy and physicality and seemed to be playing really well in general.
Even with that in mind, McGinn isn’t likely going to produce the way he has so far. He has 26 goals over 109 games in the AHL. McGinn is still a bottom-of-the-lineup player.
With the way things are going in Philadelphia, it’s probably not unfair to nitpick every decision Paul Holmgren makes from here on out, but despite the way McGinn has played, this kind of move is not as irrational as it looks.