Rookie Travis Konecny Benched by Flyers Vs. Sharks to Work on ‘little Details'

SAN JOSE - If you're Dave Hakstol and your hockey team is suddenly struggling at 1-3-1 after winning 10 straight, changes happen.
 
Travis Konecny set up a goal, had two assists and was plus-1 in the Flyers' 6-3 loss at St. Louis on Wednesday and guess what?
 
He's going to sit tonight against the Sharks as the Flyers regroup to try and salvage the final two games of this Western road trip.
 
Michael Raffl will replace him while Boyd Gordon replaces Roman Lyubimov.
 
"[Konecny] will continue learning, continue growing, continue to develop," Hakstol said. "He'll watch the game and continue to learn and get better. He's been a good worker and I addressed it a week to 10 days ago.
 
"He continues to be very confident. Doing a lot of good things for us. It's good night for him to take a step back and watch the game from up top."
 
The Flyers would like to see the 19-year-old rookie simplify his game just a bit with Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds. Hakstol also wants Konecny to pay better attention on the other side of the puck. That said, he has not scored a goal in 22 games, although he's had eight assists over that span.
 
Konecny had a brilliant pass to Simmonds on the Flyers' first goal at St. Louis, a play in which all three linemates touched the puck.
 
"He made a helluva play on our first goal, but there are some areas of his game where this time of year where teams that are very sound and consistent through 60 minutes, there are little things that he needs to do better with and without the puck," Hakstol said.
 
Konecny found out about the benching on Thursday afternoon.
 
"I didn't know and I hadn't been expecting to sit out because I haven't yet," Konecny said. "It's all part of the game and the learning process. It doesn't really matter what I did in the game it's the little details that I haven't been doing.
 
"It's a good opportunity for me to watch, learn and fix parts of my game. Hopefully, come right back into the lineup [at Anaheim]."
 
Konecny said he needs to "come over pucks properly" in the offensive zone and reload properly by giving his defensemen a chance to make a defensive play with the puck if he has none.
 
"Little things I need to clean up before this stretch and heading into the playoffs," he said.
 
Simmonds and Schenn both gave Konecny encouragement on Thursday and told him that a lot of players - Schenn especially - have been benched in the past. It's part of hockey.
 
"I won't be down on myself," Konecny said. "I worked hard out here today to stay in shape."
 
Gudas out
Radko Gudas won't play with an unspecified minor upper body injury that occurred in St. Louis. He said he expects to miss just one game. Gudas took the entire morning skate and spent extra time afterwards.
 
Lineup
Hakstol would not divulge his lineup, but this is a good guess:

Forwards 
Raffl-Giroux-Voracek
Leier-Schenn-Simmonds
Cousins-Couturier-Weise
VandeVelde-Bellemare-Gordon
 
Defensemen
Provorov-MacDonald
Manning-Gostisbehere
Schultz-Del Zotto

Goalie
Mason