VOORHEES, N.J. — When Bobby Brink received word that he had been sent to the minor leagues, Joel Farabee remembered being in his teammate's shoes.
As a rookie in 2019-20, Farabee had to stomach a demotion after the Flyers added two veteran forwards at the NHL trade deadline. He wasn't down for good, making his way back to the Flyers when opportunity came knocking not even two weeks later. At 20 years old, Farabee ended up seeing 12 playoff games for the Flyers in the Toronto bubble.
He believes Brink, a 22-year-old rookie, can take the same path.
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"It's kind of similar to what I went through, honestly, my rookie year," Farabee said Tuesday after morning skate. "I got sent down near the deadline. For him, I think he's just excited to go down and play a lot of minutes, play on the top power play, all situations. Sometimes all it takes is maybe just a few games down there, get the confidence back, get some puck touches and you start feeling good about your game.
"I just told him to stick with it, obviously you've got to look at the big picture of things, it's a process to become your true potential in the NHL. He's on his way to doing that. Sometimes it just takes a little extra time, just more puck touches and things like that. I don't think anyone's really worried about him. He's going to go down there, he's going to play well and hopefully he'll be back up here soon."
Brink was sent to AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley on Monday. It was a move that seemed inevitable as Brink's role started to diminish. On Tuesday, John Tortorella said Brink had "leveled out here."
The 5-foot-8 winger is a gifted player offensively. The Flyers are not a high-end scoring team, so there's a good chance they'll need Brink's offensive strengths down the road.
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"It's a player that we don't have a lot of," Tortorella said before the season.
The Flyers' head coach wants Brink to work on everything with the Phantoms. How to be effective without the puck sounds like it's near the top of the list.
"The two biggest parts of a head coach's job with a young player is to teach him what it is to be a pro," Tortorella said Tuesday at morning skate. "And that starts with just getting out of your car and how you come into the practice rink, and it goes right on through to the ice and you finish your practice. So many different things are encompassed there in teaching.
"The part on the ice is to get the hell out of the way of the offensive skill that he has and teach him plays away from the puck, how you play away from that. He has been inconsistent in all of them, enough to the point where we think other guys were playing better and that we cannot afford to have him sitting, sitting out a game and then playing six or seven minutes another game. He needs to go down and play a ton of minutes in a great league to teach the checking part of it."
Farabee showed an early connection with Brink on the ice. He has grown into a leader for some of the Flyers' younger players. He hopes his own experience resonates with Brink.
"I just remember telling him, it was the same thing that kind of happened with me, similar timing with everything," Farabee said. "Just to not get too worried about ... obviously people want you to produce when you're up here, it can be pretty stressful for a young guy, so I just told him to stay even-keeled, just keep worrying about what you can control, go down there and play as many minutes as you can and you'll be back up here pretty soon.
"He's a super skilled player, he makes a lot of plays, so when you can do that, you make yourself pretty valuable."
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