PHILADELPHIA -- After a full training camp and a few preseason games, Vincent Lecavalier has grown familiar with his new orange jersey.

However, he said it will be a different feeling when he skates onto the ice here at Wells Fargo Center for his first regular season game as a member of the Philadelphia Flyers.

"I'm definitely really excited," Lecavalier said. "Any opening night, especially when it's your first game with a new team, it's definitely extra special. I've never been through it. I've had a lot of great years in Tampa but I'm happy to be here. I think we have a great hockey team and I'm just excited to start."

Lecavalier, who will start centering the second line between Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn, said he hasn't needed to change much of his game to adjust to new teammates and a new style of play.

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Flyers held an optional skate Wednesday morning, with only nine players taking the ice ahead of their game Wednesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. But that was OK with coach Peter Laviolette.

"It was their choice," he said. "We've been practicing hard here, going at it pretty hard here. Whatever they wanted to do to get ready to play."

It's been a long time since the Flyers played a meaningful game, and a few players said they felt a little extra jump in their step when they got to the arena Wednesday.

"It's been a while waiting here," captain Claude Giroux said. "A long summer. You think about it a lot in the summer. Last year, not being happy with the results, every day thinking about it, and today's the day. I think everybody is pretty excited."

PHILADELPHIA -- Philadelphia Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said he was happy with the play of goalies Steve Mason and Ray Emery during training camp, but opted for Mason to start the season opener Wednesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs in part based on how Mason performed with the Flyers last season.

The 25-year-old, who joined the team in April after a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets, went 4-2-0 with a 1.90 goals-against average and .944 save percentage in seven games.

"Both goaltenders played well," Laviolette said. "We have to have a starting point here. Steve came here at the end of last year and really played terrific for us. Either one of them could have started, but we had to choose. Based on what Steve did at the end of last year, and the way Steve came into camp in shape, and the way he played through camp … both goaltenders, you could make a case for either one. We had to start somewhere and we decided to go with Steve. He had a great camp and he's ready to go."

Preseason games give coaches the opportunities to experiment, try things they wouldn't normally do during the season.

Like, for instance, using a player with zero goals and 105 penalty minutes in 26 NHL games in the fourth round of a shootout.

That's just what Washington Capitals coach Adam Oates did Tuesday against the Philadelphia Flyers, using Joel Rechlicz in the post-overtime tiebreaker. It worked as Rechlicz beat Ray Emery with a backhander for the game-deciding goal.

PHILADELPHIA -- Steve Mason and Ray Emery are new teammates, but they're in a very familiar situation.

The two parts of the Philadelphia Flyers' goaltending tandem started training camp on equal footing in the quest for playing time, and it's a situation both should be used to.

Last season with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Mason started the season battling Sergei Bobrovsky for playing time. It was a battle Bobrovsky eventually won, which led to Mason's arrival in Philadelphia at the trade deadline.

At the same time Mason was competing with Bobrovsky, Emery was doing the same with Chicago Blackhawks teammate Corey Crawford for time in net. That situation was a bit different as Emery pushed Crawford all season, and Crawford only emerged as the No. 1 option when Emery was sidelined late in the regular season and at the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a lower-body injury.

PHILADELPHIA -- Christmas came early for Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Steve Mason.

Mason received his new mask Thursday, a zombie-themed creation that features a number of Revolutionary War-era historical figures.

"I feel like a kid on Christmas morning," the goaltender said.

"I'm very impressed," Mason told NHL.com. "He [artist Franny Drummond] had sent me photos throughout the week so I knew what to expect, but when you see something in person for the first time, knowing the amount of hours Franny had put into the helmet, it's pretty impressive to see it in person."

PHILADELPHIA -- Claude Giroux wasn't a full participant in the first-day, on-ice activities at Philadelphia Flyers training camp, but he continued to make progress in his recovery from surgery to repair two torn tendons in his right index finger.

Giroux sustained the injury during a golf outing Aug. 15 and had surgery that day to repair the damage. The Flyers announced he would need five to six weeks of time to recover, but Thursday he was able to move the puck around more than he thought he would.

"It felt better than I thought," he said. "I wasn't too sure what I would be able to do. I was handling the puck and it was feeling good. I started passing it and it felt pretty good, and it still feels good."

PHILADELPHIA -- Daniel Cleary had an invitation in hand from the Philadelphia Flyers to attend their training camp, but instead he'll be staying in a place he never wanted to leave.

Cleary on Thursday signed a one-year contract to remain with the Detroit Red Wings. Terms of the deal were not released, but the Detroit Free Press reported the value to be $1.75 million.

"We think we're a better team with [Cleary]," Red Wings general manager Ken Holland told MLive.com. "He's versatile on the wing, he's good in the locker room. In the end, he flew up [Wednesday] to meet with [coach Mike Babcock] and I at the airport [in Traverse City, Mich.] and his message was he wanted to be a Red Wing and he wanted to work with us."

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Flyers held their first on-ice session of training camp Thursday minus one player from their announced roster.

Forward Daniel Cleary, previously announced as a camp invite on a professional tryout, is not with the team.

A Flyers spokesman said the team had no comment.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. -- Heading into this week, Canada coach Brent Sutter said he had a feeling the game Saturday against United States had a chance to be a rough one for his team.

"It's Day 5 or Day 6 of a training camp," Sutter said following his team's 5-1 loss. "These kids have two practices come in here and play three games in four days. I was worried about this game going into it with our mental and physical side of it. Usually that Day 5 or Day 6, a player kind of hits a wall a little bit and I thought we hit a wall today with it a little bit. Some players' play was not at the level you wish it would have been."

However, Sutter wasn't going to let one bad game ruin what he believed was a positive week as far as the early stages of evaluating the players that ultimately will make up the roster of the team that represents Canada in Malmo, Sweden at the 2014 IIHF World Junior Championship.

This week also marked a shift in philosophy for construction of the team, as Hockey Canada elected to move away from past practices of bringing in two teams' worth of players and having them play against each other in high-intensity intrasquad games. Instead, after two days of practicing in Brossard, Quebec, the team shifted here for games against the United States, Finland and Sweden.

"I think it's a great format for us," Sutter said. "I think the change was great. It's good to do what we did. You get a better read and better feel for guys. From my perspective, you're right with the group all the time, you're coaching the group. You get a better feel on the bench where guys are at and who might fit better with who. It's different when you go to a Red/White format; then your head coach isn't involved with coaching either team because you want to watch. When you're on the bench with the guys you get a better feel. The whole week has been great.

"[Saturday] you lose a hockey game, but at the same time you get to evaluate, too, and see the group do it together the whole week. There was a lot of positives coming out of this for the way it was set up and the format we did."

Follow Adam Kimelman on Twitter: @NHLAdamK