Hockey is a team sport.
No one player will be the difference between being a lottery pick and
hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup. No, you win
as a team and you lose as a team. All
the talk in Philadelphia not revolving around the sinking Sixers sudden skid or
where to put a sniper rifle in Lehigh has been focused on Ilya Bryzgalov. Yes he has been as steady as the San
Francisco fault line, but he is not the only reason the Flyers are struggling
this season.
1.
They are
young. The reason everyone was excited
about the Sixers early on was because they were young and overachieving. It is always fun to watch a young team mature
right in front of our eyes. Well the
Flyers are even younger. The average
forward is 26 years old and that is including Jagr who is 40 years old. Most great teams have a healthy mix of crafty
veterans and up and coming players. The
Flyers have nine forwards who are under 25 with seven forwards who weren’t on
the team last year like Simmonds, Voracek and Talbot. It takes time and repetition for a team to
come together and gel, that doesn’t happen overnight and usually doesn’t happen
in one season. Hell Coburn is the
longest tenured Flyer at 5 years. The
greatest teams I ever saw were the late 90’s Red Wings with Yzerman, Federov and
Shanahan. They spent years together
before they started winning cups. Of
course this team will make mistakes, but they are more like growing pains
rather than severe system flaws. Give
this team time, don’t break up the nucleus and down the line this team could be
really special.
2.
They are soft.
When you think back on the proud history of the Flyers your first
thoughts, if you’re a true fan, go to the Broad Street Bullies. No one was tougher than them and would win
the game before taking the ice. Teams
were afraid of them, the Russians were afraid of them and because of that they
are the most popular team in Philadelphia history. But watching the Flyers a few nights ago
against the Penguins and even while they were leading I knew they would
lose. Just watching the game the
Penguins just looked bigger than us. Our
tallest player with Pronger sidelined is Braydon Coburn listed at 6’5. No one on this team is intimidating and as
such no one is afraid to attack the center of the ice. While I can’t find hits per game stats the
Flyers are ranked 21st in penalty kill. Outside of Rinaldo there is no on e on this
team who I expect to start or win a fight.
Teams are no longer afraid of us, and that makes me worried.
3.
They don’t win faceoffs. Like a great center in the NBA if you can
control the tip you usually can control the tempo, win the draw control the
puck and set the tempo. The Flyers are
26th in the league at it, winning a pitiful 48.3 %. That is unacceptable. Every time the Flyers start a power play with
a faceoff in the opposing zone it seems it ends with the other team winning it
and sending the puck down the ice easily killing 20 seconds. Our best is obviously Giroux (obviously
because he is our best everything) at 53%, next is Briere who wins 49% then
there is Shenn and Courtier who average 47 and 46 percent respectively (side
bar Sestito wins 50% but he doesn’t count because the sample size isn’t large
enough yet.) That means there is only one guy on the whole team that can get us
the puck. Not since Handzues(ZUUUUEEEESSSSS)
do I recall a guy who could just step into the circle and consistently
win. This needs to change if they are
going to be a great team.
4.
They don’t win shootouts. This can be partially attributed to our
goaltending, but so can everything else on this list. Bryz and Bob look like a couple of deer in
the headlights when it comes to shootouts.
Evident by the fact that they have allowed 10 out of 16 shots to go
in! However the offense hasn’t done them
any favors. Briere is 2/3 this season
and Giroux is 2/4 but no one other than JVR’s 1 has scored. In fact the Flyers are a combined 5 for 17 on
shootouts. It came to light recently
that they don’t practice shootouts.
Which begs the obvious question; why the hell not? They are 1-5 in shootouts that’s five points they
let slip away. It is clearly a problem
that needs to be addressed, so fucking address it already!
5.
They are sloppy.
I’ve always thought of hockey as sort of free form jazz; a lot of
different pieces are constantly flying around sometimes seemingly at random but
at the end of it is truly a joy to behold.
This Flyers team is probably the most skilled team I’ve ever rooted
for. But they do a lot of little things
poorly. The forwards do a terrible job
of back checking. The defensemen are
very good at losing opposing forwards in front of the net. Too often they try to make long passes either
across the ice or down it trying to spring a forward which get
intercepted. For a team that can’t rely
on either of their goaltenders they sure do take a lot of risks with the
puck. And if Giroux doesn’t bring the
puck across the blue line no one else knows how to. This is an off shoot of the first problem but
it needs to be addressed. Most of these
are correctable problems and this might be Laviolette’s best job as coach. But they mess up a lot of little things and
this leads to big problems.
Having said that (my favorite
phrase to completely 180 everything I previously said) this is a great team
capable of a long playoff run. Keep in
mind the Flyers are still first in the league in Goals per Game, 5th
in the league on the Power Play and 9th overall in total wins. This is an incredibly good team. The forwards are raw but incredibly
talented. With the additions of
Grossman and Kubina there is now extra strength at the blue line. They have a GM capable of making magic
happen. And even in the playoffs a
goalie is capable of getting hot at the right time.
Actually Bob and Bryz are 63 and
64 (dis)respectively in save percentage.
If they don’t win the cup this year it will probably be their fault.
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