2014-15 Schedule vs the Blue Jackets
Game 1: FRI Nov 14, @ Wells Fargo Center
Game 2: SAT Nov 22, @ Wells Fargo Center
Game 3: TUES Dec 9, Nationwide Arena
Game 4: FRI Feb 13, Nationwide Arena Game 5: TUES Feb 17, @ Wells Fargo Center
2013-14 Results vs the Blue Jackets
Game 1: THUR Dec 19, @ Wells Fargo Center: CBJ 4-5 PHI
Game 2: SAT Dec 21, Nationwide Arena: CBJ 6-3 PHI
Game 3: THUR Jan 23, @ Wells Fargo Center: CBJ 5-2 PHI
Game 4: THUR Apr 3, @ Wells Fargo Center: CBJ 2-0 PHI
This preview was one of the more difficult previews to put together. You have the impressive top 6 of the Flyers, the possession black holes on defense and the goaltending of Steve Mason. Last year Steve Mason and the offense decided to carry this team to a playoff appearance and finish one point ahead of the Blue Jackets. I thought regression was coming for the Flyers but I decided to call upon blogger Bob Roberts and ask what he thought about the Flyers chances this upcoming year. After a couple of emails back and forth I found that Bob was a wealth of Flyer information. I quickly decided rather than putting quotes around everything that I would make this into a mini interview and get Bobby Bob’s in depth analysis.
1) What do you think of this season’s lines and pairings for the Flyers:
I like the top 6, which is likely going to start out like this:
BSchenn – Giroux – Voracek
Read – Couturier – Simmonds
Those 2 lines are a good fit. Schenn is a concern as a possession player but has some finishing ability, so it will be interesting to see what happens with him on the top line. He should be able to score more and I don’t think he’s so bad at possession that Giroux and Voracek can’t carry him but it will be interesting to see if he drags them down at all, likely on the CorsiAgainst side.
I think Read, Couturier, and Simmonds are an excellent fit as Read and Couturier both lean towards the shut suppression skill set while Simmonds skills lie much more in shot generation, which is something Read and Couturier do well also. I expect that line, given reasonable zone starts, to be quite good. Read and Couturier were saddled with 42% offensive zone starts last season, which is pretty insane defensive usage for top 6 players. It wouldn’t make sense to add Simmonds to that pair if you don’t plan on giving that line significantly more offensive usage and opportunities, but the question then becomes who is going to take those D starts? Because the bottom 6 group of forwards contains 3 pretty terrible possession anchors in Lecavalier, Umberger, and Rinaldo, who are all slated to be regulars.
As training camp opens, the 3rd and 4th lines are likely to be:
Umberger – Lecavalier – Raffl
Rinaldo – Bellemare – Akeson
Of those 6 players, I actually quite like Raffl. He is, in my view, a stronger player than Brayden Schenn, and could be in the top 6, except for the fact that it would leave the team with too many weak players together in the bottom 6, which is already pretty bad as it is. The way I would like to see the 3rd line is Raffl with Bellemare and Akeson. That trio has the potential to be a pretty good 3rd line that can add some offense and take some defensive usage. But a 3rd line of Umberger and Vinny together is going to need pretty heavy sheltering, which maybe they’ll do. Perhaps they plan on giving that 4th line a bunch more D zone starts. That’s what I would do with the lines constructed as is.
The defense was already a nightmare even with the Finnish God of Defense Kimmo Timonen, so with the news that he is unlikely to ever play hockey again, it’s probably the worst collection of defensemen in the entire league. I’m not sure there’s a worse one. The pairings are likely to look like this:
MacDonald – Coburn
Grossmann – Streit
Del Zotto – LSchenn
Coburn and Streit were good last year, bringing real on-ice value as far as outperforming their usage. Streit was 16th overall in defenseman scoring with 44 points last year and is slated to get the number 1 PP spot firing away at the point on an excellent powerplay unit, so he could get 50+ this year, which would be good. In reality what you’d love to do is have a strong pairing of Streit – Coburn, which would actually be pretty good, but that leaves just a giant mess behind it, so those two have to anchor separate pairs.
Streit drug Grossmann around last year, and managed to put up a positive CorsiRel to go along with his point production, so he could conceivably do that again.
MacDonald and Coburn are not a good match. Players will likely target MacDonald’s side of the ice over and over again to gain the zone, as Coburn’s strength is defending entries in the neutral zone. Not to mention MacDonald is at absolute best a serviceable 3rd pairing defensemen (really he isn’t even that though) who should not play anything near 20-25 minutes a night.
Del Zotto was signed after the news of Timonen’s injury to try and replace some of what he brought. He’s definitely a player with puck skills who’s been good exiting the zone and heading his team up ice, but he hasn’t been very good at shot suppression or defending the blue line. Throughout his time in New York, he performed poorly when paired with Girardi, who is a somewhat better version of Luke Schenn, so I don’t expect him to perform well at all in those conditions. He would fare much better on the left side with Coburn, which would drop MacDonald back to a pairing with Schenn. That’s probably the best you can do with these players. Here’s how I would pair the defense:
Del Zotto – Coburn
Grossmann – Streit
MacDonald – Schenn
I’m tempted to put Schenn with Streit, because Schenn isn’t as bad as Grossmann, but a pairing of MacDonald – Grossmann would just be exceedingly terrible, and the Flyers would lose the shot attempts battle at insane rates with those two, as they’re very likely to anyway, no matter how you slice it.
2 & 3) What are your thoughts on last season and this coming season:
I thought the team overachieved last season, riding likely unmaintainable stretches of high sv% from Mason and relying very heavily on the power play to score goals and win games. They were flat out bad at even strength and they only got worse in that regard, losing their best defenseman (Timonen) and a good top 6 forward in Hartnell, and adding a bad possession anchor forward in Umberger, a question-mark defenseman in Del Zotto, and with have a full season of one of the worst possession defensemen in the game (MacDonald).
I think this could be a 45 or 46% FenwickClose team that will once again rely heavily on special teams to get through. I expect them to be picking in the top 10 in next year’s draft and I would not at all be surprised to see them picking in the top-5.
4.) What do you think of the current direction of the team? Do you think its a rebuild on the fly?
The Flyers are a pretty particular club in regards to the direction of the team, because they have an owner who is always interested in the being good right now aspect, and he seems to be quite involved behind the scenes on pushing certain buttons and probably forcing management’s hand sometimes. For example, the year after the Flyers lost to the Hawks in the Cup final, they finished first in the Atlantic and went into the playoffs with a lot of expectations. This was the year Bobrovsky was a rookie for them. For whatever reason, then coach Peter Laviolette seemed to lose confidence in Bob and pulled him after letting up 3 goals early in the 1st period of Game 2 in the 1st round against the Sabres. This was basically the start of an embarrassing goalie carousel that included Bobrovsky, Brian Boucher, and Michael Leighton. Flyers ultimately got swept by the Bruins in the 2nd round leading to their owner Ed Snider to come out and basically declare that a goaltending mess like that would never happen again. Next thing you know they traded away Richards and Carter so they could sign Ilya Bryzgalov. All that to say, the owner tends to meddle, and he always wants to win now, so that influences the team direction.
When Ron Hextall came in as GM this Spring, he talked about how he wasn’t going to rush anything and that it was going to take a few years to get this team where he wants it. He basically also said he would be able to maintain the team being competitive, though not quite at the level of the elite clubs in the league. Based on the moves he made this summer, it’s my belief that he has the Flyers in a sort of secret rebuild, though maybe I just want to think that instead of having to believe that he actually does like players like Umberger and Schultz. The only way the Hartnell trade makes any sense to me is in those extra 2 years on his deal that Umberger doesn’t have. That means in 3 years the team will be more flexible when RJ’s contract comes off the books. Whereas Hartnell has 5 more years remaining.
Basically I think the Flyers are in a wait-it-out period on some of the contracts they currently have and also are waiting on their core of promising young defensemen to be ready to make it to the big club, which could start as early as 2015-16 for some of them. I’m quite excited about the draft they had this past summer. I think they have taken positive steps with the farm system bringing in speed and skill. It seems apparent to me that the team is in a holdover pattern until the young defensemen can start infiltrating the lineup, as management has repeatedly said they like the young group of forwards that they have on the team right now. The only problem for me, and the question I have, is how much are they aware of the real prime years and aging curve for forwards? Because, with the exception of Couturier, and maybe Brayden Schenn, though I have my doubts about him, the rest of the current forward group is pretty much in the middle of prime time years right now. So I have concerns about the timing of what seems to be the plan, as there isn’t a lot of high end skill among the forwards prospects they have right now.
5.) What has to happen for the Flyer’s to get in the playoffs? What has to happen for them to miss?
For the Flyers to get into the playoffs, Mason has to have basically a .920 or better sv%, and their top 6 forwards have to remain extremely healthy, especially Giroux and Voracek. Coburn and Streit have to remain perfectly healthy as well, as the defense corps has no depth at all. It basically has negative depth.
And then on top of that, they will need teams like the Islanders, the Devils, and the Capitals to all have down years or injury troubles or what have you.
And the power play has to be among the top 5 in the league, as they rely on it heavily for goals and wins.
And the Finnish God of Defense needs to be miraculously healed from his blood clot ailments.
If all that happens, they will have a shot at the playoffs.
So, as you can see, I think they need everything to go right and then some to get into the playoffs this year. It won’t take much for them to miss. If Mason doesn’t at least repeat last year’s performance, instead regressing somewhat back toward his career numbers, and their best players don’t remain impeccably healthy, the Flyers will likely have a top 10 pick in the 2015 draft (which is good, then they can draft Mitch Marner and start getting some high end forwards back into the system).
Buckeye State Hockey Staff Prediction:
8th place. Admittedly while putting this together we talked over their positioning in the standings multiple times. Recently with the injuries within the division we talked over the possibility of moving them up in the standings. Giroux and Co. are going to need to have a historic year to put this team anywhere in contention. Mason cannot regress one modicum for this team to stay in contention. The defense cannot be a possession black hole and allow as many shots as last year on Mason. Too many things need to go right for this team to make the playoffs and contend. Will they be bad enough to contend for McDavid or Eichel? Man, oh, man lets hope not.
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