Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov skates against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, January 11, 2019 in Philadelphia.
Photo by Yong Kim, Philadelphia Inquirer
Five players we think will have a bounce back for the Flyers:
Bounce back seasons are something that happens in sports all the time. You see it in many scenarios with players coming off on injuries, slumps, rough-patches, and much more.
Chris:
Carter Hart, Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, Oskar Lindblom
Starting with Hart, well it’s pretty obvious. He didn’t have the best season (not his fault) and I think he’ll bounce back from that. The Flyers improved the Penalty Kill & Defense pairs over this busy off-season, and if they can get back to the rhythm they had in 2019-20, they’ll be golden. If the Defense was off one night, Hart was there for them and vice-versa. Provorov is a guy I look to have a huge spark. He’s such an absolute unit on and off the ice. Just a tank. He does so much defensively and I think he had the brunt of all the issues playing top-pair minutes along with Justin Braun who just can’t do that at this point in his career anymore (Not his fault at all). I think Provorov will get more Power Play time and I think putting him with Ryan Ellis will be very similar to the Matt Niskanen effect and hopefully turn the ship around.
Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim are two guys who can 100% get back to the forms they were in back in 2019-20. Konecny, the Flyers only All-Star that year, had a breakout year with 61 points. As many remember he didn’t score in the playoffs, and then had a rough year this year. I 100% see a bounce back from Konecny, he’s too skilled and has a very good shot to not put up some goals this year. Sanheim can definitely learn from last year, and so will his partner Phil Myers who’s now in Nashville. Myers & Sanheim played some tough minutes last year too, with many on PK.
Sanheim set two career highs in minutes played (21:53) and shorthanded minutes per game (2:07), per Jordan Hall.
I think Sanheim being able to get a pay raise can help his confidence and turn it around for himself. He has a lot of talent and can definitely learn from last season.
Oskar Lindblom is a guy who I look to come back to his normal self this year. He’s proven he can score, play great positional defense and have a very good defensive game as a winger with skilled hands and a good shot. Lindblom played a lot of 4th line minutes last year, which he shouldn’t be playing. He’s not a 4th liner, that doesn’t help him or his game and really doesn’t get him back into his normal form by playing 6-9 minutes a night. Last year he had his career lowest ATOI (13:11) in 50 games played. Now, granted he was fully healthy and wasn’t sick in 2019-20 where he led the team in goals with 11 in December and had a ATOI of 17:37 while playing with Sean Couturier & Travis Konecny early on, but I digress. I wanna see Lindblom more on the PK and in the Top 9, but do I think his spot is guaranteed? No. No one has a guaranteed spot this year in the Top-9. The good problem the Flyers have, is a total log-jam at the wings. You have a few centers (Giroux, Laughton, Brassard, Frost) who can switch, on top of already having Couturier, Hayes, & Thompson, so it’ll be a battle at Main Camp to see who cracks the opening night roster.
Aaron:Â
Carter Hart, Ivan Provorov, Oskar Lindblom, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Travis Konecny.
Carter Hart is the most obvious choice in this category for just about everyone I’d say. We’ve seen what he’s capable of and we know he has too much talent to not perform better, along with what will almost certainly be better defense in front of him.
Check out our Flyers Nitty Gritty Store
Ivan Provorov throughout his 5 year career in the NHL has had some back and forth seasons, I think we’ll see him bounce back once again. Ryan Ellis has something to do with that but I also believe that Provorov is better than what he showed last year. At times I think Provorov actually wasn’t too bad but I still think he’ll improve a lot from what we saw in the 2021 season. To me the thing that Provorov needs to work on the most is his skating and agility which feels weird to say because we’ve seen it be such a strength of his but he just looked slower and sluggish last year and I’m not expecting to see that this coming season. I think his aggressiveness and defensive play making ability can see an improvement as well.
Oskar Lindblom had a rough go of it last year and that was completely expected. We have no idea how tough it was for him to play that season and now to this point should be a lot like his normal self. I expected to see Lindblom used in a lot more situations, not playing fourth line minutes and having a bigger role on the PK like he did in the 2019-20 season. From what we saw in his 2019-20 season I just think he’s too smart of a player to not come back from this and can be a key part to this Flyers team, especially if we see him used with Couturier at times again.
I think Nicolas Aube-Kubel still has potential to be a fourth line piece on this for the next few years. Aube-Kubel is a restricted free agent at the end of this season and is going to want to prove that he was better than he showed last year. His forechecking game was impeccable in the 2019-20 season. In a contract year where he’ll be looking to get some kind of a raise with his style of play where it’s more effort based than skill I can see him being a real burden on other teams’ defenseman. Aube-Kubel also showed some decent scoring promise in the 2019-20 season and with hopefully a more stable bottom 6 we’ll see that return for him.
Travis Konecny was only able to pot 11 goals last season which obviously wasn’t what any of us expected from him. I’ve personally never been as high on Konecny as others but even for me I was surprised to see the way he was playing out there. We never saw that burst in his game that we’re used to seeing and like a lot of the players on this team last year looked slow and sluggish. I’m hoping with what was hopefully a fuller, better offseason and no COVID breakout we can see Konecny’s speed become an important part of his game again, as a lot of the players said that effect per them last year. After that I think we just have to hope he gets in better situations to shoot more and get some goals. We’ve seen him score at a 30 goal pace before and I think he still has that potential in him.
