It’s no secret to anyone who follows the Flyers on a regular basis, that Claude Giroux is a vital part to the teams overall success. As Giroux goes, so do the orange and black. Giroux is the engine that runs the Flyers. Giroux had a phenomenal training camp, and you could really sense his determination with heavy shots pounding the Netminders. Moreover, Carter Hart was seen shaking his hand after being stung by a shot a few times, or fixing his equipment after saving some blasts from Giroux throughout training camp.
If you ask Giroux if he should be better, he will tell you he has to be better. Giroux wears his heart on his sleeve and always has been a team-first guy. However, the guy is a great Captain of the Flyers, and second longest tenured Captain in Flyers history. He has tallied 24 goals, dished out 41 assists for a grand total of 65 points in 69 games played in the playoffs, “I think we’re on pace to get in the rhythm of a real hockey game and a playoff hockey game,” Giroux said, “You need a lot of work. Usually you have 82 games to do that. Right now we’re just trying to speed up the process, get the feel of the puck and get the feel of our system. Hopefully by next week when we play our first pre-tournament game, we’ll have the feel of the puck. It’s going to be challenging for sure.”
Giroux continues about Oskar Lindblom, “Anytime we’ve got a chance to see him or he would come to a game, it was a little bit more motivation. The kid had been through a lot. We want to play well for him and for ourselves. He’s really big part of this team.”
Some people refuse to give Giroux credit for making players around him better!!! Let’s see he makes Jakub Voracek a better player when he plays with him, Sean Couturier succeeds, Travis Konecny is better, shoot even Scott Hartnell killed it with him, and Jaromir Jagr had a great season with Giroux. Quite frankly Giroux had a great season with Jagr, as well, as Giroux posted his second best statistical season with 93 points in 2011-12. The fact is no matter who plays with Giroux players seem to always succeed, hence the reason some struggling players have been moved up to play with him (Voracek for instance multiple times).
‘The Captain’ believes this is the best team he’s been on since 2010, “Yeah, I do believe that this is probably our best chance that we’ve had since. We have a lot of depth. We have veterans. We have young players that do a lot for us. Our goaltending. We’re just good everywhere. Confidence is a big part of it. If we can get that confidence early on during the round robin, I think that’s going to be huge for us.”
The one area that Giroux stands out from the rest of this past decade is faceoffs. He has compiled a 54.8 Faceoff Percentage. It just appears he wins every faceoff, after every faceoff. The guy has just been so darn good in this area, and it rubbed off on Couturier, as well this season, “The thing with Coots is it’s every game,” says Giroux, “He plays the right way every game. He plays hard. He’s good defensively, but he’s also good offensively. Last year, I thought he had a really good chance of winning the Selke. This year is even a better situation I believe. The thing with Coots is every game you know what you’re going to get from him.”
Giroux continues on the birth of Couturier’s new baby Ella, “We talked about it a few times. He’s very excited right now. It’s a moment that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life. When you go through it for the first time, you don’t really know what to expect from your emotions. It’s one experience that I’ve gone through. He’s going to have a lot of fun.”
It’s crazy to find out that Giroux has issued 686 hits this past decade. He really has tried everything just to win a hockey game. Some say when he wins a Cup, then he will get the respect he deserves. What a darn shame that is. This guy deserves respect now, so let’s hope the Flyers win the Cup,”During the regular season I think we were pretty consistent at the end and able to play our game,” Giroux says, “We would go into every game feeling we were going to win the game. We’re a confident group right now. We know what we’re capable of. I’m excited to get going.”
Fans love the T-Shirts featured above in this picture, Unfortunately they are not for sale
