Photo Courtesy of, Eric Hartline/USA Today Images
With the Philadelphia Flyers 2021-2022 season opener on the horizon later this evening, at 7pm it’s time to dissect the Flyers outlook and some key aspects to takeaway going into the team’s first match-up of the season. The Flyers opponent in this tilt the Vancouver Canucks are also in an interesting spot regarding their expectations heading into the new season and this will also be discussed below:
The Canucks
After the success of the 2020-2021 season the Vancouver Canucks were expected to take a step forward. It was expected that the club would at least match their impressive performance from the playoff bubble in 2019-2020. Similarly to the Flyers, things did not shake out the Canucks way, as they missed the playoffs. Vancouver played far below their expectations which could have been attributed to numerous injuries to top players including Elias Petterson and Alex Edler. Not to mention, the team’s bout with Covid-19 which impacted their entire roster. As a result, the Canucks are certainly happy to put the mess that was last season behind them and look forward to getting things back on track relative to fan and managements expectations. Like the Flyers the Canucks had some major roster turnover, adding players Conor Garland, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jason Dickinson, Jaroslav Halak, Brad Hunt , Phillip Di Giuseppe, Justin Dowling, Tucker Poolman and Luke Schenn. While subtracting longtime Canuck, Alex Edler most notably, along with, Nate Schmidt, Braden Holtby, Antoine Roussel, Loui Eriksson and Jay Beagle. It’s almost ironic that the Flyers are beginning the season playing the Canucks because Vancouver had a large roster shake-up mirroring that of the Flyers. This shouldn’t be surprising though especially since the Canucks underperformed substantially relative to their expectations. Comparably with the Flyers there is skepticism surrounding if the team can improve defensively and keep the puck out of the net this season. An integral acquisition they are hoping can help in that area is Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and this can be considered as almost a parallel to the Flyers and their trade for Ryan Ellis in terms of what both defenseman mean to their respective clubs entering this new season. Another important thing to note is the Canucks will be without Brock Boeser for the season opener and potentially up to two weeks as the forward has been placed on injured reserve to begin the season. Ultimately, the Canucks look to be a team on the rise that should bounce back in 2021-2022 and it’s only fitting that the Flyers are taking on a team with the same question marks defensively, a large amount of new roster players and a team that is also looking to mesh together and find their chemistry. Hopefully for the viewers both teams having so many new players on each side doesn’t make for some boring hockey this upcoming Friday the 15th.
The Flyers
Much like the Canucks the Philadelphia Flyers are in a similar predicament. Last season was supposed to be the beginning of a new era of Flyers hockey where the team was to become a competitor in the Eastern Conference for the foreseeable future. Some experts and pundits even predicted the Flyers would make it to the Stanley Cup Final or even win the Cup altogether. Unfortunately, such predictions were further from the results than one could have imagined. The Flyers though starting the season strong provided their fanbase and management a bit of a mirage as the remainder of the 2020-2021 season was nothing short of the word abysmal. Defensively the Flyers were one of the worst in the entire NHL and regarding goaltending that was also essentially the worst in the league as well. Coming off such a disastrous season the fan base and management were clamoring for change which GM Chuck Fletcher aptly addressed. Adding the likes of Ryan Ellis, Cam Atkinson, Rasmus Ristolainen, Derick Brassard, Nate Thompson, Keith Yandle and Martin Jones all the while ridding of players, Jakub Voracek, Shayne Gostisbehere, Philipe Myers, Nolan Patrick and Robert Hagg. With such a roster turnover it’s been expected in pre-season that the team would likely need a lot of time and practice in order to find chemistry and gel with one another. So far this pre-season the Flyers have had their moments and have looked better defensively but some holdover issues from last season seem to be rearing their heads. First off, the team’s penalty kill does not look to be improved when judging the team’s pre-season outings so far. They are allowing goals against at a similar clip on the penalty kill and for the Flyers sake they are hoping this is just the reality of new pk groups meshing together and working out the kinks before the season begins. Additionally, center depth is appearing to be another issue as the injury to Kevin Hayes sidelining him 6-8 weeks and Morgan Frost being sent to the AHL has left the Flyers in a predicament where Derick Brassard will be their second line centerman to start the season. Obviously this is not an ideal occurrence for the Flyers but the team is hoping they can see Kevin Hayes return by the end of October to mitigate this depth problem. Aside from that Carter Hart does look much improved and back to his prior form and Martin Jones has been okay in net which is essentially all you can ask from a back-up goalie. Also, the Flyers top line seemed to be clicking this pre-season and had several dangerous shifts, not to mention Captain Claude Giroux still showing he is a top line player in this league. In terms of this opener the Flyers will be looking to kick off the season winning a home game for the first time in years. It remains to be seen if the team’s lack of center depth and underwhelming penalty kill will be something they can overcome and ensure the Canucks do not capitalize on.
Key Takeaways Going into the Opener
- How will the Flyers withstand the crucial loss of Kevin Hayes? Can a Flyers lineup consisting of Derick Brassard at 2nd line center and Scott Laughton at 3rd line center be a competitive one and produce enough scoring chances outside of their 1st line. At this point the question remains to be answered however, without 2nd and 3rd lines that can score consistently it may create matchup issues for the Flyers. For example, in the first game alone it’s probable Bo Horvat and his line will match up against the Flyers top line meaning Elias Pettersson’s line will match up against lines 2-4 and will those lines be able to handle playing against players of that ilk accordingly? The answer remains to be seen though it will be fairly interesting to see how the rest of the lineup holds up in these scenarios against top tier talent.
- Another interesting conundrum is how the Flyers penalty kill will perform against a very strong Canucks power play. There has been a lot of turnover in terms of the penalty killing units from this year to last with the team adding players such as Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen, Nate Thompson and Cam Atkinson. Despite this, the Flyers pre- season penalty kill has looked eerily similar to last year’s penalty killing unit which finished 2nd last in the entire NHL. Considering these are pre-season games it’s hard to entirely take what you’re seeing and call it a certainty to occur once regular season play begins. Though a lot of the goals against are stemming from issues seen last season where players are giving up too much time and space to other squad’s power play units through a passive penalty killing style. It will be intriguing to see how the penalty killers do in the season opener and beyond, as well as, if the penalty killing performance in the pre-season could be attributed to working off the rust.
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Overall the theme surrounding this season opener for both the Flyers and the Canucks seems to be a myriad of question marks on each end of the spectrum. Making it a much watch game as there are a number of things that could unfold. This opener should provide clearer assessments about the Canucks and the Flyers roster make-up in general and how both teams may perform for the remainder of the regular season.
