The Flyers Should Get Back To the Basics

The Flyers were able to pull off quite the turn around this past season under the watchful eye of new Head Coach Alain Vigneault (AV). It was rather refreshing to watch a Flyers game this past season and not see the team quit after going down by a goal. Instead they played a full sixty minutes of hockey on a nightly basis and even battled back from multiple goal deficits at times to pull out a win. What was more refreshing still was the reassurance that AV was going to hold players accountable for their poor play. Examples of this were when he called players out during post-game interviews, demoted players to less significant lines, and at times made some of the teams most highly paid players a healthy scratch that were failing to totally buy into his system; a system that demands its players to play a 200 foot game by getting back defensively. 

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The team did so well this past season that they found themselves just one win away from returning to the Eastern Conference Finals; but sadly the team could not keep up with the tempo of the faster, stronger, and more physical New York Islanders. For that reason the playoffs should have taught a similar lesson to the Flyers that the Tampa Bay Lightning learned the previous season. That lesson was that finesse and skill are nice, but size and physicality will ultimately prevail wearing down finesse and skill 9 times out of 10. In other words it’s harder to score if your find yourself suddenly sitting on the seat of your pants. 

This is why the Flyers must enroll in Hockey 101 and take it back to the basics! How the team can do this is by remembering what got them here in order to be able to re-hone their skills in a couple of key areas. 

The first being to simply finish their checks! The art of a check is swiftly becoming a thing of the past, but should it? If you ask anyone who has played the game on a higher level a check can make a player not want to go into the boards first, it can be used as a means to take back possession of the puck, it can wear a player down especially during a grueling seven game series, and most importantly it can energize your teammates causing them to take their game to the next level because they see you out there giving it everything you got. This is an area where the Flyers are in a lot of trouble currently. Only four Flyers eclipsed the 100 hit mark last season, and two of them just recently departed in Tyler Pitlick (Who just signed with the Arizona Coyotes), and Matt Niskanen who just retired! The other two were Robert Hagg (who lead the team in hits with 136 last season) and Scott Laughton. After these two I’m afraid it is a steep drop off, and for some a down right embarrassment. Shayne Gostisbehere had just 14 hits on the season, Jakub Voracek had 17, James van Riemsdyk had just 25, Joel Farabee had 31, Travis Sanheim had 41, and the Captain Claude Giroux (who should lead by example) had just 45. This has to change, the team as a whole was losing far too many puck battles last season. If the team were to increase the frequency of hits during a game it might lead to an increase in puck possession time and thus an increase in scoring chances. 

The second area that the team could look to improve on is blocking shots. Let’s face it blocking a shot takes guts! We all remember the type of pure sacrifice Ian Laperrière (Lappy) played with on a nightly basis for the orange and black. Especially when he took a puck to the face against the New Jersey Devils which lead to lots of swelling, a ton of stitches, loss of a couple of “biters” (teeth), and possibly a concussion. But for Ian this was just another game, for he embodied the expression giving it your all out there. Laperrière was never the most talented player while out on the ice but nobody played with more heart than he. Lappy skated his hardest on every shift, like each time he set foot on the ice it would be his last. The Flyers had just one player eclipse the 100 blocks mark this season. That player was Ivan Provorov with 111. Now of course the defensemen have more chances to block shots; and most of the Flyers blue liners were near the top of this list but my quam is with the penalty killing unit. Vigneault prides himself on his team’s ability to excel in their own defensive zone. So why did the Flyers defensive “greats” like Kevin Hayes only put up 22 blocks, Michael Raffl had 25, and both Scott Laughton and Sean Couturier only had 26 on the season. Now some may say playing with such a reckless abandon will lead to injuries, but this writer would say if you want the chance to have your name placed on the Stanley Cup one day it’s a chance that you should be willing to take. A blocked shot is a great way to lead to a breakaway chance; which remains as one of the highest probabilities of scoring a goal.

The third area that the Flyers could look to improve upon is just playing your position. Now call me old fashioned but I remember a time when a defenseman played defense! A blue liners job use to focus on stopping the other team from scoring and regaining the puck for his team; but the league has moved in a direction that they are more interested in seeing players lighting lamps (scoring goals). Now I ask you what good is a defenseman that scores 60 points a year if he is on the ice when the other team scores 80? You’re not helping the team! A defenseman should make sure to be defensively sound first, then if there’s a chance to hop up into the play offensively then go for it, but only if a forward on their team sees you doing so and is willing to get back and cover your possession. Far too many times this year I saw odd man breaks because a Flyers defenseman decided to jump up into the play and no one got back to help him out. One of the best Flyers defenseman that was able to master this skill was Mark Howe. Mark managed to be a plus 351 during his 10 year career here in Philly. Throughout that time he also managed to excel at the offense side of the game as well scoring 15-25 goals every year. The key here is to understand what is going on around you and figure out when it is safe to go and when it is best to stay back. 

The Fourth aspect of the game that certain Flyers players could get better at is being able to clear the front of the net. The Flyers finally have their perennial goaltender in Carter Hart but as good as he is he can only stop the shots that he can see coming at him! This season the defense let the opposition occupy the area in front of their crease far too often for my liking. Hart struggled at times to find the puck, and was forced to dart his head back and forth trying to catch a glimpse of the puck. Folks we don’t have Ron Hextall in net anymore! Hexy was always more than willing to take matters into his own hands in order to make sure he could see where the puck was at all times. Therefore the team must make a better effort to clear the porch if you will. There’s no excuse why a 6’4 Travis Sanheim and a 6’5 Philippe Myers should have been struggling as much as they were at this last season. They must get more physical and a little crueler by utilizing those big bodies to move these unwelcomed guests from their house. 

The next area the Flyers need to improve on is the ability/willingness to stick up for one another. I know the game has changed, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it! Way to many times this past season I witnessed the opposing team taking runs at our players, laying dangerous hits in the process that could easily result in one or more of our players getting seriously injured; largely because they feared no repercussion for their actions. The most the Flyers players did was go up to the offender and scold him for his actions. This has to change. No I don’t think we need to go out and hire the Hanson Brothers next season, but I wouldn’t mind a player like Flyers legend Rick Tocchet. Tocchet gained quite the reputation for policing the opposition. During his 11 year career here in Philadelphia, Rick amassed a grand total of 1,815 penalty minutes. That’s more than Dave Schultz, Dave Brown, or Craig Berube individually. Tocchet was not just a hitman though he was able to score 45 goals a season while performing his previous mentioned civic duties. Those kind of player still exist today they’re just more few and far between than before. 

The last element of their game the Flyers could be working on during this break is their willingness to shoot the puck. The Flyers are stocked full of pass first players. So much so that they could not convert a Power Play opportunity to save their lives during the playoffs. Instead it looked like the team was playing hot potato out there at times constantly passing the puck around until the music stopped. This led to incidences where the team did not even record a single shot while on man advantage. The Flyers as a whole must be more willing to fire the puck when the opportunity presents itself and stop looking for the perfect play to appear. A goal is a goal sloppy or cheap-pretty or highlight reel worthy they all count the same!

If the Flyers can manage to improve upon these small but vital parts of the game they will surely be able to launch themselves to the next level; and with any luck find themselves playing for a chance to hoist the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.