This young Flyers team were just on fire before the Coronavirus halted their season. For the season, they finished second in the Metropolitan Division with 89 points. Who would have thought that before the season started!!!! Not many fans, or hockey analysts had the Flyers pegged as contenders for the Lord’s Stanley Cup. Some of Flyers Twitter believed that the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers would finish ahead of them by season’s end. Welp, it didn’t happen, and as a matter of fact the Flyers are light years ahead of both teams at the moment in terms of development. This 2019-20 Flyers team felt like the 2018 Super Bowl Champion Eagles team.
If one looks up and down the Flyers roster they will see talent, but players that were supposedly, “Has beens, overpaid players, the coaches weren’t good, a Head Coach that supposedly played Vets over Youth.” Most hockey analysts had the Flyers missing the playoffs for a second straight season, much like most football analysts predicted the Eagles to maybe, a little maybe make the playoffs in their Super Bowl victory season (Strictly because of Carson Wentz).
While taking a page out of the legend in Eagles Center Jason Kelce’s playbook, “An underdog is a hungry dog. G is a has been, Coots is good, Voracek sucks, Hayes and Provorov are overpaid, Matt Niskanen is washed up, Braun blows, Raffl sucks, Laughton who’s that, Elliott is always hurt, Hart’s too young, AV he plays the Vets over Youth, Should have hired Coach Q but noooo, and Pitlick whatttttt?” The list goes on and on, “Nobody likes us, we don’t care.”
Low and behold the Flyers are Cup contenders when the season reconvenes in August. They started the season in Prague, and guess what they didn’t let their feet/foot off the gas pedal one bit. As a matter of fact the Flyers owned the Metropolitan Division for once, after ending the season 15-4-4 against the Metro Division, all of this without the services of Oskar Lindblom and Nolan Patrick for a greater portion of the season.
What a redemption season it was for the Flyers. Alain Vigneault showed the world that he is a coach with a personality, and really commanded the respect from the players and staff from the start. Vigneault communicates we with the players, and got the most of Jakub Voracek and James Van Riemsdyk when they bought into AV’s system. A coach in Vigneault is a no non-sense coach, and his system relies on good Defense leading to a high octane offense. For his efforts, the Flyers finished tied for seventh in goals for with 227, and that was good for a rate of 3.3 per game.
Coots, what more can be said about this young 27-year-old, who should clearly be a Selke Candidate (Best Defensive Forward). He really is an elite first line Center. Couturier was phenomenal once again defensively, but scored 22 goals, was tied for second in assists with 37, and finished with 59 points. I want to reiterate this, he is a first line Center that continues to turn peoples’ heads with his offensive fire power year after year.
What’s even more impressive was the Goaltending that the Flyers received. Carter Hart finished the season with a 24-13-3 record, was 20-3-2 at home, the 8th best GAA at 2.42, a .914 Save Percentage at the ripe age of 27-years-old. Elliott was also re-signed by the orange and black to a one-year deal, and he really stepped up in Hart’s absence. However, he and Hart formed a great relationship, and proved to the World what he can do while being 100% healthy. A steady netminder in Elliott was pretty darn good this season. Flyers fans are not used to this type of Goaltending throughout the course if a season.
Hayes has provided much-needed size down the middle for the Flyers, and Hayes is also versatile. Hayes can play the wing and the Penalty Kill. He is a legit scoring threat on the PK, which has helped the Flyers immensely. Better yet, Hayes has done everything right, including scoring 23 goals on the season. He potted four short-handed goals, and four Power Play goals on the season before it was halted to the Coronavirus. His shorty in October was one of the best goals on the season:
This season Provorov was absolutely phenomenal. The young man at the ripe age of just 23-years-old logged an average ice time of 24:51 a night, tallied 13 goals and registered 23 assists, has a Corsi (EV) 52.4% (Which was a career high), has 111 blocks, and has issued out 84 hits. Simply put, this young man did it all as the number one defencemen of the Flyers at the age of just 23, and made his contract look like a steal. Provorov plays top line night after night, and sometimes logs over 28 minutes a night, and I’m sure he was a nominee for Flyers goal of the year:
The Flyers season is reminiscent of the Eagles 2017-18 season. This young Flyers team has undergone an unbelievable transformation on Broad Street within the past year. They seem destined to have the same success of the Eagles great playoff run, that ultimately landed them the coveted Lombardi Trophy. How the rest of the season plays out remains to be seen, but it’s a great time to be a Flyers fan.
