Why The Flyers Should No Longer Devalue The Plus/Minus Stat

For far too long the NHL has tried to make the game (which was fine how it was before) different- more wholesome and exciting to watch on TV. Their way of doing that was to try and get more goals and less physicality. Don’t get me wrong: referees calling more minor penalties on things like hooks or holds to try and clean the game up is one thing; but the league has managed to brainwash young players into forgetting about the defensive side of the game altogether. The league thinks that, in order to hold the average fan’s attention now, they have to produce a hockey game whose score now resembles a football game rather than the old 1-0 thrillers from games past. This is especially true in this immediate gratification era where fans were raised with access to the whole world at just a click of the button on their smartphones. The league, under commissioner Gary Bettman, has made no place for the knuckle draggers of old who use to police the ice. 

What’s worse still is that the Flyers who once embodied what it was to play that old school Gordie Howe-style of hockey have now metamorphosized into the cookie cutter image of what the league wants them to be. Philadelphia is now solely offensively-minded. They don’t care about playing defense (with the exception of Sean Courtier) and have eliminated any and all thought of ever laying a check or dropping the gloves to defend a teammate. Like it or not, that is the style of game the Flyers now choose to play. The problem with that is Philadelphia doesn’t have the offensive fire power to counteract their lack of defense like some teams do. 

With this push for a new NHL over the last few seasons the majority of the league and fans in general now devalue a once thought of crucial stat that was previously used by teams as a building block when constructing their franchises: The plus/minus:  A player is awarded a “plus” each time he is on the ice when his Club scores an even-strength or shorthanded goal. He receives a “minus” if he is on the ice for an even-strength or shorthanded goal scored by the opposing Club. The difference in these numbers is considered the player’s “plus–minus” statistic. This definition was taken from www.NHL.com 

Not all teams have managed to buy into this trend. Case in point, let’s take a look at the league’s standard, the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning compared to the Flyers roster.

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Ondrej Palat +132	Brayden Point +79	Nikita Kucherov +128

We will start off slow and work our way to the differences between the lineups. Here is a look at Tampa Bay’s first line and their career plus/minus averages. 

Pretty impressive right? All three of these players have spent the entirety of their career with the Lightning. They grew up in this system and have embraced the focus on being defensively responsible. Collectively Tampa Bay pays them $21.55 million a season.  

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Claude Giroux +39	Sean Couturier +88	Travis Konecny +5

The Flyers top line CAREER plus/minus is as follows:

Quite a bit different right? The Flyers 1^st line makes a total of $18.05 million a season and sure- the reigning Selke Trophy Award winner Sean Couturier’s numbers are comparable, but wouldn’t you think Giroux’s numbers (who has been in the league for 14 seasons now and has scored 858 points during that time) would be a bit better? Over the years you can not say that he hasn’t been consistent offensively, but his defense is surely lacking. For every point he has scored he has also been on the ice for 819 goals scored against his team in his career. If you compare superstar to superstar: Kucherov (who is the Lightning’s highest paid player) has been in the league for less than half of the time as Giroux (the Flyers’ highest paid player) and he is able to make his points be that much more effective in helping his team win games by helping out in his own zone as well as scoring goals. So, I ask you what superstar would you rather have on your team? 

Tampa Bay’s 2^nd line looks like this, and all three players’ career plus/minus rating is once again in the positives. 

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Alex Killorn +77	Anthony Cirelli +64	Steven Stamkos +48

All three players are the Lightning’s own draft choices and have played their entire careers in sunny Florida. This shows that Tampa Bay has the wherewithal to both select and retain some of the most defensively responsible players in the league. It does not come cheap though; All together these players count for $17.7 million dollars of cap space. 

Moving on to the Flyers’ 2^nd line now, which was taken from their last game’s starting lineup. You see some youth on the wings and an expensive veteran in the middle (Hayes) who was brought in as a free agent to help make head coach Alain Vigneault’s transition to his new system go smoothly.  

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Joel Farabee +6	Kevin Hayes +20	Wade Allison +1

Although, everyone here is a career plus player, the $7-million-dollar man in the middle (who was thought to be a great 2-way center) who plays a 200 ft game has been a minus player ever since he first laced up his skates for the Flyers. 

Moving on to comparing the third lines. Now is when it starts to get interesting. Tampa Bay’s is as follows. 

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Barclay Goodrow +13	Yanni Goudre +48	Blake Coleman -4

This line is centered by Goudre. A feisty little player who plays the game the right way went undrafted before the Lightning found him playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and decided to sign him. He has since gone on to help them win a Stanley Cup and is well on his way to helping them win another. Quite the return on their investment huh?  His wings are two players who the Lightning have managed to trade for; both of whom play a gritty defensive style of game and are unrestricted free agents this off season who would be a significant upgrade to the Flyers’ roster if signed. Don’t let Coleman’s career -4 rating fool you though: Before joining Tampa he played for New Jersey who hasn’t been the same since Martin Brodeur retired. The Lightning knew what they were doing when they traded a first-round pick for Blake. His penalty killing and overall defensive skills have managed to shine through now that he is in coach Jon Cooper’s system. Coleman has been a +17 since joining the team.  

The same cannot be said for Philadelphia though. Their third line:

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
James van Riemsdyk -37	Scott Laughton +2	Jakub Voracek -16

It too consists of a home-grown center with two wings who the team has gone out and acquired/reacquired, but the results are vastly different. They are not a gritty defensively responsible line like the Lightning have. They have mostly been thrown together so that Laughton (who is a poor man’s Sean Couturier) can make up for his linemates’ lack of defense. What makes it even worse is that at the time of signing both of these players were brought into and paid to be the team’s top line players. In both cases they turned out to be failed experiments. This line has got to be one of the most expensive 3^rd lines in the NHL today, making a combined $17.55 million (virtually the same as Tampa’s 2^nd line). The Flyers have to be wishing that the Seattle Kraken will choose either van Riemsdyk or Voracek in their expansion draft this summer in order to free up some cap space. Both players are the prime example of the Flyers buying into this new trend of being blind to anything about a player’s game (or lack thereof) except for what they do in the offensive zone. Yeah, it’s great that James has scored 524 points, and Jakub 738 in their careers, but what good does it do the team if when they are on the ice when the other team has possession of the puck they choose to move like they have cement for skates and show no physicality or willingness to be the one to go get the puck back for their team before it results in a goal for the oppostion?   

The Lightning’s 4^th line looks like this:

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Ross Colton +3	Tyler Johnson + 84	Patrick Maroon +15

It is centered by yet another amazing undrafted free agent signing of a player who, while undersized, has the heart of a lion. This proves yet again that Tampa should be paying their scouts some serious money because they simply deliver players time and time again who can not only score but, like in Johnson’s case, was voted as his junior leagues best defensive forward as well.  And what’s not like to about Patrick Maroon? I don’t know but to answer that you should ask the Flyers who drafted Maroon back in 2007 in the 6^th round only to trade him away to the Anaheim Ducks before he even got a chance to play one game in the NHL for Philadelphia. Maroon has since only been a major factor in the Ducks’ 2015 cup run and was able to raise the Stanley Cup in back-to-back years with two different teams. The first being for his hometown team- the St. Louis Blues in 2019, and then again with Tampa Bay last season. This is because after a year in which the Lightning were viewed as the best team in hockey in the 2019 season, they were booted out in the 1^st round of the playoffs because they lacked physicality. Seeing this, the team’s coach Jon Cooper pursued Maroon heavily to convince him to sign with the Lightning for just $900,000. This aggressive pursuit definitely has paid off because Maroon is well on his way to winning his third consecutive Stanley Cup!  

Now let’s take a look how the Flyers bottom line matches up: 

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Oskar Lindblom -10	Nolan Patrick -37	Nicolas Aube-Kubel -1

Lindblom is still a shell of his former self considering he scored 17 goals back in the 18-19 season, but it’s excusable since he is continuing to try and get back to 100% after triumphing over an amazing battle with cancer. My only question though is why the Flyers choose to re-sign Oskar to such an inflated contract of $3 million dollars a season right after he went into remission from cancer. I’m all for taking care of the guy for what he has managed to overcome but at the time would it not have been a better option business wise to sign him to a bridge deal with a much smaller yearly wage? Then later, once he proved that he could return to the player he once was, reward him with a much more lucrative deal. That extra money could have been much better spent on finding a first pairing right-hand-shot defenseman last off season to replace Niskanen. And then there’s Nolan Patrick, need I say more? Just the Flyers’ luck- ten years after losing out on the Patrick Kane sweepstakes when the Flyers were statically the worst team in the league and deserving of the 1^st pick, Philadelphia is graced with the opportunity to select second overall once again and get stuck with another dud (in Nolan Patrick).  

Ok. Now are you starting to get the importance of this neglected stat?  To further prove my point, why don’t we compare these two teams defenses.

First up is Tampa’s first pairing of:

Left	Right
Victor Hedman +121	Jan Rutta +21

An impressive career average from arguably the best overall defenseman in the league today. Victor simply can do no wrong. This 6’6- and 240-pound rock performs well in 5 on 5 play, during a power play, and on the penalty killing unit. Hedman is simply unmatched and is everything you want and expect out of a 2^nd overall pick. 

The Flyers’ 1^st defensive pairing on the other hand leaves a lot to be desired, especially on the right side. 

Left	Right
Ivan Provorov +9	Justin Braun +22

Provorov is the one shining star on the Flyers blue line and, as you can see, although he has only just finished his 5^th season with Philadelphia his career plus minus average is quite a long way away from ever reaching the likes of Hedman’s. His partner for the majority of the year was Justin Braun a 34-year-old 3^rd pairing player who was asked to bite off a bit more than he could chew this season on the top pairing. However, this season was his best in the last 3 seasons (as far as this stat goes). Playing with Ivan, Justin was able to achieve a miraculous plus minus average of 0 (or even) on the year.     

The Lightning’s second pairing looks like this: 

Left	Right
Ryan McDonagh +200	Erik Cernak +44

No McDonagh’s +200 average is not a typo guys. When Tampa decided they needed help on defense they knew who they wanted/needed and did not take no for an answer. McDonagh’s strong defensive play was the main reason why Tampa Bay was willing to give up a 1^st round pick, a conditional 2^nd and a slew of prospects for him in a trade with the New York Rangers. Ryan has to be one of the most underrated defensemen in the league today. He simply epitomizes what it means to be a shutdown defender. He is the type of player that any goaltender would love to have play in front of them on any given night. As for Cernak, well he’s another prospect that Tampa’s scouting department found. Erik was just sitting wasting away on the Los Angeles Kings depth chart before Tampa managed to talk them into just throwing him in as part of a much bigger deal and look at him now. 

The Flyers’ 2^nd pairing came with a lot of hype, but their play now has most fans in Philly screaming to others “don’t believe the hype”.

Left	Right
Travis Sanheim -28	Philippe Myers +2

These two young defensemen may have played about the same number of seasons as Cernak, but their games are drastically different. Both Sanheim and Myers seem to be cut out of the same mold: Offensively-minded defenseman who focus more on trying to score goals than preventing them. Also, they both have the size to be a dominant force on the back end but are scared to use it. 

Finally, we take a look at how the teams 3^rd defensive pairings match up. First up Tampa with:

Left	Right
Mikhail Sergachev +44	David Savard +16

Here we go again: Sergachev, a Russian-born defensive gem, was a member of the Montreal Canadiens system and played in just 4 games with the Canadiens before he was traded along with a 2^nd round pick in exchange for Jonathan Drouin back in 2017. This gritty young defender is a force to be reckoned with and is sure to continue to grow his game. His partner David Savard was brought in at the trade deadline this year by way of an impressive three team deal in which the Lightning not only gave up a first-round pick to Columbus to eventually land Savard but convinced Detroit to pay for him to play for Tampa Bay- all for a fourth-round pick. This move not only solidified the bottom pairing, but it brought in a stay-at-home defender who is more than willing to clear the porch so their star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy can see the puck. 

Philadelphia’s bottom pairing was a mess that most consistently factored in a combination of these two players with whoever else was thrown into the lineup that night. 

Left	Left
Shayne Gostisbehere -31	Erik Gustafsson -4

Yes, I know it says left and left. That’s because both players are left-hand shots thanks to the genius idea (sarcasm) of signing Gustafsson instead of one of the many right hand shot defenseman that were unrestricted free agents this past off season to replace Niskanen. The Flyers’ general manager Chuck Fletcher was engulfed with thoughts of acquiring yet another offensive defenseman. This only further proves my point that the Flyers have fallen for the majority of the league’s new way of thinking when it comes to building a team with the focus being on offense-offense-and more offense. This signing, which all smart Philadelphia fans knew to be the wrong one at the time, only managed to play 24 games in a Flyers uniform before even Chuck knew that he had made the wrong choice and placed him on a plane headed for Montreal for just a 7^th round pick in the 2022 draft. This mistake signing cost the Flyers not only $3 million dollars but a real chance at the post season this year. For that price, the Flyers could have had their choice of any one of the following right-hand shot defensemen: Radko Gudas, Mark Borowiecki, Jan Rutta, Sami Vatanen, Matthew Benning, Travis Hamonic, Cody Ceci, or Kevan Miller.  Any one of these players would have been a better choice, but the Flyers only focus on offense. 

That’s why this writer thinks that Philadelphia needs to take a page from Tampa’s book and change their way of thinking. Looking for not solely offensively minded players this off season but rather for some defensively responsible players who get back and help out in their own zone as well as score goals; Something that their goaltenders who had the worst goals against average and save percentage in the league last season would appreciate. This plus/minus stat needs not to be overlooked in Philadelphia anymore. It’s puzzling to me that Fletcher would bring in a coach like Alain Vigneault whose system thrives off of 200 ft players but then decides to bring in and retain players that don’t embody it. If you play that kind of system you don’t have to pay a bunch of elite players to come in to make it work. Just look at what it did for a player like Tyler Pitlick who, before joining the Flyers, was virtually an unknown. AV’s system and the one that coach Jon Cooper runs in Tampa makes players better simply by asking them to play the game the right way. The only difference is the Lightning have spent a little less than a decade slowly bringing in guys who play the game this way, and who are sure to be willing to buy in to Coach Coopers system. Their franchise’s eye for spotting and obtaining these kinds of players has been integral in building their current dynasty and should be viewed as a blueprint for aspiring playoff teams in the future.