Grading The Philadelphia Flyers Midway Through The 2015-16 Season
Ron Hextall and the Philadelphia Flyers made a huge splash yesterday by dealing Luke Schenn and Vincent Lecavalier (at half price) to the Los Angeles Kings for prospect Jordan Weal and a 3rd round pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. Tonight the Flyers take on the Minnesota Wild in what will be their 39th game of the 2015-16 season. So after the move yesterday and considering we’re essentially 50% through the season, I figured it’s time to throw together a quick report card on how the season has been going so far.
- For starters, the Flyers are 16-15-7 through 38 games played so far. That’s good enough for 39 points in the standings which puts them in 6th place in the Metro Division, 12th place in the Eastern conference and 23rd place overall. They’re only 5 points out of a wild card spot in the East so it’s not like a miraculous playoff run is that out of the picture. But they’re pretty much exactly where everyone expected them to be this year and will most likely just miss out on the playoffs again.
- As far as numbers are concerned, the Flyers are 29th in the league overall in goals for per game with just 2.16. They’ve only scored 82 goals so far this season and when you’re not scoring goals, it’s difficult to win games. Seems like common sense. However, only 11 teams have given up more goals than the Flyers this year and they’re 102 goals against is a very good sign that this team has strong goaltending despite which many believed to be a shaky-at-best blueline. They’re operating at 16.8% on the powerplay (gross), 78% on the penalty kill (okay) and 49.4% in the faceoff circles (meh). Again, pretty much exactly where everyone would expect the Flyers to be at this point.
Ice Girls Break
Now despite statistically being where everyone would have assumed the Flyers would be at this point, realistically they are in a much better place than anybody could have ever imagined. First off, by dealing away Luke Schenn and Lecavalier with half their salaries retained, the Flyers opened up $4 million in cap space. When Lecavalier retires at the end of the season, that will spike that number up to ~$8 million. When the Flyers buy out RJ Umberger’s contract and let a couple of free agents walk, we’re looking at upwards of $10 million in cap space. A number that the Flyers have almost never seen. So there’s a lot of flexibility for the Flyers to work with, and the core of the team (Giroux, Voracek, Coots, Simmonds, Ghost) is set for the future and have appeared to completely buy in to Dave Hakstol’s system. So let’s hand out a few quick report cards here before we end the blog with talking about where the Flyers go from here.
A Team
Claude Giroux – Captain Claude leads the team in points with 29 (12 G, 17 A) and is the main reason why this team isn’t a complete cellar dweller at the moment. He’s the reason why Dave Hakstol was able to come into this locker room despite not having any NHL experience and still get the team to buy in. Because Giroux is the leader of this team and where he goes, they follow. It’s cliche to talk about intangible things like leadership and “high compete level”, but when you watch Claude Giroux you can tell he has all of those things.
Shayne Gostisbehere – 7 goals and 9 assists in just 22 games played this season. He has the most goals scored by a rookie defenseman in the league and tied for the most points despite playing in 19 fewer games than Blues’ rookie Colton Parayko. The kid has been a catalyst for this team and he’s been an absolute stud since getting called up from Lehigh Valley. Just keep being patient, Flyers fans. Ghost, Provorov, Sanheim and Morin will all be playing together soon enough and the Flyers blueline will be a beautiful thing.
Wayne Simmonds – 10 goals, 12 assists, and has been beating the shit out of almost everybody. There’s a reason why there are so many trade rumors floating around that focus on Wayne Simmonds. It’s because the way he plays would make almost any team in the NHL better. There’s only a select handful of teams in the league that wouldn’t immediately benefit from bringing in a guy like the Wayne Train and his value has never been higher.
Dave Hakstol – Like I said before, the team is buying into his system. He’s getting the most out of almost everybody on the roster aside from a few stragglers who probably won’t be around next season anyway. He’s building a tough team and a team that will be very difficult to play against in the next few years. Pretty much living up to all of the praise surrounding him when he was first hired. Considering there are going to be a lot of young guys in the lineup soon enough, he’s the perfect fit for this team.
Michal Neuvirth – Been the best backup goaltender in the NHL this year and his value is also about as high as it could ever get right now. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him dealt at the Trade Deadline or at the draft. The Flyers could pick up some really nice assets for him. Especially from a team desperate to make a serious run at the Cup.
Alex Kraemer Break
B Team
Sean Couturier – Flyers fans are still going to be a little frustrated with Coots’ offensive production. But he’s picked up 5 points in his last 5 games and has been HUGE for the Flyers when healthy. I’m not a Corsi guy but fancy statistically speaking, Sean Couturier has been the best Flyer so far this season. I honestly can’t remember the last shift he had when he didn’t spend extended time in the offensive zone. When you’re a team that doesn’t score in bunches, puck possession numbers are huge. It’s what allows you to win 2-1 games. And when Sean Couturier is on the ice, the puck is almost never in the defensive zone so while the goals and assists may not be astronomical, his offensive production has been terrific.
Jake Voracek – I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Voracek here. He had a crazy slow start to the season but has still managed to put up 21 assists on the year. He’s also been extremely versatile and made the switch to the left wing pretty much seamlessly. He’s a very good player and I’d expect the 2nd half of his season to look more similar to his season last year than the first 15 games this year.
Brayden Schenn – I still don’t know what to make of Brayden Schenn. If I’m Ron Hextall, I think that I have no other choice but to re-sign him in the summer. It’ll be interesting to see how those conversations go as he hits restricted free agency coming off a contract worth $2.5 million. Not sure what type of money his camp will be looking for and I’m sure there are plenty of teams across the NHL that could benefit from bringing him in. But as long as the price doesn’t get too out of hand, I think you have to keep Brayden and I think you give him multiple years. Would rather keep Schenn than Raffl if that’s what it came down to.
Steve Mason – I’m very comfortable with the Flyers goaltending tandem and that’s something that I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say before in my lifetime as a Flyers fans. Sure, there are still some times that Mason can break down on you here and there, but both of these goalies give the Flyers a shot to win every night.
So What Now?
Again, I still see this team being on the outside looking in come time for the playoffs. They’re just a piece or two away from putting together the full puzzle. Which is completely fine because they’re so much closer to putting together that puzzle than they were just a few months ago. I think what has to happen now is you bring up Sam Gagner from Lehigh Valley now that they aren’t pressed up against the cap. And you give Gagner enough ice time that he plays himself into a desirable candidate for a trade at the deadline to bring in even more picks. I think that you also entertain any trade offers for Mark Streit to attain more assets that way. It’s about stock piling draft picks and prospects right now because where the Flyers sit in the 2016 draft is one 1st round pick, two 2nd round picks and 2 third round picks. The Flyers could easily get a few more picks in their arsenal for this year’s draft and use them to trade up regardless of where they finish in the standings. Get themselves a top 5 pick in this draft and they have the ability to bring in a kid like Matthew Tkachuk plus a whole shit ton of salary space in the summer. So overall, I’d give the first half of this season a B+. They’re in a great position to speed up that rebuild process and I think they’ll be ready to go in just another year or so instead of 3-5.
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