Ivan Provorov Is A Certified Stud. And That's Fact, Not Opinion
The Flyers blueline is completely depleted right now. Shayne Gostisbehere is out with a concussion. Andrew MacDonald, who actually looked not terrible early in the season, has been on the injured reserve. Radko Gudas is out with an upper body injury. The Flyers would have loved to call up 6’7″ Sam Morin to fill one of those slots but he’s also dealing with some injury issues right now. So the Flyers blueline last night was Brandon Manning, who has more NHL experience than the rest of these guys combined with a whopping 151 career games. Rookie Robert Hagg, rookie Travis Sanheim, Mark Alt playing in just his 4th NHL game, 29-year-old Will O’Neill making his NHL debut, and then there’s Ivan Provorov. Thank god for 20-year-old Ivan Provorov.
In just 96 career games, Ivan Provorov has become not only the Flyers best defensemen, but you have to put him right up there with the top guys in the entire NHL. You see that play right there? Yeah. That’s Vladimir fucking Tarasenko. One of the more lethal players in the league and Provorov just bullied him along the boards. What we saw last night was a 2nd-year player transform into a grizzled vet and put together one of the best defensive performances I can remember in a long ass time.
Let’s just go through some of the numbers real quick. Last night Provorov played 27 minutes. That’s ridiculous enough as is but it’s even crazier when you combine it with the fact that he just played 30 minutes against the Blackhawks in Chicago the night before. In 2 nights, Provorov logged 56:59 TOI. Those are some Duncan Keith numbers right there and that’s not even the most impressive part.
In those 27 minutes that Provorov played last night, he ended up blocking ten (10!!!) shots. Ten. Blocked. Shots. In one night for the kid. He’s now 2nd in the league in blocked shots with 41 so far in the season. The only player who has more is Joel Edmundson with 47. When the Flyers drafted Ivan Provorov in 2015, they knew they were getting a skilled, puck moving defenseman with a ton of offensive upside. Now here we are in his 2nd season and he’s among the league leaders for blocked shots and is shutting down Vladimir Tarasenko while being on the ice for half the game. And when he’s not putting his body in the way as human target practice, he’s making low key, heads up plays like this.
And don’t let all the defensive GIFs fool you. The kid is still a monster in the offensive zone as well. Let’s just go back to Monday night when the Flyers gifted the Coyotes their first win of the season. Flyers got 3 goals on the night. Can you guys pick up on a trend here?
I know that the advanced analytics aren’t always in his favor. I know that he’s still a minus on the season so far. But that’s why you can’t be a robot and just look at the stats. Anybody who is actually watching the games knows that Ivan Provorov is quickly developing into a legitimate #1 defensemen and the scary part is that he’s only 20-years-old. He’s only going to get better.
P.S. – Let’s talk about this Brayden Schenn hit on Couturier from last night.
Now listen. Do I think Schenn went out there on the ice with the intent on injuring anybody? No. And I also think this hit could have been way worse if he didn’t pull up a little bit right before contact. If Schenn wanted to, he could have actually murdered Sean Couturier here. Not in the way that we usually use the word “murdered” in an exaggerated sense but I’m talking real life murder. With that said, it’s still a scumbag move coming from a guy who spent the last 5 years being teammates with the guy. I’m not saying that you can’t go out there and throw the body around against a former team. But Schenn has seen all the injury problems Coots has gone through over the years. He knows better than this. In that area of the ice, you know that you’re going in there looking to catch someone with their head down. You’d just figure that a guy like Schenn who is still friends with all the guys wouldn’t go out there trying to land a blind-side hit. But hey, I guess that’s just the kind of guy he is.
Luckily it looked like Couturier’s shoulder took most of the hit here and saved his head from slamming too hard off the ice. And again, I don’t think Brayden Schenn maliciously went out there to hurt anyone. But that’s still a scumbag move no matter what way you look at it. I’m sure the Flyers will play a nice little video tribute for Schenn when the Blues come to town in January. I think Flyers fans would have every right to boo during the entire thing.