Yesterday I wrote about the ridiculous start of the year that Giroux, Voracek, Couturier and Gostisbehere have all been having. All 4 of those guys have been playing at an elite level this year and as long as they stay healthy, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Especially as long as Ghost stays on a defensive pair with Provorov. So with that in mind, I’m just going to start off this blog by saying you should expect those 4 guys to continue producing at the rate they’ve been producing for the 2nd half of the year. Nothing more, nothing less.

So for the sake of time, let’s move on to some other guys on the roster who have the ability to either make or break this team moving forward. 42 games into the season. 40 to go. Just 1 point out of the last playoff spot in the East. It’s not a terrible position to be in right now but the boys also clearly need to have a better 2nd half of the year. 28, 93, 14, 53 and 9 can only do so much. So let’s break down who will help the Flyers get into the playoffs and who will prevent the Flyers from playing past the first week of April.

Travis Konecny | 42 GP, 5 G, 10 A

Travis Konecny has struggled to find his role on this team so far this year. He started off the season on the 2nd line. Then he spent most of the season bumping between the 3rd and 4th line. He has 15 points in 42 games this year. Not exactly an ideal first half of the year for TK considering he needs to be producing offensively in order to have any real impact on the game. He plays the game with heart but sometimes heart doesn’t always translate to strong play in the defensive zone. So 15 points in 42 games isn’t great. However, 5 of those points have come in his last 6 games after getting promoted to the top line playing with Giroux and Couturier. 1/3 of his points in 1/7 of the games. It would appear that playing on the wing with two top tier NHL forwards in actually better than being stuck having to carry dead weight like Dale Weise or Jori Lehtera on your line. Who’da thunk?

But if these last 6 games have been any indication, Travis Konecny is looking like he’ll have a drastically better 2nd half of this season than his first half. Will he stay on the top line forever? I don’t know. If he’s still producing at this pace then there’s no reason to shake it up. But Hakstol seems to have a pretty short leash with him right now so who knows. Regardless, you can see his confidence growing over these last couple of weeks and he’s been standing out for the right reasons now instead of the wrong ones. He’s making plays in the neutral and offensive zones. He’s rarely in the defensive zone anymore since Couturier and Giroux dominate the ice every shift. This line is the perfect fit for Konecny–again–as long as he keeps producing. It allows him to get on the scoresheet and it protects him from having to play too much defense. A big 2nd half from TK and the Flyers should be able to make some moves once their schedule gets more Metro heavy.

Nolan Patrick | 33 GP, 2 G, 6 A

No matter which way you look at it, the start of Nolan Patrick’s NHL career has been disappointing. Now there are plenty of reasons why. For starters, I don’t think that we’ve seen Nolan Patrick play at 100% healthy yet. He has a pretty lengthy injury history, had abdominal surgery over the summer, and suffered a concussion in late October. Unless you’re Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews, coming into the NHL and dominating as a teenager is hard enough as is, let alone trying to do so when you’re not at 100%. Combine that with the fact that a slow start to the career probably hasn’t done wonders for his confidence and you start to see why he only has 8 points on the year so far.

But over the last few weeks, there’s been a significant change in Nolan’s game. It hasn’t translated onto the scoresheet yet but you can tell he’s starting to get more comfortable out there. It seems like he’s adjusting to the speed of the game. He isn’t making as many mistakes, and now he has Wayne Simmonds on his line with Jordan Weal. He played 15 minutes against Pittsburgh and the Islanders last week, then played 12 minutes against St. Louis and the Sabres over the weekend. He’s been getting more regular shifts. He’s getting further away from that offseason surgery and early season concussion. And he looks like he’s just a couple of lucky bounces away from breaking out. Now I don’t mean breaking out like putting up 40 points over the next 40 games. But 20-25? Might be asking a little much but I don’t think it’s too farfetched. The kid wasn’t the 2nd pick in the draft for no reason at all. The talent is clearly there. Just needs those few bounces to get himself going.

Travis Sanheim | 34 GP, 1 G, 4 A, -9

Listen. I don’t need Travis Sanheim to be Shayne Gostisbehere. I know that a ton of Flyers fans, including myself, had really high hopes for the kid this year. Turns out he’s just not going to be as much as a difference maker right now as we’d like him to be. And that’s fine. Coming into the league as a 21-year-old defenseman isn’t going to be easy. Defensemen always take more time to develop and catch up to the NHL level. So I’m not asking for Travis Sanheim to go into these last 40 games of the year and put together a 15-game point streak and finish the year with 40 points. I just need him to be better than Brandon Manning and Andrew MacDonald. That’s all.

Granted, the Flyers have been doing fine with both of those guys in the lineup and Sanheim in the press box. Sanheim hasn’t played yet in 2018 and the Flyers are 4-1 on the new year. It’s just that they don’t have the ability to make the Flyers a better team when Travis Sanheim has that ability in him somewhere. I’ve been pretty vocal for the last couple of years about how much I dislike Brandon Manning. I think he’s probably a pretty decent guy and plays the game with a shit ton of heart. But he just doesn’t bring anything to the table besides losing a fight every once in a while. So if the guy who does nothing but lose the occasional fight is ahead of you on the depth chart, you know you’re in trouble. So all I need Sanheim to do is play a more consistent game, limit the turnovers and giving Manning a chance to watch the game from the press box.

I’d also just like to take this moment to remind everybody that the Flyers still have Phil Myers just waiting in the pipeline. I feel like a lot of people forget about him. He’ll be that big right handed shot that the Flyers blueline is lacking right now. There will be a day when the Flyers defense is Ghost, Provorov, Hagg, Sanheim, Myers, Morin and Friedman. Ghost is the oldest of the bunch and he’s only 24. Good god.

Anyway, those are 2 rookies and a 2nd year player who have all the ability in the world to have a better 2nd half of this season than their disappointing first halfs. If the young guys are able to start producing while the core keeps going the way they’ve been going, then I can see the Flyers ending up in one of the Wild Card spots at the end of the season. The Flyers may be top heavy but the top is so heavy that all it’ll take is just a little more from the rest of the crew to push them over the edge. Now let’s talk about who just needs to not fuck this all up.

The Goalies | Elliott: 34 GP, 2.74 GAA, .910 Sv% | Neuvy: 10 GP, 2.48 GAA, .921 Sv%

I know the goalies are always an easy scapegoat but they’ll potentially be the biggest factors when it comes to the Flyers playing past the first week of April or not. Now let me start off by saying that I don’t think either of Brian Elliott or Michal Neuvirth have been particularly bad this season. They haven’t been particularly great either but neither of them have been the sole reason why the Flyers aren’t currently in a playoff position. With that being said, both of these guys are completely capable of having full blown meltdowns and giving up goals at the most inopportune times. They can play great for 55 minutes per night but the 5 minutes they take off always seems to be the most crucial 5 minutes of the game.

Like I said, neither of them have been horrible this year. They’re mediocre with the ability to make a huge save at best, and really really fucking bad at worst. The issue here is that I don’t think the Flyers can ever play confident hockey with the lead because they can’t rely on either of these guys to become a wall to close out a game. Neither of them have the kill switch it takes to lock up a game. When these games get tighter toward the end of the season against division opponents and each point starts to count that much more, Elliott and Neuvirth are either going to keep the Flyers in the game just long enough for Giroux/Couturier/Voracek to win it for them, or they’ll collapse and get their ass kicked 5-1 like they did against the Penguins. I don’t know what to expect out of either of these guys but I definitely don’t feel confident in saying they’ll be the reason why the Flyers make the playoffs.

Dave Hakstol

I’m still convinced at this point that Dave Hakstol is not the right man for the Flyers head coaching job. The amount of faith I lost in him during that 10-game losing streak is irreconcilable. Hakstol was brought into Philly because the Flyers had the best prospect pool in the NHL and he was known for “developing young players”. We’re now in year 3 of the Hakstol Era and I just don’t see his finger prints on any of these young players. Ivan Provorov was going to become a stud regardless of who is behind the bench. I guess you can give Hakstol for not ruining him but he doesn’t deserve any credit for what Provy has been able to do this year, that’s just Ivan being a freak. We already talked about Konecny and how much he’s struggled early on this year. Putting him with Giroux and Coots was a good move but we still have to see how that one plays out. Leier is in the press box. Sanheim is in the press box. Hagg has been pretty good but he’s also been playing with peak Shayne Gostisbehere. Laughton has been a great surprise this year but that’s only after developing in Lehigh Valley. The biggest issue with Hakstol seems to be his talent evaluation and usage. This team is playing really good hockey right now because of the guys on the ice. I just don’t see an area of the game that is directly positively impacted by Hakstol. So the best thing he can do right now is to just turn off his brain, stop thinking, put the best guys in the lineup, put the worst guys (I think we all know who I’m talking about) in the press box, and just let the boys play. I have full confidence in the team right now, very little to no confidence in Hakstol. Should be a fun 3 months.

@BarstoolJordie