Flyers Quarterpole Comparison: This Year Vs Last Year
Heading into tonights game against the New York Islanders, the Flyers have already played 20 games. That marks approximately 25% of the season so far. I wanted to take a look at how they compare to last seasons team at this same point in the season.
Record
2010-11: 12-6-2
2011-12: 11-6-3
This years team is 1 point behind last years pace. This early in the season, that pretty much means nothing. However, last years team got her a little differently. Last years team had an early 3 game losing streak, and a 9-1 streak at this point. This year, we’ve had three 2-game losing streaks, and our longest win streak is 3 games (twice). Whereas last years team started slowly and picked up, this team came out kinda hot and has been up and down since.
Top Scorer
2010-11: Claude Giroux 10G, 11A, 21P, Mike Richards 8G, 13A, 21P
2011-12: Claude Giroux 11G, 15A, 26P.
G has started off red hot and is easily on pace for a monster season. He’s currently 2nd in league scoring, and is living up to the hype he had coming into the year. Last year, the entire team had a potent offense, but it was a bit more balanced. Giroux ended up leading the team with 76 points last year. He’s most likely going to lead us again this season, but it should be with a much higher total.
Goalie
2010-11: Sergei Bobrovsky and Brian Boucher
2011-12: Ilya Bryzgalov and Sergei Bobrovsky
Bob came out of nowhere last season to earn the starting job. They rotated him and Boosh for the first few games until he firmly established himself. Down the road we know he got worn out and was eventually part of the our famed goalie carousel in the playoffs. This season, we hoped to avoid that by acquiring a guy who we know can handle the load. We cleared cap space and signed Bryzy to a monster contract. So far his .902 SV% is pretty pathetic. The Flyers haven’t looked good in front of him, and he hasn’t done anything spectacular to cover up for their mistakes. We’ll see how this plays out.
Crazy Game
2010-11: 8-7 loss to Tampa.
2011-12: 9-8 loss to Winnipeg.
Both games were against teams from the Southeast Division. Both games featured a ton of comebacks and lead changes. The Flyers defense was non-existent in both games. The Flyers followed up each of those games with a win against another SE Div. team in which they scored 5 goals.
Powerplay
2010-11: 17 for 88, 19.32%
2011-12: 18 for 98, 18.37%
We’ve scored pretty much the same amount, but the efficiency is down a bit. I like that we’re drawing more calls though. That will help us in the long run. Then again, we’re not exactly angels either.
Penalty Kill
2010-11: 85 for 101, 84.16%
2011-12: 82 for 98, 83.67%
We’ve taken a surprising step back in this department. Our overall defensive numbers are much weaker this year than we would like them to be.
Scoring and defense (Note, i’m count SO wins as a goal b/c I’m doing this manually and it just makes it faster)
2010-11: 70 scored, 49 given up.
2011-12: 75 scored, 60 given up.
The offense has had a few explosions to keep the numbers up. But the defense is far more porous than it was last year. That’s not at all what we were expecting this year. We thought we’d keep the win total high, but score a bit less and give up a lot less. That has yet to transpire on a consistent basis so far.
Overall
You don’t know where a team is headed this early in the season. But at this same point last season, I was far more confident than I am right now. Forget what the numbers show; we’re simply not as dominant as we were. I see teams having no problem getting into our zone and getting good chances. Last year we seemed to lock them down a lot better. Then again, last years squad was almost exactly the same group that came together the season before for an amazing playoff run. This is a group with a lot of new faces that is still learning to play together. It’s funny how if you look at just the numbers, you’d think the team is very much the same as it was the year before. But when you actually watch the games, it’s a completely different story.
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