Philadelphia Flyers: New Year, Old Questions
By Marc Naples
The Philadelphia Flyers enter calendar 2016 having made little progress on answering big team questions that have been looming since the start of the season
Back at the beginning of the year, I thought there were a few key questions the Philadelphia Flyers faced. These revolved around a few big picture issues that have been lingering around the team as the last few seasons have progressed.
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First and most broadly was the Flyers’ unruly mob of defensemen. They entered the season with 9 defensemen competing for 6 regular spots. Youngster Brandon Manning made the team, resulting in a surprising demotion for Andrew MacDonald. Sending down MacDonald and his $30 million contract was at best a temporary bandaid on the situation. Even with MacDonald in the AHL, Shayne Gostisbehere has since been called up to the NHL resulting in the Flyers being back up to 8 defensemen on the roster.
Carrying 8 defensemen is not a viable long term plan in the NHL, let alone having approximately $4 million dollars in dead cap space buried in the AHL with MacDonald. Normally the obvious solution to this issue would be to trade someone, but making a trade in today’s NHL is very difficult. So many teams are right up against the cap, and no one wants to take on long term commitments. Mark Streit would appear to have decent trade value given that he was top-10 among NHL defensemen in points last season, but he is getting up there in years and has one additional season on his contract.
Right now the Flyers are stuck in purgatory with their defensemen. Last game they even played 7 defensemen. It is disappointing that three months into the season they are no further into sorting out their defensive lineup than they were in preseason. As it is, the Flyers are constantly juggling their defensive lineup and carrying extra bodies.
The second lingering question for the Flyers is that they may have too few bodies that can do the job up front. As on defense, the team is saddled with big contracts for players that add little to the team in Vincent Lecavalier and RJ Umberger. They have great talents like Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux to headline the attack, but a secondary offensive spark is notably absent.
Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn have not developed into consistent offensive threats as the team hoped. Wayne Simmonds remains a popular player but a merely streaky scorer, while Matt Read looks less and less like a 20 goal man. Last year this formula resulted in a team with a good power play but one that finished 25th in 5v5 goals scored.
This year production up and down the lineup is stagnating. The Flyers have dropped even lower in 5v5 scoring, down to 29th. On top of that, the power play has fallen from 3rd in the NHL last season, all the way down to 27th this season.
There was some hope that a new arrival like Sam Gagner might provide some skill and speed to the Flyers’ attack, but he has spent most of the season on the fourth line and now is down in the AHL. On the other hand, players such as Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde that may be nothing more than 4th line offensive talents, have seen their ice time grow under coach Dave Hakstol. It increasingly looks like the Flyers simply do not have the horses on offense to be a competitive team.
Lastly, the third issue facing the Flyers has been their penalty kill. When the Flyers last made the playoffs in 2013-14, the penalty kill was a strength, finishing #7 in the league. Last year the collapse of the penalty kill in November was a major factor in the Flyers’ disappointing season, ultimately finishing 27th in the league. The Flyers’ penalty kill had been showing improvement this season, but the penalty killers had a particularly tough time during the recent winless California trip. As of today, the Flyers penalty kill is down to 26th in the league.
The Philadelphia Flyers are currently 24th overall in the league in points per game. Thus far they have failed to meaningfully address their serious flaws that carry over from last season in settling upon a defensive lineup, finding secondary scoring, or getting consistent penalty killing.
I cannot say how hard GM Ron Hextall is working to make a trade happen, but the Flyers lineup feels like a hodgepodge. Perhaps Hextall has calculated that his only option is to wait out contracts. Luke Schenn and Sam Gagner will be out of contract after the season, and Andrew MacDonald and RJ Umberger will be candidates for buyouts in the offseason. Unless Hextall can pull a trade out of his hat, or Dave Hakstol has an epiphany about tweaking the lineup, the Flyers may fall short of the playoffs a second year in a row because of their failure to answer old questions.