Philadelphia Flyers Talking About the Playoffs
By Marc Naples
The standings may look close, but the Philadelphia Flyers are looking at an uphill climb if they want to make the playoffs this spring.
After the Flyers recent 4-game win streak, the fans couldn’t help themselves. On forums and on Twitter, fans would peak at the out of town scoreboard and calculate how many points out of a playoff spot they were as of that minute. It looked like the Flyers were really knocking on the door, especially upon considering that the Flyers had played fewer games than the competition.
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As of yesterday afternoon, the Philadelphia Flyers were 7 points out of playoff spot. (All stats cited herein will also be as of yesterday). They are last among an 8-team scrum for 2 wild card spots. Despite the fact that the Flyers have at least two games in hand on all those teams, the statisticians say they’re looking at only a 13.9% chance of making the playoffs.
The NHL standings can be pretty deceiving these days. With all the 3 point games that happen, particularly down the stretch, teams earn points in the standings even when they may not be winning. The result is that the standings look very bunched up, but the same effect that bunches up the standings also makes it very hard to leap-frog a few teams in the standings. Inevitably some of the teams ahead of you in the standings are still getting some points in the standings.
A simpler way to look at is that the number of total points to earn a playoff spot is relatively predictable. The last few seasons it takes around 95 points to grab the last Eastern Conference playoff spot. That’s 1.16 points per game.
The Philadelphia Flyers are currently earning 1.07 points per game, which puts them 20th in the league. To get to 95, the Flyers would need to play the rest of the season at a pace of 1.27 points per game. For point of comparison, that would be equivalent to the points pace of the 5th best record in the NHL.
If I told you the Florida Panthers are the team currently playing at that points pace, it sounds pretty do-able. Are the Flyers up to that task? There are 3 big reasons to doubt it.
Special Teams
To put it simply, the Flyers’ special aren’t very good. They scored 3 power play goals the other day against the Penguins, but that boost only got them as high as 22nd in the league with a power play success rate of 17.14%.
Perhaps even more importantly, the Flyers’ penalty kill is even worse. Their penalty kill rate is only 78.43%, putting them at 25th in the league. You put that penalty kill together with their power play, and the Flyers’ combined special teams is 28th in the league.
Third Line
So if the Flyers aren’t doing it on special teams, they must be good 5v5, right? Not exactly.
The Flyers are basically a two line team right now. Of course they have the Claude Giroux line as the first line. Additionally, Sean Couturier is having a bit of a breakout season leading the second line. The Flyers suffer a rather dramatic drop-off from there.
For all intents and purposes, the Flyers don’t have a third line. They really have something more akin to lines 4a and 4b. On most nights, the Pierre-Edouard Bellemare line approaches traditional third line duty, although they don’t do it very well. This shouldn’t be surprising for a line with marginal NHLers on the wings like Chris VandeVelde and Ryan White.
The end result is the Flyers have a third line that is a black hole offensively, but not a shutdown line either. Consistently winning with two lines is another big obstacle to overcome.
Lackluster Offense
When you have a bad power play, and a third line that never scores, it naturally leads to a third result. The Flyers’ offense is 28th in the league in goals per game.
I’d like to give the Flyers the benefit of the doubt on this one. Jakub Voracek got off to a terrible start, but has shown signs of turning it around recently. Furthermore, the Flyers are currently 29th in shooting percentage, so if their shooting percentage just approaches league average it will help their goal scoring.
Waiting for an offensive explosion, however, would be wishful thinking. The Flyers finished 24th in goals per game last year, so there is better reason to expect the Flyers to stay in the bottom quarter of the league in goal scoring. Save for an unlikely scoring outburst from bottom-6 forwards like VandeVelde and RJ Umberger, goals will be tough to come by.
Thirty-seven games seems like a lot of time to make up a few spots in the standings. Don’t be misled, however–the Flyers have very little margin for error. To make the playoffs, the Flyers will have to look like a different team the next three months. That’s never something anyone should expect.