Keeping Perspective on the Philadelphia Flyers 4th Line
By Marc Naples
The Philadelphia Flyers 4th line was a favorite of coach Dave Hakstol all season and got a lot of attention down the stretch, but how good are they really?
A good fourth line is a bit of paradox in the NHL. The moment a “4th line” becomes very effective, are they really a 4th line anymore?
Putting logical conundrums aside, the Philadelphia Flyers 4th line got quite a bit of attention down the stretch and into the playoffs. The line of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Chris VandeVelde, and Ryan White was one of the bedrocks of coach Dave Hakstol’s lineup this season. Nearly every line saw constant shuffling except this trio.
Hakstol liked this group so much, at times it was the Flyers de facto 3rd line. That probably was not a very good idea. By the end of the season, this group settled back into a fourth line role.
Even as a 4th line, this line received quite a bit of praise, particularly on the national TV broadcasts in the playoffs. Even after the season, the chemistry and contributions of this trio was still a topic of conversation. As Ryan White dangles as an unrestricted free agent and the Flyers prioritize his signing, just how good was this Flyers 4th line?
You don’t necessarily look for great stats from a 4th line. As mentioned above, if they’re getting great stats, they won’t be 4th liners any longer. Fourth liners therefore need to be graded on a curve, but other players acknowledged as the best 4th liners in the league can be used as a benchmark.
A few players sometimes named as model 4th liners are Casey Cizikas of the Islanders, Luke Glendening of the Red Wings, and Torrey Mitchell of the Canadiens. Retrieving stats of the combined trios can be a little tricky, but these individuals can be contrasted against the Flyers’ Bellemare.
The first place to start looking at the performance of these 4th liners is Corsi possession statistics. Every team has a different baseline for the possession they usually maintain, so the best way to compare the players to look at the relative Corsi rates of the players compared to their teammates.
Every player is negative relative Corsi player. Again, they’re 4th liners, so that’s not surprising. You do, however, want to minimize the negative effect of the 4th line on possession. On this count, Bellemare isn’t as strong as Cizikas or Mitchell, but he is better than Glendening. So as measured by possession, Bellemare as a representative of the Philadelphia Flyers fourth line is decent, but not outstanding.
Aside from possession, you also want the 4th line to chip in the occasional goal. Here’s the production rates of these players.
When it comes to scoring, Bellemare does not keep pace with these other players.
For point of comparison, there were 438 NHL forwards who played 200 minutes or more at 5v5. Judged by their rate of individual point production, all 3 Flyers 4th liners were pretty far down this list. Bellemare is at 393, Chris VandeVelde is at 382, and Ryan White is at 380. This puts all 3 players in the bottom 15% of all NHL forwards in point production.
On the other hand, Cizikas is 88, Mitchell is 297, and Glendening is 300.
There are plenty more metrics to contrast the players, but it’s probably best to keep it simple. The bottom line is that it was a positive that Dave Hakstol found a consistent 4th line that he could rely, and occasionally delivered some pretty good performances.
Their time as a de facto 3rd line showed the shortcomings of this group, however, and their relative possesion was okay, but nothing special. On the final question of production, the Flyers 4th line was quite poor this season.
The takeaway is that the Flyers 4th line was a decent combination, but the Flyers probably shouldn’t get carried away that they had anything special in their 4th line this season.