Philadelphia Flyers Remain or Remove: Claude Giroux

In a new series on Broad Street Buzz, we take a look at the 2018-19 performances of each current Philadelphia Flyers player and decide whether or not they should Remain with or be Removed from the roster this offseason, starting with the team Captain.

While it doesn’t hold a candle to his electrifying 102 point 2017-18 campaign, Philadelphia Flyers Captain Claude Giroux still had himself another nice season in an Orange and Black uniform.

Giroux scored at over a point-per-game pace for the second consecutive year, netting 85 points in 82 games played. His 63 Assists tied for ninth among all NHL players and was the third highest mark of his career as well.

Diving a little deeper into his statistics, the 31 year-old forward led the Flyers in Goals-For percentage (GF%) with 53.70% and ranked second in Corsi-For and Fenwick-For percentages among Philadelphia skaters who have played at least 500 minutes in Time-on-Ice at even strength, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. His GF% dipped a bit compared to last season but he continued to drive play at about the same rate.

Giroux wasn’t his complete self on the power-play this year, though. Going from 36 to 23 power-play points is a pretty big drop, but some of his stats show that this was more of a one year thing for the Ontario native.

He created more scoring chances this past season than the last, increasing his Scoring Chances-For and High Danger Chances-For percentages by over 1%, but his GF% did drop a full 4%. A lot of this was due to his movement to the right side of the boards instead of staying at the left, hindering his ability to slap one-timers passed the opposing goaltender. Additionally, the Flyers entire man advantage struggled for most of the year, even going as far as icing five forwards to try and get the unit going.

Due to the entire power-play squad being a complete mess, I wouldn’t look too much into the drop in production for Giroux. The same can be said as to why his Expected Goals-Against (xGA) was higher in 2018-19, too. Philadelphia, as a team, allowed the third most Goals-Against in the league with 281 and were flat-out putrid covering their own zone. Goaltending was also a huge issue before the arrival of Carter Hart and with the young net-minder all-but earning the starting role, I’d expect to see the Flyers improve defensively and boost Giroux’s xGA at even-strength.

Ending the season with a 10-19-2 when the 12 year vet didn’t score, it’s pretty safe to say the Flyers are a better team when Giroux is on his game. He’s shown little-to-no signs of decline and you’re not going to find equal value in any trade that he is involved in.

Verdict: Remain