Ranking the Top 10 Best Flyers Right Now
By Drew Wheeler
Top Three Least Impressive Flyers
3) Scott Laughton – Scott Laughton has turned the puck over a lot, hasn’t scored much, and hasn’t been the forechecking pest he was last season. Maybe it’s just rust, maybe it’s the limited minutes being on the 4th line now, maybe it’s taking time to get good chemistry with Raffl and Aube-Kubel, or maybe he just had an outlier year last year.
2) Robert Hagg – The defense has been atrocious this season, and Robert Hägg has been a big reason why. He’s been out of position so many times in the D-Zone and had so many D-Zone and Neutral Zone turnovers this season resulting in breakaways and goals. Being that thin at defense doesn’t help because even though Hägg has been dreadful, there is a defenseman who’s been much much worse.
1) Erik Gustafsson – Erik Gustafsson had a great game one against Pittsburgh, but since then he has been an absolute liability on the ice. Turnovers, missed assignments, and in his last game before he got benched, he completely gave up on a play that resulted in a goal for the Bruins. I know it’s hard to fill in for what the Flyers lost in Matt Niskanen, but Gustafsson has been the worst possible player to replace him.
Hopefully, as the season goes on he’ll be put where Gostisbehere was put last season, reduced to a healthy scratch every game with the D-Pairs being: Provorov-Gostisbehere, Sanheim-Myers, and Braun-Friedman.