Positives to take away from a rollercoaster Flyers season
As the season is in the final stretch, the Flyers appear to be the first team in NHL history to have a 10-game winning streak and not make the Stanley Cup playoffs.
After a Maple Leafs victory against Boston last night, the Flyers are now 7 points out of a playoff spot, making that second wild card spot even harder to reach.
Though their playoff chances are dwindling down slowly but surely, there are some things worth taking away from this season.
Wayne Simmonds, All-Star MVP. Simmonds has had a career season. With 29 goals on the season (his 29th being his 200th career goal), the Wayne Train has provided the Flyers with plenty of scoring. Many of these goals come from the gritty areas in front of the net. Simmonds will most likely hit the 30 goal mark by the time the season ends.
Shayne Gostisbehere had not been performing the way anyone would have expected him to. At the end of his rookie year, he had surgery to repair an abdominal tear. Recovering from that surgery is not easy to endure, and players are known to experience some lingering effects of the surgery. Gostisbehere currently is -25 on the season, but since the second half of the season began, he has started to look like the Gostisbehere everybody has come to know and love. Though he only has four points in March, his defensive awareness has been dramatically better than when the season had started.
According to a report, Flyers captain Claude Giroux admitted to feeling the effects of his offseason surgery. After last season ended, Giroux had surgery repairing an abdominal tear in addition to his hip. Giroux also had a season that he wants to put behind him. Though 51 points on the season is not bad, he started the first half of the season slowly. It has been recently where his play his picked up. Before the game against the hurricanes, Giroux was on a six-game point streak. If Gostisbehere and Giroux had been 100% healthy all season, their playoff hopes would look brighter.
Dale Weise only has eight points on the season in 53 games played. Three of those points happened in the last three games. Though this is certainly an underwhelming statistic considering how much money he is making, Weise seems to have stepped him game up and is finally starting to look like the power forward Hextall signed in the offseason. If he can keep this play going, he can be a solid bottom six forward for years to come.
Travis Konecny has recorded five points since returning from injury, but has been a solid, speedy forward all season. He along with fellow rookie Ivan Provorov are the brightest spots on the Flyers active roster.
Radko Gudas and Ivan Provorov have easily been the best defensemen on the ice for Philadelphia this season. Gudas has become more disciplined without getting rid of the hard-hitting playing style the team needs. Provorov, who leads the Flyers in average ice-time, has 28 points on the season. Not too bad for a rookie defenseman.
The Flyers look to keep their season alive as they play a road game against the Winnipeg Jets. Puck drop is set for tonight at 8:00. Steve Mason will be in net for Philadelphia.
Photo: Pens Through My Lens (via: Wikimedia Commons)
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Categorized:Flyers