Are the Flyers good this season?
Are the Flyers good this season? When I ask myself that question every morning in the mirror, it’s not a question of if they are good enough to squeak into the playoffs. The question is more asking, “Are the Flyers good enough this season to be legitimate contenders for the Cup and justify being buyers at the trade deadline.” At the moment, it’s kind of tough to answer that question because they have yet to put down a statement win that tells the rest of the league they’re here to play. In their defense, the Flyers have had some issues with injuries, and a large majority of the team in COVID-19 quarantine brought a multiple-game layoff. The Lake Tahoe game against the Bruins was hard to excuse, even with their limited roster as they played one definite period of hockey and then got majorly outclassed by the Bruins.
The biggest bear argument against the Flyers being good this season is their results against the Boston Bruins. The Flyers have played the Bruins five times this season, lost all five (two games went to OT) and been outscored 24-12. Now there have been some tough breaks for the Flyers in those five games, but there is a famous quote that goes, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a habit.”. After five matchups, a pattern has formed that they can’t beat or close out games against Boston.
The Bruins are the only team in the division that the Flyers have yet to beat this season. Now the Bruins are only one team, and If you don’t count the Bruins games, the Flyers aren’t half bad at 12-3-1. Although it’s traditionally been kind of hard to not play good teams in the playoffs. The orange and black have been lucky so far with their roster issues to get a schedule filled with games against the Sabres, Devils, and Rangers, who aren’t precisely world-beaters by any stretch of the imagination. The biggest problem in those Bruins games isn’t offense or even necessarily goaltending; it’s been the Flyers defense that has been very poor outside Provorov, Myers, Sanheim, and Ghost.
With a simple eye-test, the Flyers offense and goaltending have shown so far that they’re good and talented enough to compete for a Stanley Cup; it’s the bottom of the NHL defense that will crash the Cup chances. There’s no beating around the bush that 80-90% of the time that the Flyers lost this season; it’s been because of poor defensive play. The top three of the defense hasn’t been as good as they’ve shown in the past by any measure, but the performance of the bottom three of Braun, Hagg, and Gustafsson this season has been less than desirable.
It’s a weird statement to say that NHL defensemen have become defensive liabilities, but it’s accurate. Whenever Justin Braun, Robert Hagg, or Erik Gustafsson are forced into critical defensive moments, they have struggled. Erik Gustaffson gets a small pass because he’s an offensive defenseman but he’s had some struggles in 1-on-1 and 2-on-1 situations. If the Flyers want to secure a playoff spot and make a run, they will have to add a veteran blue-liner or make a significant fix to the defense to take the pressure off Hart and Elliot. Acquiring a defenseman like Mattias Ekholm or Vince Dunn isn’t going to be cheap, but it’s a move Chuck Fletcher will have to make if the team wants to have a chance at a run this year.
Featured image – Puck Prose
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Categorized:Flyers