It’s that time of the year again where everyone starts with a clean slate and an imperfectly perfect 0-0-0 record.
“Anything can happen” is the mantra as many are optimistic about their team’s prospects heading into the long gruelling season. Philadelphia is a team that currently would love to yell that mantra through a megaphone to try and convince their fanbase that anything is truly possible.
After making little to no changes over the summer, or at least changes that would vastly improve their fourth-to-last finish, the Flyers have been pegged by many to remain in the basement and duel it out in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. John Tortorella and company are going to do everything in their power to defy the outside noises, to try and silence the negativity, and somehow find a way into contention and relevancy. Is it possible? Sure, anything is truly possible, but is it realistic? Probably not, unless the following takes shape.
The Offense Takes Shape and Career-Highs are Met
The Flyers endured several injuries to key players last year in Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes, and Ryan Ellis among others. All three of them are, and would have been, key contributors on the offensive side of the puck and as a result, their absences plummeted the team’s goal scoring as they finished with a paltry 211 goals, which was good for second-last in the NHL.
After Claude Giroux was dealt to Florida at the trade deadline, the Flyers only had two players hit the 50-point threshold, only had two players break the 20- goal plateau, and only had one other play hit the 40-point mark – Giroux.
The first half of the season did nobody any favours and it wasn’t until the dismissals of Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien that we saw some players finally get back to their normal games. Travis Sanheim, Travis Konecny, and even Oskar Lindblom enjoyed relative success after disastrous starts, and Kevin Hayes’ return in March was a blessing in disguise as we saw what a healthy Hayes can do.
The aforementioned trio of Sanheim, Konecny, and Lindblom started the first 22 games with a combined statistical line of 5 goals and 9 assists – 5 goals and 5 assists coming from Konecny alone. In the final 58 games, Konecny added 43 points, Sanheim added 28 points, and Lindblom added 25.
Lindblom unfortunately was dealing with a lot of minor injuries and sluggishness, which really kept his stats down after a good start to Mike Yeo’s tenure with 18 points in 29 games. Konecny and Sanheim were essentially the best forward and defenseman, respectively, on the team and the Flyers are hoping they can bring that level of success to start the season.
For any level of success and for any shot at contention in a tough division, let alone tough conference, the Flyers are going to need their top guns to produce and to smash their career highs.
Kevin Hayes’ previous career-highs in goals were 25 in 2017-18 and 55 points in 2018-19, Travis Konecny had scored 24 goals in three straight seasons from 2017-18 to 2019-20, Joel Farabee’s career-high in goals is 20 in 55 games in 2020-21, Cam Atkinson scored 41 goals and 69 points in 2018-19 with Columbus, and James van Riemsdyk scored 36 goals in 2017-18 and 61 points in 2016-17.
The Flyers are going to need Hayes to remain healthy and score upwards of 60 points, Konecny to get over the 24-goal hump and into the 30-goal tier, and Farabee to score at a slightly better pace than his 2020-21 season (he endured a slump of 1 goal in 18 games and 3 goals in 24 games).
Atkinson getting back to the 40-goal plateau will be hard to come by compared to the rest, who are in the high 20s and low 30s, but anything over 30 would be big for a Flyers team that hasn’t had one since Couturier in 2018-19.
As for van Riemsdyk, it’s tough to really tell what he can do for the Flyers after scoring 24 goals but only 14 assists in a full 82-game campaign. Yet, with a healthy lineup and much better linemates than last year as well as an improved power play, van Riemsdyk scoring 25-30 goals would go a long way and isn’t a far-fetched ask.
The Flyers will also need Morgan Frost to break off the shackles and bring his point totals to a respectable amount as his 5 goals and 16 points in 55 games from last year won’t cut it. If he can get himself into the mid-teens in goals and at least 40 points, that would help immensely with their secondary scoring woes and abysmal second unit on the power play.
Owen Tippett is another character who will need to vastly improve on his career totals and with plenty of opportunities to succeed, a 20-goal season should be the minimum floor.
Key contributions on the back end from Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, and Tony DeAngelo are going to be necessary as the Flyers offense of old has always looked a lot better and a lot more fluid when the defense is engaged and aggressive.
Sanheim is coming off a renaissance second half where he totalled 28 points in his final 58 games, DeAngelo is coming off a renaissance of his own after scoring 51 points for the Carolina Hurricanes, and Provorov needs to regain his 2019-20 form if the Flyers want any kind of success.
In saying all of this, there’s a lot of ifs and buts in terms of the Flyers’ offense and subsequent success. It doesn’t seem entirely far-fetched either to think Hayes can get 60 points, or Konecny scores 25 goals, or Farabee to score 25+, or van Riemsdyk continues to somehow score or approach 25+ goals on a yearly basis. Yet, we’ve watched this team long enough to know nothing comes easy but with a glass half-full approach, “anything can happen” and John Tortorella will try his darnedest.
Special Teams Revert Back to Being Special
The Flyers have been bad for a variety of reasons but a major component to their lack of success matches their abysmal special teams. They had the league’s worst power play at 12.55%, 7th-worst penalty kill at 75.74%, and a league-worst special teams quotient of 88.29%. For reference on how bad their special teams quotient was, the Carolina Hurricanes had a penalty kill of 88.04%, the San Jose Sharks were at 85.2%, and the Pittsburgh Penguins were at 84.43% – only a few percentages short of the combined special teams of the Flyers.
In 2020-21, the Flyers were a little better with the 18th best power play but had the 2nd-worst penalty kill, in 2018-19 they had the 6th-worst penalty kill and the 23rd-best power play, in 2017-18 they had the thirdaworst penalty kill and a middling power play at 15th, and the list goes on. Their only relatively successful campaign had them staked with a 14th-ranked power play and the 11th-best penalty killing unit in 2019-20.
When the Flyers were actually good and making the playoffs, they always had a top-10 power play at minimum, sometimes top-three, and very consistently hit top-five under Joe Mullen. Their penalty kill was never earth shattering, but it was always clumped in the middle, rarely hitting the basement like they always do now. You can be successful if one of the two is humming like a bird, but you’re not going to sniff success when both are near or at the bottom of the barrel.
Tortorella comes into Philadelphia with a lot of successful penalty killing tours over his career as a head coach. The New York Rangers had the league’s best penalty kill in 2008-09, 8th-best in 2009-10, 10th-best in 2010-11, 5th-best in 2011-12, and 15th-best in his final year in 2012-13. He also had the 9th-best penalty kill with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2016-17, 2nd-best in 2018-19, and 12th-best in 2019-20. His time in Columbus is a little more important, not just because he was coaching Cam Atkinson, but also because Brad Shaw was his assistant. That familiarity could go a long way in quickly establishing a working system in Philadelphia.
We don’t need to see a top-5 power play and penalty kill this season, even though that would be a wildly happy surprise, but what we can’t see and what we shouldn’t have is another season of basement dwelling special teams. At the very least, the penalty kill should improve as it did when Mike Yeo took over in 2019-20 as they went from 6th-worst to 11th-best. The power play should be improved as well, and I mean you can’t get any worse than last place, but with Kevin Hayes returning and the addition of Tony DeAngelo, there should be a spark while up a man.
Music City Hockey Trip
Take a three day vacation to Nashville with Philly Sports Trips this October! The package includes direct flights, a three night stay at the Cambria Hotel Nashville Downtown, an all-inclusive tailgate, and tickets to the Flyers Predators game. $100 cash for anyone who shows proof they went to the Flyers game on the trip.
