brelic

Hey but they kept Cousins in there! Guess he's gotta score against us. It's a rite of passage. Simmonds did it, Bardreau did it.

Morin injured his knee again?

Farabee is the same height as Frost but about 10# lighter (171 vs 180). But Frost would face more traffic because he's a center and likely get hit more. Then again, Giroux manages to avoid contact. Worst case scenario, I think Frost is here by the new year for good. Coots/Hayes/Frost/Laughton is a strong middle. Exciting times!

I was thinking that too, even the moment Laughton went down. But the more I think about it, the more it seems like it makes more sense to call up Frost when Laughton is back. Chances are Frost will struggle at least a little bit. Having a green Frost and a Rubtsov or Vorobyev on the 4th line doesn't really help our bottom six woes right now. Once Laughton is back, it will at least solidify one of the bottom two lines. In other words, it's less pressure on Frost.

By the numbers, they've both been equally as bad. The bottom six is not very good right now.

Giroux Regular season 820gp 236g 526a 762pts Playoffs 69gp 24g 41a 65pts Sundin Regular season 1346gp 564g 785a 1349pts Playoffs 91gp 38g 44a 82pts G's not far off the pace of a guy like Sundin who never won anything but maintained a pretty consistent and productive career. Fun side fact - G has fewer career PIMs (352) than Schultz (472) did in one season.

Did it? Man, it was so long ago that it doesn't feel real.

It's probably a combination of things, and I would guess youth is a significant one. Provorov, 22 Sanheim, 23 Myers, 22 Hagg, 23 Half our defense is 23 or under. Sanheim is struggling. Ghost is older but struggling. So is Braun. We basically have Provorov and Niskanen playing well. Myers has shown good instincts, but he's only got a 2 game sample. If they can go *at least* 3-3-1 over the next 7, that would bring them to 9-8-3 through the first 20 games. Not great, but still in a decent position to surge once/if they get their act together.

Morin update from Meltzer... Sam Morin dressed in two of the Phantoms three games this weekend; the Friday and Sunday games. After missing nearly two years of hockey in terms of game action, the organization wanted to avoid playing him in all three segments of the weekend 3-in-3 roughly eight months after he completed rehab from ACL surgery. I personally thought he looked better in Sunday's game than in Friday's, but there were mixed reviews.

Was checking out the Reading Royals team page this morning to see how Sandstrom and Ustimenko were doing. Ustimenko, 3-0-1, 2.74, .889 Sandstrom, 3-3-0, 3.91, .871 For reference, I looked up some of the league leaders to see what kind of distribution we're dealing with. 2 GP, 1.42 0.941 7 GP, 1.67 0.939 4 GP, 1.72 0.925 4 GP, 1.75 0.941 5 GP, 2.18 0.924 5 GP, 2.19 0.939 So, no great for our guys, evidently.

Yeah either waive Pitlick or Stewart or put Nolan on LTIR.

The only thing I’d change is to bring up Frost. I really think he’ll be here by next weekend. JVR/Frost/Jake Raffl/Rubtsov/Twarynski Then we’d be cooking with fire.

The reality as far as what Fletch might actually do is trade one of Ghost or Voracek. Things will have to get a lot worse, and they need to have a really good trade option. There’s no way they trade G or Coots.

But why would Detroit do that? Say our play on the ice doesn't improve, would you trade Konecny and a 2nd for Jamie Benn and a fringe NHL defenseman who can't crack their lineup?

Yeah, but these are the fancy foreign models. There's the Rubtsov and the Myers. Definite upgrades over our previous go-tos like the Akeson and McGinn models. If they lose both games this weekend - and the home game against Toronto is a big one - I think they'll have lost whatever good faith they've rebuilt with the fans. We'll still keep watching, but the casual fans might start to tune them out again.

I just looked up the standings and shouldn't have. We are closer to the basement Sens than we are to a playoff spot. It also sounds like Patrick is not coming back anytime soon. He's not even skating with the team anymore. If they lose tonight, it could be a rough weekend. The Leafs aren't playing well, but could easily roast us like the Pens, especially with our porous defense. We might have a fighting chance if Elliott plays like he has. One thing's for sure - even if everything is the same old same old in the standings and on the ice, it's not that way in the front office. They are shuffling LHV kids, and a vet or two might be next. But in all honesty, Stewart should not be playing NHL hockey. I mean, he isn't. But he shouldn't be allowed to impersonate a hockey player.

There's no way Ottawa takes on Jake or Ghost or both. Aside from a cheap owner, why would they trade away a 1st rounder when it's looking like they might have two lottery balls very close to the bottom? SJ will turn it around, but how much? They're not looking like a very well put together roster. This is a potential franchise changing year for them (actually bad team and two 1st round picks), and if it were the Flyers in that position, I would shoot Fletch if he gave up on that opportunity to bring in "overpriced" and "aging" talent like Jake.

Since 2011, here are the teams ranked by pts %. 1 Pittsburgh 0.644 2 Washington 0.635 3 Boston 0.634 4 St. Louis 0.633 5 Vegas 0.616 6 Tampa Bay 0.614 7 Anaheim 0.61 8 Chicago 0.606 9 Nashville 0.6 10 San Jose 0.598 11 NY Rangers 0.586 12 Minnesota 0.567 13 Montreal 0.565 14 Los Angeles 0.563 15 Phoenix 0.559 16 NY Isles 0.558 17 Winnipeg 0.557 18 Philadelphia 0.557 19 Dallas 0.553 20 Columbus 0.547 21 Calgary 0.536 22 Detroit 0.535 23 Toronto 0.529 24 Vancouver 0.527 25 Florida 0.526 26 Colorado 0.522 27 Ottawa 0.518 28 Carolina 0.513 29 New Jersey 0.511 30 Edmonton 0.469 31 Arizona 0.445 32 Buffalo 0.441 Now, the top part isn't interesting because we already know they're the top teams. They're the cup winners and cup contenders over the past decade. What's more interesting is the bottom of the list - Buffalo, Edmonton, NJ, Carolina, Colorado, Toronto.... these teams are emerging now as very strong teams that will probably be competitive for the next decade, precisely because they were bad for so long and got a strong infusion of elite talent in the draft. Philly at 18 is the definition of mediocrity. Not good enough to compete, not bad enough to have consistent top 10 picks. We lucked in to Patrick at #2, but there's a massive gulf between him and, say, Eichel. Can you imagine if our lucky lottery year was Eichel? Or Laine? Or even Svechnikov (12 points in 12 games this year)? Patrick isn't even playing hockey right now. Bad luck for him, and bad luck for the team. I love TK and Patrick and Provorov and Sanheim. But they're no Rantanen, Eichel, Dahlin, or Heiskanen. The talent gap is real. So, does mediocrity over the past 8 years mean we weren't "bad" enough to truly be competitive for the next decade? Jury's out, but damn, it feels like it's taking forever to turn this around and is easily the Flyers' most frustrating decade as a fan. Honestly, the worst case scenario is that we are mediocre for another decade.

@OccamsRazor I mean, what else are they supposed to say? Imagine having to give interviews after every single game - when you know that your team will lose about HALF those games? Fifteen teams last year lost more than 50% of their games, which includes the Avalanche who qualified for the playoffs while losing 44 games. And unless you were the Lightning, no team lost fewer than 32 games. The fact that it's been going on for 7-8 years with the Flyers is definitely concerning - but what's Couturier gonna answer? 3 GMs, 4 coaches, and probably 2x roster turnover. Same results. And Couturier is not the problem. This team has been mired in mediocrity for nearly a decade, and they've yet to find a solution to it.

Yeah, I'm kinda done with the Vorobyev experiment. But at the end of the day, the defense, including goaltending, is really the issue - and has been for a long time. Last year, Flyers were 28th in team save % - .895. This year, Flyers are 28th in team save % - .881. Any way you slice it, that is not good enough. Hart has been very poor, and Elliott has been mostly good though last night really affected his #s. The defensemen in front of them look completely lost these last 3 games. It's still very early, and it's a learning process. I said they'd be 8-10-2 after 20. Currently they're 5-5-1. I really really hope they can do better than 3-5-1 over the next 9. WAKE THE EFF UP! BE A FU**ING FLYER!

Is this a real thing? Are they now a bunch of NY Jerks?

Red Light Racicot!

Wow. Penguins look like they have rocket boosters in their skates. Three straight games where we get strafed with quick goals in succession.

Yeah, and as we saw with Carey Price, that's something that might take years to really develop. At one time, fans wanted to trade Price and keep Halak. Who's gonna be our "Halak"? Lol

Yeah, forgot about Berube. Just looked and Lyon has been significantly better than Berube. Eesh. I'm totally onboard with letting Hart work through his issues. You can't truly succeed if you don't fail first. I'd try and go 60/40 Elliott/Hart until Hart shows something different. That *should* be reasonable and not break Elliott if they monitor him closely. What I mean by "exceptional" is the root of the word... "exception." Fans and management expected Hart to be the "exception" to normal goaltender development timelines. Not that he stood on his head all time, but I think fans expected him to be "fully baked", if you will. Plug and play. We're seeing it doesn't work that way. Even our young defensemen are struggling - and not just last night. Same with forwards. I love Lindblom, but he still makes some very ill-advised plays sometimes and a few have led to goals against. It's all part of it. We like to say all the time that development is not linear, and... well, this is what it looks like I guess. Yeah, me too. And if he doesn't, someone will at some point.. right? We can't possibly be that cursed!! Lol