brelic

22 minutes ago, Digityman said:

They healthy scratched Jordan Weal????  

They healthy scratched Christian Folin????  

 

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?

26 minutes ago, mojo1917 said:

 

I think Rubstov's number looks stupid too. I don't mind his play, he's a little more straight line and Vorobyev has a little more shimmy, I wish Misha would get some hate going, he's got a lot of skill, but he seems to disappear when **** gets real. 

I'm good with shuttling dudes with NHL bodies back and forth between LHV and the Flyers. 

Unless they've been shoving cheeseburgers, protein shakes and shoo-fly pie down Frosty's neck, he's not one of them.

Have you seen what the league has been doing to 170 lb Jack Hughes ?  the league is kicking the **** out of him every chance it can.

Hell Matt Niskanen nearly knocked his head off...I can wait until Frost has more mass to handle the beating that's coming his way.

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!

Just now, OccamsRazor said:

 

Sure but they should have gave Morgan Frost the chance not Misha again.

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.

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

Hhhhhmmmm strange move...

 

 

...i thought Rubtsov was better than Misha....maybe they too told him they hated seeing his #50 jersey out there and sent him back while he thinks about a better number. 

 

I would prefer Ruby's 43% faceoff numbers to Misha's 35% numbers....yikes.

By the numbers, they've both been equally as bad. 

The bottom six is not very good right now. 

24 minutes ago, mojo1917 said:

Of the people with similar numbers to G's more than half are in the hall. So I'm inclined to think unless he stops playing hockey today, he's likely to make the HHoF.

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.

31 minutes ago, radoran said:

Obviously 2010 happened.

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

22 hours ago, King Knut said:

The silver lining as far as I can see is that the defense is better than they're showing, the question is why are they showing what they are.

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. 

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

I think you're going to have to waive someone for that to work right?? Or am i missing something?

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

4 hours ago, elmatus said:

Lindblom/Couts/TK (let's call this line what it is as our first and best line)

Giroux/Hayes/Farabee (Farabee's got a decent shot. Let him be the finisher here)

 

And yeah, that makes our third line wonky with:

JVR/Rubstov/Voracek

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. 

1 hour ago, FD19372 said:

I would kick the tires on a trade such as offering Voracek and Morin to Detroit for Anthony Mantha and a 2nd before I would do that. The Red Wings are one of the few teams that might go for that, and have the cap space to take on Voracek's ridiculous contract.

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?

10 minutes ago, radoran said:

Did someone say deck chairs?

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. 

1 hour ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

 

You're right.

 

Rinse and repeat.

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!

4 hours ago, flyercanuck said:

 

Congratulations on your game 11 of 82 championship!

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

6 minutes ago, AlaskaFlyerFan said:

 

Whiplash from looking behind him.  Either that or second degree burns on the back of his neck from the goal light turning on so many times.

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. 
 

53 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

I am too. I just think he needs to just get back the positioning he had displayed so well and then find his glove hand.

 

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

4 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

Yes it could if they get him back to playing well.

 

Yes it could be him or Berube to back Elliott up for a week or two. Yeah it's not elite level backup material i give you that. But the backup wouldn't have to play till the upcoming weekend vs. the Devils or Leafs.

Yeah, forgot about Berube. Just looked and Lyon has been significantly better than Berube. 

Eesh. 

4 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

It's that or just wait and play Hart in the back to back....but the Leafs are the second half of the back to back and i'm afraid that is too much to ask from a kid who is fighting the puck.

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. 

4 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

I don't think anyone was expecting him to be "exceptional"...but better than average is a fair expectation...and he hasn't. 

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.

4 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

I am confident he will fix it...and i am fine if they want to keep him up. 

Yeah, me too. And if he doesn't, someone will at some point.. right? We can't possibly be that cursed!! Lol