Our "Outshoot but Under-Score" Phenomenon

[Howie58]

Greetings:

 

Here is an interesting assessment of our performance from Sam Donnellon.  I think he saw posts here! 

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pattisonave/Philadelphia-Flyers-Jake-Voracek-wrestles-with-the-key-question-are-they-good-enough.html

 

We overshot but underscored opponents 39 times but won only 11.  Hakstol may have been too polite (or smart as coach) to say we were devoid of talent.  But you couple this with our lousy PP and you can draw some basic conclusions.    We are rebuilding our D...may have some good goalie prospects...but our forward corps needs a lot of work.  

 

Howie

[AJgoal]

Poor shot selection and not going to the net are what I would say were the biggest culprits. Take Weal, for example. He's quick, but I don't think he's exceptionally skilled. The thing about him was he wasn't afraid to charge the net, and he potted, what, 8 goals? Thats something the team lacked most of the season, even from guys like Weise who were supposed to do that.

[elmatus]

21 hours ago, Howie58 said:

Greetings:

 

Here is an interesting assessment of our performance from Sam Donnellon.  I think he saw posts here! 

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pattisonave/Philadelphia-Flyers-Jake-Voracek-wrestles-with-the-key-question-are-they-good-enough.html

 

We overshot but underscored opponents 39 times but won only 11.  Hakstol may have been too polite (or smart as coach) to say we were devoid of talent.  But you couple this with our lousy PP and you can draw some basic conclusions.    We are rebuilding our D...may have some good goalie prospects...but our forward corps needs a lot of work.  

 

Howie

 

I couldn't agree more. More shots doesn't mean better shots. Many of our shots this year came from our D, or otherwise from weak areas, and there was no one of real quality around to pick up the pieces either (except Simmonds, and he can't be on 60mins a night). 

 

Having some folks who can get to the net would help, though I think the bigger need is for an actual lethal shot. Obviously, we've been saying this around here all year. We have no true sniper. Until we get one (or two), things are going to be rough going. I honestly think TK has the most potential to become something of the sort. He's not a slam dunk of course, but he's the best chance we have right now.

 

I also expect Provo to blossom into more of a two-way threat. That may take another 2-3 years though. He's already shown remarkable flashes of talent, and I think he's absolutely right in focusing most on the back side of the puck. I honestly can't say enough about how he's impressed this year. I don't think we've had such a high ceiling player in a very long time.

 

Gost should pick up again next year too. That'll help. He may never be the best defensively, but he oozes offensive talent. Haks needs to let him be himself more often. Pair him with someone who can help him with the defensive side when he messes up. There are plenty of dmen nowadays who operate this way and are very successful -- Letang, Shattenkirk, Subban are good examples. Whether he can reach that level remains to be seen, but that does seem to be more his style -- and that's okay! Let him be that.

[Howie58]

I've been surprised at Hexy's public posts about Neuvy/goal.  That seems to be taking a lot of attention away from the mediocrity of our forwards.  Firing Mullen may help at the margin. But I don't think he was central to our flailing PP.  Maybe Lehigh Valley or the draft provides a sleeper sniper. Otherwise, we have another year or two of snoozing, upscale dump and grind coupled with long distance shots.  

[icehole]

3 hours ago, AJgoal said:

Poor shot selection and not going to the net are what I would say were the biggest culprits. Take Weal, for example. He's quick, but I don't think he's exceptionally skilled. The thing about him was he wasn't afraid to charge the net, and he potted, what, 8 goals? Thats something the team lacked most of the season, even from guys like Weise who were supposed to do that.

I like your parallel to weal.  Weal is a guy the penguins would have stashed on the 4th line.  They give 75% of their money to 3 or 4 stars, and they know how to find guys like weal for pennies.

 

All we need now is 3 or 4 stars to give 75% of the money to.

[vis]

Flyers throw a lot of garbage at the net and on top of that don't have a lot of skill.  Yeah, they'll generate shots but not a lot of quality and then don't have a lot of ability to convert on the chances they get.

[Cheesesteak]

On 4/13/2017 at 0:48 PM, Howie58 said:

 

We overshot but underscored opponents 39 times but won only 11.  Hakstol may have been too polite (or smart as coach) to say we were devoid of talent.  But you couple this with our lousy PP and you can draw some basic conclusions.    We are rebuilding our D...may have some good goalie prospects...but our forward corps needs a lot of work.  

 

Howie

DUMB QUESTION ALERT!

 

How does a team underscore another and yet still win 11 of those games?  I'm confused 

 

[RJ8812]

Basically just poor shot selection. We cant get ourselves into better high quality shot positions. Remember back in 2008 when we beat the Habs in 5, yet they outshot us every game and their delusional fans claimed that they outplayed us the entire series but like 90% of their shots came from the perimeter with no one in front of our goalie?

[Howie58]

Cheeesteak:

 

Here is the gist of the article.  I apologize for botching a quick report but you can see I understated the problem...we out-shot our opponents 50 times.  

 

He knows the answer. Really, it’s as easy to explain and as obvious as a broken stick. Of the 50 games in which the Flyers outshot their opponents this season, more than half (26) were by nine shots or more. Of the 11 games they won in that instance, seven came via overtime or a shootout.

 

Of those 11 wins, three were against playoff teams. Eleven of their 15 losses were to playoff teams, which suggests at least one of the following is true: 1) there was a lack of urgency to their game, or 2) there was a lack of accuracy.

Consider this: Of the 26 games in which they outshot opponents by nine or more, they won four by the end of regulation. Talent-wise, there is too much dead weight on the front lines, too much energy expended just to get even close enough to put a puck on the net. It’s one reason for the lopsided shot differentials, especially against the playoff teams.

 

My assessment is a limited to non-existent east-west game. We either shot from the perimeter or with too little juice from the red zone, something noted in other pieces.  Yep--we need a sniper.  But I think the problem is deeper.  

[King Knut]

On 4/13/2017 at 0:48 PM, Howie58 said:

Greetings:

 

Here is an interesting assessment of our performance from Sam Donnellon.  I think he saw posts here! 

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pattisonave/Philadelphia-Flyers-Jake-Voracek-wrestles-with-the-key-question-are-they-good-enough.html

 

We overshot but underscored opponents 39 times but won only 11.  Hakstol may have been too polite (or smart as coach) to say we were devoid of talent.  But you couple this with our lousy PP and you can draw some basic conclusions.    We are rebuilding our D...may have some good goalie prospects...but our forward corps needs a lot of work.  

 

Howie

 

respectfully disagree.

 

This team was scoring like crazy to start the year (G's issues not withstanding).  They were 2nd in goal scoring after two months of this season.  But they were getting scored on left and right.

 

They shifted their game to a more defense first system hoping to steal games rather than dominate them.  But while this cut down on the goals against, it also restricted offensive ability because the forwards were starting transitions inside their own blue line. 

 

This is why they ended up with such horrible even strength numbers.  They simply didn't have the defensive skill to protect their own end playing a system that benefitted the offense. The offense was literally reduced to playing Dump and Chase Hockey for much of the winter.  In today's NHL, teams don't even really bother to challenge you along the boards if you're going to play a cycling dump and chase offense.  The flyers thus controlled the puck fairly well in the offensive zone (or at least by minutes of possession) but because defenses could easily set themselves up, coverage was often so tight and passing lanes were completely shut down so the only option left to the Flyers most of the time was a point shot.  Which often was blocked or because defenses had ample time to set up, was easily stopped by the goalie  

 

at the time, many here were just ripping on the goalies and many still do just condemn them for the beginning of the season, but the fact of the matter is the Flyers changed their entire approach to playing hockey a few weeks into the season.  They made more subtle changes after the trade deadline with the addition or Filppula and the subtraction of Streit (i.e. they were able to ice a more balanced set of Defensive pairings which enabled the offense to be a little more free) and even strength scoring picked up again.

 

The reason they outshot opponents but still lost is because they were taking awful low percentage shots (usually from the point).

 

There was a stat during sharks game last night that over the past few seasons wayne Simmonds has the most tip in goals in the NHL.  Some of this is because Wayne is really good at it.  but a large portion of it is because the Flyers just don't get clean shots on net and most of their shots are pretty easy to save unless Wayne gets a tip in or a rebound.  Very telling is the fact that Waybe barely scored at even strength which means that when all things were even, defenses were well positioned enough that not even the best guy in the league at tipping in shots from the point could tip in shots from the point.  There was just too much traffic.

 

At the other end, the complete inverse was true.  The Flyers were terrible in their own end and couldn't set anything up, so opposing offenses were able to pass at will and had lots of clean shooting lanes which usually results in low save percentages because when coverage is terrible, even if a goalie can make an initial save, there's no one there for the rebound.  

 

Anyway long way of saying that they're really not unskilled offensively.  Just because they didn't score much for most of the season doesn't mean they're not skilled enough to score.  They were.  They scored extremely well for a while.  

What they weren't skilled enough to do was protect their own end and in trying to stop that bleeding Hakstol had to sacrifice offense.  It wasn't pretty and he knew it. He thought it was the best way to salvage the season.

 

I can't blame him, but in hindsight, I'm just not sure I can still agree.  The switch worked for a little while (i.e. the streak happened) but then their record fell off sharply while trying to reign in and play more responsibly.  They lost the sweet spot.  

 

I believe they began to find it again toward the end of the year.  I believe without Streit and MDZ around to imbalance the defense, there's a better chance of the forwards being able to play forward again.  

 

That's the hope anyway.  There's evidence to back it.  

 

 

 

 

[radoran]

38 minutes ago, King Knut said:

That's the hope anyway.  There's evidence to back it. 

 

There is evidence to back it and there is reason for hope.

 

But there's also the fact that they were 21st in the league in scoring this season. And 22nd last season. And 21st the year before that. Meanwhile the Caps and Pens were top three in the league the past two seasons.

 

You have to go back to 13-14 before the Flyers are Top Ten in scoring (8th) and that was with Matt Read (22), Scott Hartnell (20) and VLC (20) topping 20 goals.

 

It's not "one bad season" - it's been an unfortunate trend for the past three.

[King Knut]

1 minute ago, radoran said:

 

There is evidence to back it and there is reason for hope.

 

But there's also the fact that they were 21st in the league in scoring this season. And 22nd last season. And 21st the year before that. Meanwhile the Caps and Pens were top three in the league the past two seasons.

 

You have to go back to 13-14 before the Flyers are Top Ten in scoring (8th) and that was with Matt Read (22), Scott Hartnell (20) and VLC (20) topping 20 goals.

 

It's not "one bad season" - it's been an unfortunate trend for the past three.

 

 

Anyway, what happened after that season?  

 

Hextall.  Rebuild.  Trading away Hartnell, Timmo & Coburn all for the goal of what's happening to the roster next year.

It's not like this team just got bad this year and they realized the need to make some changes.  

They realized they were in a bad way four years ago.  They brought in Hextall with the intention of promoting him soon.  They did.  He started the plan (because no one would deal with Homer anymore).  The plan has been extremely well executed so far.

 

Whether the plan will work remains to be seen.  And as much as I wish they could have made the playoffs this year just to keep the concept of winning and being competitive insight their bellies, being good and competitive this year was never really in the cards.  

 

 

Also... Wow.  20 goals and we were still complaining about Vinny.  How much would we pay for 20 more goals now?  

Ha ha.