I haven't posted in quite awhile. But, this post isn't going to be a "stir the pot" post.

I looked around and the site and didn't see any of the following reported so, I am making this post to show where the team is at. So, please forgive me if I'm either raining on someone's parade or I overlooked a post.

This is just a stat report, some stats can be found on the site (like goals for/against, assists, plus/minus, etc. But other catagories like Face-offs, Turnovers, etc. I haven't found, so I'm just throwing everything together in my post here.

Last Five Games

Penalties: 24 (4.8 penalties per game; 4 Fighting-Majors; 1 Game-Misconduct; 1 Major; 18 Minor) *this is an improvement from the first 5 games*

Penalty Kill: 14 for 18 (78%) **no Short-Handed Goals** (This has declined from 88% through the first 5)

5-on-3 Penalty Kill (spent a combined 3:41 with 2-men down): 2 for 2 (100%)

Power Play: 4 for 18 (22%) **1 Short-Handed Goal Against** (This is down from 27% through the first 5)

5-on-3 Power Play: No opportunities

Face-Off Attempts: 331 (66 per game)

Face-Offs Won: 155 (31 per game)

Face-Off %: 46.8% (a very minor improvement from the first 5 where the team was 146 for 341: 46.5%)

Give Aways: 32 (6.4 per game) 

Take Aways: 30 (6 per game)

 Hits: 88 (17.6 per game)

Blocked Shots: 82 (16.4 per game)

Shots Against: 136 (27.2 per game)

Shots For: 185 (37 per game)

Goaltenders: 119 for 133 (Save %: .895; Wins: 2; Shut-outs: 0; GAA: 2.80)

Ray Emery: 95 for 105 (Save %: .905; Wins: 2; Shut-outs: 0; GAA: 2.50)

Goals Against: 16 (3.2 per game)

Goals For: 13 (2.6 per game)

Record: 2 - 3 - 0

Standing Points: 4 (out of a possible 10)

After 10 Games

Penalties: 63 (6.3 per game; 7 Fighting-Majors; 1 Misconduct; 1 Game-Misconduct; 1 Major; 53 Minor)

Penalty Kill: 37 for 44 (84%) **No Short-Handed Goals**

5-on-3 Penalty Kill (spent a combined 7:03 with 2-men down): 5 for 5 (100%)

Power Play: 13 for 51 (25%) **2 Short-Handed Goals Against**

5-on-3 Power Play: 1 for 1 (100%)

Face-Off Attempts: 645 (64 per game)

Face-Offs Won: 301 (29 per game)

Face-Off %: 46.7% (This needs drastic improvement)

Give Aways: 70 (7 per game)

Take Aways: 76 (almost 8 per game)

Hits:160 (16 per game)

Blocked Shots: 146 (almost 15 per game)

Shots Against: 285 (28.5 per game)

Shots For: 345 (34.5 per game)

Goaltenders: 254 for 282 (Save %: .901; Wins: 5; Shut-Outs: 1; GAA: 2.80)

Ray Emery: 230 for 254 (Starts: 9; Save %: .906; Wins: 5; Shut-Outs: 1; GAA: 2.62)

Goals Against: 30 (3 per game)

Goals For: 32 (3.2 per game)

Record: 5 - 4 - 1 (.500 winning %)

Standing-Points: 11 (out of a possible 20)

Team Leaders

Goals: Mike Richards with 6 (Keep in mind Richie & Carter have not scored in the last 5 games)

Assists: Matt Carle with 8

Plus/Minus: Matt Carle with +7 (Kimmo Timonen is the worst with -10; Coburn is right behind him with -9; Carter, Hartnell, & Briere are -5 each; Richie is -3)

Shots on Goal: Jeff Carter with 51

Fighting-Majors: Ian Laperriere with 4 (Riley Cote in 3 games has yet to find a dance partner)

Minor Penalties: Ole-Kristian Tollefsen with 6

Face-Off Attempts: Jeff Carter with 198 (Richie & Carter are the only Flyers with 100 or more FO Attempts; 5 Flyers have more than 50, including Blair Betts who has been out the past 7 games; All other Flyers have less than 25 FO attempts)

Face-Offs Won: Jeff Carter with 99

Face-Off %: Jeff Carter, Danny Briere, & Blair Betts are tied at 50% (No Flyer is better than 50% in the Face-off Circle)

Hits: Mike Richards with 12

Blocked Shots:  Kimmo Timonen with 15

Give Aways: Braydon Coburn with 12

Take Aways: Claude Giroux with 9

The Injury Bug

As it's been reported, Simon Gagne's injury with Team Canada has finally comeback to haunt him. Since Briere's arrival to the Flyers, the team has not had Briere & Gagne healthy for an entire season. The injury is the explanation for Gagne's lack luster in offensive production. However people should recognize how his defensive play will have the greatest impact and that is what will be sorely missed, he is one of the few Flyers with a Plus/Minus above 0 (+2).

Goaltending

There's nothing at all to be impressed with here. Emery has been ok. I think there's a lot of room for improvement here.

John Stevens

The ability to play with the lead is again continuing to haunt the team. Out of 10 games played, the Flyers have only trailed from begining to end in 2 games, the Pittsburgh & San Jose games. The Flyers have had only 2 games in which they've gotten the lead and protected it for the remainder of the game: the Caroline and New Jersey games. That means there have been 6 games in which the Flyers had at least 1 lead at some point during the game; of those 6 games the Flyers have won 3 of them. Remember how the Flyers had a 2 - 0 lead in last nights game against Washington, ahh the memories?

The play with the lead is still troubling the Flyers. And even with the new Goaltending & upgrade at the Defensemen positions, this is still a problem.

In general the Flyers are struggling to keep the opponents from scoring. For a team that's suppose to be better on Defense, it's certainly not showing.

Face-offs: This was a concern coming into this season and the team overall is 46% (so there isn't any improvement here). The team captain, Mike Richards, is something like a pathetic 46%. I wish there was a stat for this, but from my own observations both Richards & Carter (Who lead the team in Face-off attempts) get kicked out of the circle an awful lot. which may contribute a lot to the poor performances here. Winning Face-offs would contrbute a lot to keeping the puck out of their own net, and protecting leads. It's hard for the opponent to score when they don't have the puck!

The Special Team units aren't all that impressive, except 5-on-3. The team that lead the league in both Short-Handed goals for & Short-Handed Goals Against last season, has yet to score a shortie and has given up 2 shorties.

How long until John Stevens gets canned? I mean Pittsburgh canned their coach last season and went on to win the cup.

Coburn & Timonen

Two years ago this Defensive Pairing was very good. They've reunited this season, but the results aren't there. Together they are a combined -19. Timonen has the worst Plus/Minus on the team at -10 & Coburn leads the team in turnovers. Since Tollefsen has joined the lineup, I'd dare say that the pairing of Tollefsen & Syvret/Parent has even out played Timonen & Coburn (although that may not be a fair assessment, since Coburn & Timonen are usually going up against the best players on the other team).

Do you split them up? or give them the opportunity to try and recapture the chemistry they had 2 seasons ago?

Where they sit now

A Team with such high expectations coming into the season, has not lived up to them. I for one had (phrasing the late-great Harry Kalas) "High Hopes".

I got chastized for calling them forever .500's...but after 10-games they are exactly that. .500

Road Record: 2 - 2

Home Record: 3 - 3

Over-all: 5 - 5 (well 5 - 4 - 1, but that Ducks' game was still a loss)

Standing-Points: 11 (out of a possible 20; that's close to 50%)

Fourth Place in the Atlantic

Eighth Place in the Conference

Keep in mind, even though the "lowely" Islanders only have 1 win on the season, they have 7 points (5 over-time losses), so the Flyers are 4 points away from last place.

Eddie Snider is probably writing his pink-slip as I'm typing this.