Flyers Penalty Kill

by Parduno on Oct 4, 2009 2:19 PM EDT

Last year the Flyers had one of the best PKs in the game, thanks to their ability to score a man down. The shorthanded goal became a type of trademark for the Flyers, as they led the league with 16 shorthanders, 7 of which came from Mike Richards. This year, the Flyers have some new players that can kill penalties, taking the pressure off guys like Richards. I think the only guys on the Flyers that don't kill penalties, are Danny Briere and Dan Carcillo.

Now that Richards won't be killing as many penalties this year, can we expect him or Jeff Carter or Simon Gagne to score as many shorthanded goals as they did last year? Is that necessarily a bad thing?

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No and no. It shouldn’t matter because the penalty kill as a whole should give up fewer goals, so scoring fewer shorthanded goals will be a wash.

by Ben Feldman on Oct 4, 2009 3:16 PM EDT reply actions

also Richards and Carter should have more energy for even strength and PP which in theory should cause more scoring for them overall, goal of the PK Is not to score it is a nice bonus but not required for a good PK, also add JVR, Syvert to the list on non penalty killers

by chrislanci on Oct 4, 2009 6:45 PM EDT reply actions

did Knuble PK last year? the Caps have him on their PK and its looking good so far (8-8)

by hockeyman33 on Oct 4, 2009 7:17 PM EDT reply actions

Yes - knuble was often used on the pk while he was a Flyer

by SanDiegoScraps on Oct 4, 2009 10:56 PM EDT up reply actions

Yes, I remember a list that was produced of the most defensively responsible forwards – Richards was close to the top (duh!) and Gags and Knuble were also on there.

by Mitchell Green on Oct 4, 2009 11:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Usually paired with Carter.

Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?

by mikefive on Oct 5, 2009 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions

I think teams still know that we are dangerous on the PK. The system that Steven’s has in place to kill PKs is agressive and provides the opportunity for whoever is killing the PK to score. However, there is no one that is able to read the play and anticipate that cross ice pass from defensemen to defensemen like Richards.
I think the fact that they scored 16 shorties was pretty ridiculous and would not expect that to ever happen again. I think it is a worthy trade off though. We have a very deep team where all four lines can score and posses the puck so we obviously do not need to rely or expect scoring on the PK (not that we did or ever would). I think that our PP is going to be good and obviously we are always putting on pressure at even-strength. I like the idea of preserving Richie and giving him even-strength and PP time. But I wouldn’t count out Gags and Carts putting in some shorties too.

by Mitchell Green on Oct 4, 2009 7:22 PM EDT reply actions

The Flyers Special Team units were very good last season.

The Flyers Power Play in 2008-09 had 316 opportunities and converted 71 times (22%). The rest of the NHL, on average, converted 19% of the time. To go along with that, they only gave up 1 short-handed goal (which lead the league). The rest of the NHL, on average, gave up 8 shorties.

On the Penalty Kill.
The Flyers faced 393 short-handed situations and gave up 67 Power Play Goals. So, 83% of the time, the Flyers PK was successful. The rest of the NHL, on average, killed penalties 81% of the time. The Flyers PK lead the league with 16 short-handed goals. The rest of the NHL, averaged 8 short-handed goals. So, the Flyers PK could not only kill off a penalty, but were a threat to score.

As the year went a long, the Flyers reputation for scoring while Short-handed, forced teams to take away from their own Power Play. Where teams were normally placing 4 Forwards and 1 defensemen on their Power Play units, they were forced to play with 3 Forwards and 2 defensemen against the flyers. In otherwords, they were more worried about the Flyers scoring on them, then they were in converting on their Power Play opportunity.
That’s a huge psychological advantage.

You would think with the addition with Pronger that it would increase them as a threat to score Short-handed. I like Stevens approach their, if the opportunity presents itself, attack on the PK. It’s tough for the other team to convert, if they don’t have the puck.

Unfortunately the Flyers already gave up a short-handed goal, and have not scored one themselves.

by FlyersGoalies1and27 on Oct 5, 2009 12:08 AM EDT reply actions

Hey look its actually empirical data and not gibberish that offends a lot of people here

by phish'n on Oct 5, 2009 9:45 AM EDT up reply actions

Do you really expect that the Flyers score a short-hander every other game??? By this and previous post, you state that the flyers PK is awful unless they score 41 short-handers this year. If this is your goal for the team, then my goals are gonna be to finish the year at 81-0-1, Carter score 93 goals, Emery wins 81 games(Boosh looses in a 20 round shootout 1-0), Carcillio leads the league in PIMs, with no minors or misconducts, JVR wins rookie of the year/MVP/&Selke, and Randy Jones comes back up to the team and wins the Norris. By your standards theses are all feasible.

by JpH89 on Oct 5, 2009 2:47 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t think on the surface things will be the same this year. I don’t know the splits, but a lot of the short handed goals the flyers scored were early in the year. Most likely, we will score short handed at a pace much slower than last year’s.

That said, I think the impact of the short handed threat will be great. Like flyersgoalies1and27 said, teams change the way they attack our pk because of that threat. Although we did get a great scoring chance with the Giroux breakaway at the end of the 1st saturday night, even though he was poke-checked.

In addition, i don’t think the flyers will be as aggressive scoring short handers based on personnel. Last year we used gagne, richards, carter, giroux, and many other of our skilled guys. This year it looks like we have one group of more skilled players, so far usually gagne and richards, and then a pairing of betts and laperriere. That’s a very capable group killing penalties, but they don’t pose the same threat to score.

by NickC3 on Oct 5, 2009 1:21 AM EDT reply actions

The Flyers had two shorthanded break-aways in the game against Carolina alone, so I definitely don’t feel like the penalty kill will be a sore spot in terms of aggresiveness. While it can really break an opponents’ spirit to allow a shorthanded goal against, it can be equally effective to completely shut down their power play and then have fresher stars to score at will 5-on-5. I don’t think that reduced shorthanded goal-scoring will be a factor in deciding games this season.

by penguinsfan on Oct 5, 2009 10:50 AM EDT reply actions

well said and exactly right.

scoring shorties is a nice bonus, and a nice knife in the side of your opponent, but being able to kill off shorthanded opportunities and 5 on 3’s as efficiently as they did against the Devils (1 shot against in two full minutes?!?) is way more important. And, like you said, it’s not like the Flyers will stop being aggressive on the PK, and the shorties will come (probably not 16, of course, but that’s ok).

by eeeeee on Oct 6, 2009 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions