Soul Possession of Third Place (stat sheet); Your thoughts?

by FlyersGoalies1and27 on Nov 22, 2009 11:38 AM EST Comment 8 comments

The Flyers have reached the Quarter-Mark of the season....this is a stat track post of both the last 5 games and after 20 games.

LAST 5 GAMES (Buf, NJ, @LA, @SJ, @Phx)

Penalties: 35 (2 Fighting-Majors, 0 Game Misconducts, 0 Misconducts, 0 Majors, 1 Double-Minor, 32 Minors, 7 penalties per game) - Compared to the previous 5 games, Fighting Majors are down & Minor Penalties are up

Special Teams

Penalty Kill: 18 for 26 (69%) **1 Short-Handed Goal**; 5-on-3 PK: (facing 2:24 combined) 1 for 2 (50%) - Compared to 80% Kill over the previous 5 games, the PK is down

Power Play: a pathetic 2 for 16 (12%) (including 0 for 8 in the last 2 games) **1 Short-Handed Goal Against** - Compared to 26% conversion over the previous 5 games

Face-Offs

Attempts: 292 (58 per game)

Won: 146 (29 per game)

Percent: 50% (down from the previous 5 games)

Turnovers, Hits, & Blocks

Give Aways: 42 (8.4 per game) (even with previous 5 games)

Take Aways: 24 (4.8 per game) (down from previous 5 games)

Hits: 123 (24.6 per game) (up from previous 5 games)

Blocked Shots: 90 (18 per game) (up from previous 5 games)

Shooting, Scoring & Goaltending

Shots Against: 149 (29.8 per game) (down from previous 5 games)

Shots For: 139 (27.8 per game) (way down from previous 5 games)

#29 Ray Emery: 96 for 109 (Save %: .881; Wins: 1; Shut-Outs: 0; GAA: 3.25) (not a good stretch for Sugar Ray)

#33 Brian Boucher: (1 game) 37 for 39 (Save %: .948; Wins: 1; Shut-Outs: 0; GAA: 2.00)

Goaltenders Combined: 133 for 148 (Save %: .899; Wins: 2; Shut-Outs: 0; GAA: 3.00)

Goals Against: 16 (3.2 per game) (way up from the 1.4 per game in the previous 5)

Goals For: 12 (2.4 per game) (way down from the 4.6 per game in the previous 5)

RECORD: 2 - 3 - 0 (Winning %: .400)

Points: 4 (out of a possible 10)

AFTER 20 GAMES (The Quarter-Mark)

Penalties: 130 (15 Fighting-Majors, 1 Misconduct, 1 Game-Misconduct, 1 Major, 102 Minors; 6.5 penalties per game)

Special Teams

Penalty Kill: 67 for 85 (79%) **1 Short-Handed Goal Scored**; 5-on-3 (9:27 combined): 6 for 7 (86%); Majors: 1 for 1 (100%)

Power Play: 21 for 90 (23%) **3 Short-Handed Goals Allowed**; 5-on-3: 1 for 1 (100%); Majors: 0 for 0 (0%) (yes Flyers have had only one crack at a 5-on-3 all season long)

Face-Offs

Attempts: 1,226 (61 per game)

Won: 600 (30 per game)

Percent: 48.9%

Turnovers, Hits, & Blocks

Give Aways: 154 (7.7 per game)

Take Aways: 129 (6.4 per game)

Hits: 366 (18.3 per game)

Blocked Shots: 320 (16 per game)

Shooting, Scoring, & Goaltending

Shots Against: 586 (29.3 per game)

Shots For: 648 (32.1 per game)

#33 Brian Boucher: (2 games) 61 for 67 (Save %: .910; Wins: 1; Shut-Outs: 0, GAA: 3.00)

#29 Ray Emery: 471 for 515 (Save %: .915; Wins: 11; Shut-Outs: 1; GAA: 2.42)

Goaltenders Combined: 532 for 582 (Save %: .914; Wins: 12; Shut-Outs: 1; GAA: 2.50)

Goals Against: 53 (2.65 per game)

Goals For: 67 (3.3 per game)

Injuries (Players that have missed games due to injury; Bold indicates players currently out with injuries)

Brian Boucher, Blair Betts, Simon Gagne, James Van Riemsdyk, Danny Briere, Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, Darroll Powe, Arron Asham, Ryan Parent

TEAM LEADERS

Fights: Ian Laperriere with 6

Minor Penalties: Braydon Coburn & Scott Hartnell with 10

Face-Off Attempts: Jeff Carter with 370 (300+: 2 (Richie & Carter); 200+: 1 (Betts); 100+: 2 (Pyorala & Giroux); Rest of Team: 30 or less)

Face-Offs Won: Jeff Carter with 187

Face-Off %: Mike Richards with 52% (Blair Betts percentage has dropped like a fly to 49%)

Give Aways: Braydon Coburn with 21

Take Aways: Claude Giroux with 15

Hits: Ian Laperriere & Darroll Powe tied with 45

Blocked Shots: Chris Pronger with 62 (no one else on the team is close)

Shots on Goal: Jeff Carter with 88

Assists: Chris Pronger with 14

Goals: Mike Richards with 9

Plus/Minus: Matt Carle with +18; Braydon Coburn, Danny Briere, & Danny Syvret are at the bottom with -3.

OVERALL RECORD: 12 - 7 - 1 (Winning %: .600)

Standing Points: 25 (out of 40)

Division: Third Place

Playoff Picture: (Tied with Ottawa for 5th Seed) * The Devils currently own the 4th Seed*

COMMENTS

Danny Briere: With #48 in the lineup the Flyers are 8 - 8 on the season (.500 club)

Coburn & Timonen: For awhile there both seemed to be picking it up, their plus/minus have dipped from -9 & -10 respectively to -3 and -1 over the course of the past 10 games. However, of the last 11 goals against (Special Teams included) Timonen & Coburn have been on the ice for 5 of them, Coburn for 6 of them.

It's like "Cliff Lee" (Pronger & Carle) and "Cole Hamels" (Timonen & Coburn). "Hamels" was lights out prior to the arrival of "Cliff Lee", now inconsistancy has been a dark cloude hanging over the Flyers "Ace" defensive pairing.

DEPTH at Center

I wanted to write a whole post on this...

The Flyers are really thin at Center. Yes, they have 2 top quality Centers in Richards & Carter and a solid 4th line Veteran with Blair Betts (when he's in the lineup), but other than that there is no consistancy at the Center position. Giroux, Powe, Pyorala all have rotated as the third-line center, which neither have been really impressive at .Danny Briere is a seasoned Center, but Stevens prefers him as a Winger on one of the top 2 lines. Now that Betts (again) & Powe are out of the lineup, you now have voids at both the 3rd and 4th line centermen positions. Giroux is being plugged into a Centers role, and Pyorala is a rookie.

Over the course of the season, I felt the Flyers were missing something and after thinking about it...this is it, they are missing depth at Center, especially on the third line

Ray Emery

I also wanted to present this question...

Do you think, if it came down to it, Ray Emery could "Carry" the team...

You know ... like Martin Brodeur can "carry" the Devils, Roberto Luongo can "carry" the Canucks, Marc-Andre Fleury can "carry" the Penguins, Henrick Lundqvist can "carry" New York, Ryan Miller (when healthy) can "Carry" the Sabres, Evgeni Nabokov can "carry" San Jose.

If the answer is no.....and I'm not sure, if the team needed it, he could "carry" the team....then the team may just be mediocre.

What is everyones thought on the teams progress to this point?

This item was written by a member of this community and is not necessarily endorsed by Broad Street Hockey.

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Comments

Betts obviously hasn’t been the same in terms of faceoffs since his first injury, which is disturbing. That he’s dislocated the same shoulder isn’t good, as MarioD has mentioned elsewhere. Talk about fluky… the “faceoff guy” couldn’t have injured something else?

I also doubt Emery could “carry” the team, but at the same time, we don’t really know yet one way or another. That there’s even a tiny bit of speculation about him and Team Canada says something though.

by Ben Feldman on Nov 22, 2009 12:06 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

We lost last night because of our Special Teams. Future wins and losses will continue to be factored by our Special teams

Our PP is either on or its way off. At the beginning of the season 75-80% of our goals came on the PP. Now it seems our PP is dreadful. We need to find a balance.

The PKi is Exciting Hockey, unfortunately its exciting b/c any second they opponents about to score and even if Emery makes a save we wont clear it out of our zone so another shot is comming in 3….2….1

The natural improv that used to put the biscuit in the basket isn’t working this year. I partially blame scheduling for this but Its a good sign that we are seeing set plays, and they are somewhat effective.

Faceoffs…just stated above. Dam bad luck Betts injured his shoulder…….AGAIN!

Emery is showing signs that he might be able to carry the team so far. Again the schedule has screwed us. We need to see more. We haven’t yet won a game we should have lost because of his play. However he has helped us earn some points in a lot of games. So far, so good… we just need to wait and see.

Recently we got back in the routing of being the more penalized team every night and I fricking hate that trend. Nothing good comes of this and it wears a team down in the long run. Its affects last weeks, not days.

Injures are hitting us but thats uncontrollable and its happening to everyone. No excuses there.

Overall I give our Boys a solid B for the quarter mark. The Next 20 games are BIG…no scratch that HUGE! Love them or hate them the OLYMPICS are a wild card this season for every team. After March some teams will skyrocket and some will fall faster the economy did. Lets not put our season to chance. We need the points in 09 to secure a spot for the playoffs in early 10

Best surprise of the year so far is JVR
Biggest disappointment so far is Carter

by Prometheus74 on Nov 22, 2009 12:30 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Not for anything, but it’s “Sole Possession.” “Soul Possession” makes it sounds like this is happening in the locker room.

Other than that, nice job.

Prometheus – Carter is disappointing in the goal-scoring department but he is doing much better on draws than he was last year, so I wouldn’t say all is lost with him.

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

by mikefive on Nov 22, 2009 10:21 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

One thing I’d like to ask is… Does anyone else see the system they play failing them? For each of these last few losses there are scoring opportunities lost because of 3 forwards behind the net. When they were winning, they were in front of the net causing all sorts of havoc there. I know this can be easier said than done, but someone should be there for those passes from behind the net that inevitably seem to go right to the other team.

For all this offensive talent, it just seems to me that they don;t use it well.

by Mike B on D on Nov 23, 2009 9:04 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Bump in the road

I don’t think it’s the system’s fault. I think they’ve gotten away from their system over the last couple of games, which is why they’ve been losing. They’re no different from any other team who struggles. Good teams start to lose because they get away from the things which make them successful.

They’ll right the ship sooner than later, but they’ve got to bear down and get through these injuries.

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

by mikefive on Nov 23, 2009 9:36 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed – the system isn’t at fault here, it is the execution of the system that has been off during the losing streak… also – taking too many penalties prevent them from getting into a “groove”, and injuries are especially tough to overcome when they happen in the middle of a long road trip.
Hopefully they can get 2 pts tonight against a cooled off Avs team and return to the Eastern Time Zone on a winning note…

by SanDiegoScraps on Nov 23, 2009 5:51 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I just hope you and Mike are right. (I always root for another Mike 8P). It just seems that at times Stevens doesn’t have the ability to right the ship the way a good coach can. I’m not hoping to see him or anyone in orange and black fail, but it keeps popping up on my radar.

Here’s to hoping that they get righted. And in front of the damn net!

by Mike B on D on Nov 23, 2009 7:07 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

As a Canadian who grew up in Ottawa, I watched the Sens’ run to the Cup finals closely, even though I have cheered for Vancouver and Philadelphia for most of my hockey-watching life. I’d offer that during the Cup finals, Emery faced a very interesting crisis, which really impacted his career dramatically.

I can’t remember what game of the series it was. Something like game 2 or 3. Anaheim had, at that point in time, a slight edge thus far in the series. Perhaps they were up 1-0 in the series, or something to that effect. In the game that followed, the Sens were beaten 1-0 by Anaheim, which gave them a big advantage and made the Sens’ offence look pitiful. Throughout that game, Emery was absolutely brilliant. It really made me respect just how talented he is. He literally carried the team through that game, and gave them every single chance imaginable to win it. The goal itself wasn’t his fault, either, if I remember correctly.

And they lost, despite that.

From then on in the series, he looked incredibly shaken. He let in at least a soft goal a game. Some Sens fans argue he was a major reason why they lost the series. I think a lot of that is scapegoating, and we saw a lot of that the following season, too. But what I do think happened is that Emery watched as he literally gave the performance of a lifetime, giving the Sens a chance to seize the biggest series of their careers, and they utterly failed to generate any scoring chances.

It’s obviously entering into his head a lot, but I think what happened then is that he gave up on the possibility of his play impacting the series. Suddenly, he saw that elevating his play may not win them anything. And from then on, his play was shaky with the Sens.

Does Emery have the talent to carry the Flyers? I think he does. But he really has to get over the mental block that’s there. Elite goaltending is really a mental game, and I’m not sure if Emery is mentally capable of forcing his game to a higher level, if it means being let down that way again. If the Flyers end up in the post-season and in a spot where they depend on Emery that way, all I can say is that I hope they manage to win the game, because that could be another turning point for him.

...loving life for Christ's glory...

by NebCanuck on Jan 9, 2010 8:54 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

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