You may or may not have read my fanpost about the Flyers' post-season defensive stumble and what we need as a team.

Some of you asked what the Flyers' players numbers were and what our regular season SDP #s were.

Ask and ye shall receive, as I found out from the article's author, Robert Vollman.

"The top Flyers in the postseason for SDP were Andrew Alberts (2.00), Darroll Powe (2.10), Ryan Parent (2.71), Claude Giroux (3.29), Braydon Coburn (3.44).  I'm afraid the numbers weren't kind to most of the Flyers, probably because of the penalties taken, and the high quality of their opponents offensively.
 
In the regular season the best Flyer SDP was actually Simon Gagne (2.96, #69 among those with at least 10 GP and 60 seconds of SH time/game).  Andrew Alberts was right behind at 3.05, Mike Richards at #130 at 3.36, Mike Knuble 3.40.
 
I think the Flyers would do well to pick up some more defensive players.  Statistically they were in the bottom third of the league defensively in the regular season and while they were good at killing penalties, they took far too many.  Personally I think that half the team is really solid, but the Flyers get into a little trouble when the other half is on the ice. What do you think?" -- Robert Vollman

What does this tell us?

Firstly, we did have a few guys in the second tier of defenders. Alberts, Powe, Parent, Giroux, and Coburn all would probably be in the 20-60 range. That's not too-too shabby.

Secondly, Gagne might be a better 2-way forward than Richards statistically. And he should definitely at least be in the conversation. He doesn't deliver the huge hits, but he helps out in other ways.

Thirdly, it would be wise to keep ALberts. He's the type of player the Flyers should be acquiring. He was inconsistent, but still on the whole highly underrated for what he did for us (shut down his competition, apparently). Caveat: He played opposing teams' less-talented forwards, so it's to be expected that his #s are better than your Timmonen, who is expected to shut out the un-shut-outable.

Fourth, we oughta play the rookies more. Giroux and Powe are apparently very good defenders -- they both saw more and more PK time as the season wore on, and I'd expect that trend to continue next year.

He also gave me a fun link. It basically uses advanced stats to show how each of our individuals did. I added the minimum threshold of 30 games played, with the team as the Flyers.

Here's the link to some awesome stat tables.

Some interesting tidbits from that:

If we had 18 Claude Girouxs running around, opposing teams would score only just over 2 goals a game. His defense is pretty exceptional -- he shuts down whatever line he's facing unless it's the opposing team's top line or so.

According to goals against per 60 minutes combined with the quality of the competition, Randy Jones is pretty solid against the opposing teams' 3rd and 4th line. Caveat? Andrew Alberts' quality of linemates was very low, and Jones is a big part of that.

Timmonen is very good against their 1st and 2nd. Carle and Coburn are pretty good against their 2nd and 3rd lines. Gagne, Knuble, and Richards are all about the same defensively (which is to say, very very good) taking quality of competition and GA/60 into account.

Lupul is still bad defensively, but he's better offensively than Richards + Knuble.

Asham is a defensive liability, but is played as well as or better than Knuble offensively.

Giroux is as good as Gagne offensively already.

Hartnell is our 2nd biggest pts/60 min producer after Jeff Carter.

Luca Sbisa dominated the 3rd and 4th lines of opponents. He would be a significant upgrade over both Alberts and Jones.

Parent struggled mightily against the opposing teams top two lines. He also faced the highest quality competition out of anyone (we had a tough second half schedule, is the reason for the discrepancy vs. Timmonen).

I thought we could convince Mr. Vollmer to write an article, specifically, about what our Flyers need to win a cup. What do you guys think the team needs, based on those stats and the stats of other teams? I'll email him what our community says and see what he says.