Ranking the Flyers: Number 2

Sure, it could be considered. How? I think the best logical argument is: if chemistry has an effect on team performance, and if team performance is reflected by the summation of the player performance (the latter undeniably true, the former arguable), and if summation of player performance is reflected by each player’s individual performances added together (a rewording of the original), then chemistry has an effect on individual performances. Therefore, the only way an ethereal concept such as “Chemistry” could be measured would be by measuring with a large sample size the effects of the loss of a certain player via looking at the stats before and after the player left, somehow holding things like age, quality of competition, and quality of teammates constant relatively over a large sample size. Then you’d get the player’s effect on chemistry isolated.

Possible? Yeah, somewhat. Really difficult, and basically impossible to say with complete certainty of the G or A stats. But we can make basic generalizations:

1) If Chemistry really exists, the Flyers should have performed worse after Scottie Upshall (deemed a boon to chemistry) was replaced by Dan Carcillo (deemed a boon, but less so than Upshall) independent of Carcillo & Upshall’s performance. Essentially, we’re saying that one man being nicer than another man or meshing with teammates because of a common interest in booze or rock music or yachts or because one’s style of play makes them perform better on ice with certain other players. This isn’t as farfetched as it sounds, really — the Gagne/Richards/Knuble line last year featured three different styles of play that meshed pretty well together since each player had a different role.

2) Chemistry is somehow different from roles. The aforementioned G/R/K line might just as easily been successful due to that differentiated role system of each player having to do only a few things really well rather than many things pretty well, as due to each of the players liking each other (which is what chemistry seems to imply, since Pronger & Timonen play the same position and role but people seem concerned over how Pronger will effect team chemistry/mesh with his teammates/how this will effect his performance)

The Flyers won 34 games by March 3 (Upshall was traded March 4), out of 62 games played, for a 54.8% winning percentage.

They then went 9-10 (47.3% winning percentage) the rest of the way. Seems drastic, no?

No. The Flyers went 10-10 the first 20 games, 11-9 the second, and 12-8 the third. 9-10 was within the realistic realm of probability for any month. In the 12-8 set, Upshall registered 1 goal out of the goals scored in the 12 games the Flyers won (1 out of the 49 scored in that stretch), and registered a point in 4 out of the 12 games (33%). They scored 4.08 goals per win. After Upshall was traded, the Flyers scored 42 goals in their 9 wins, for 4.67 goals per win. They gave up 5.25 goals per loss when they went 12-8, and then 3.5 goals given up per loss after Upshall was traded.

(calculated from hockey-reference.com)

This shows a couple things:
1) the power of small samples
2) that Upshall’s loss didn’t make our losses smaller, nor our wins bigger.

Those are hints saying that Upshall didn’t really seem to demonstrably effect the players around him, albeit by no means the best hints and certainly not proof. But I very much doubt that the loss of Upshall played any statistically or chemically (chemistry-related) significant role in our lackluster finish or early exit.

Really? They didn’t play as hard because they were pining for Scotty fucking Upshall? Give me a break.

If the trade of Upshall had any impact on this team, Mike Richards should’ve been traded this offseason.