As most of you know, it recently came out that the Flyers rarely practice the shootout. Now let me first say that I myself am not a fan of a skills competition deciding the outcome of a game. I respect the "displeasure" true fans of the game feel towards the shootout. However, the fact of the matter is it IS a part of the game now, and it is the difference between 1 point and 2 points. To that effect, I think some effort should be put into practicing the shootout for when the situation arises. Granted, the Flyers efforts in practice should largely be focused on some glaring deficiencies now often seen on the ice during the 60-65 minutes of real hockey, but with how many offensively talented guys we have in this locker room, there is no excuse for being at the very bottom of the league at these stupid things year in and year out. Who knows, we may really need a few extra points somewhere down the line. Just some thoughts.

Looking at thepast several games and the disappointing results, I have asked what is the source of these problems. I believe the source is the lack of defensive philosophy. When the Flyers are in either the offensive zone for an extended period of time, they seem lost and disorganized. In most games I have seen the Flyers have a bad habit of getting into track meets even when they are leading by several goals. I do not have any insights on how to improve the Flyers forecheck, shot selection or use of set plays but I do believe I have some ideas on what the Flyers should do to improve their defensive coverage. As Frederick the Great once said to defend everything is to defend nothing. In hockey this means making priorities on how to position players defensively. For instance, if a goaltender plays percentage shots or incredibly good at protecting the flower half of the net, you want to force opponents to duke it out in the slot and force them to bad shots. On the other hand if the goaltender has good hand eye coordination , you want to keep shooters to the outside and try to keep shooting lanes clear. Some goaltenders are incredibly gifted and can play with any sort of defense, others are not so fortunate. I think both Bob and Bryz fall in the latter category; this does not mean they are no good, but that their game fits better with one defensive philosophy any other. Looking at Bob and Bryz play, I see their best saves on shots to which they are squared and there is some distance between the shooter and themselves. On the other hand I see both goalies giving rather soft goals up close. This leads me to believe the Flyers should focus on forcing shots from the outside , keeping lanes clear, making the goalies freeze the puck and winning faceoffs. At this moment, I think with Bryz the Flyers can accomplish 3/4 of these tasks, the 4th one (winning faceoffs) is more of a problem, but even at 48%, I like the odds of just freezing the puck, trying to win faceoffs and then breaking out. On the other hand, I think Bob needs some more seasoning, I think he sometimes overplays the shot and something that needs coaching. Nevertheless, I think transitioning to such a defensive philosophy would give the Flyers more control in their games and force opponents to take more drastic risks and lead to more turnovers.

Thoughts?

We can't play ice hockey that night but we could play roller that morning. Why not?

Comment if you can make it.

I'll play goalie. We need one more and what? Like 12 skaters to make it fun and not terribly tiring?

Editor's Note #2: Mikefive wrote this FanPost over two years ago; but today's game threads emphasized the fact that we're in the same situation again. Things have been getting a little rough around here lately, and we each need to take a step back to remember that we're all here to enjoy the conversation. - DG

Editor's Note: Since the season has begun, we've seen an influx in members, opinions, comments, and discussion. With that comes a lot of great things, but on the flip side, Ben, Geoff, and myself feel that the level of civility around the site has gone down. It makes us less attractive to new readers, opposing fans, and everybody in between. So, starting today, we're going to be cleaning up the nonsense. There are community guidelines that you should have read when you first signed up here at Broad Street Hockey, and they will be enforced strongly.

If you break one of the guidelines, you will be warned and your content may be deleted. If you continue to break the guidelines, you may be banned temporarily or on a permanent basis. This isn't to be a dick, of course -- it's to protect every member's opinion.

Below is a fanpost written by mikefive back in August. It explains in ways better than I ever could exactly what we're talking about here. Read it, learn it, and live it. - Travis

Hi everyone,

I realize that this post is not Flyer-related per se, and I'm somewhat hesitant to post this since I'm not BSH staff or anything, but here goes...

When I first found BSH, I was thrilled to pieces. While I had come across good Flyers sites before (like The Flyer Frequent), here was one where I could openly and regularly discuss my favorite team with other fans. Perhaps more importantly, I did not have to put up with the idiocy that came from readers of Puck Daddy.* Everyone here respected the Flyers' history while realizing that the current edition of the team is not a dirty one. Furthermore, all of the posters respected one another.

Methinks that civility has gone down a bit here. Maybe it's the August heat; maybe we're impatient and want the puck to drop tomorrow; I don't know. It seems like the population is growing here, which is great. Travis and his crew have done a great job and deserve all of the recognition and readership they get. However, with more people come more personalities, which unfortunately is leading to less civility. Instead of having agreeable disagreements, we are getting name-calling, and quite frankly it's reminding me of why I left Puck Daddy in the first place.

I don't mean to sound like a first-grade teacher, but can we please keep ourselves in check? This is a great site with plenty of room for healthy discussion. Let's keep it that way.

* For what it's worth, I'm not trying to disparage Puck Daddy as a blog. Greg Wyshynski had a good idea in mind when he created it. However, it's a lousy forum for discussion. Everyone is dismissive of everyone else because everyone hates everyone else's teams, so no real discussion happens or can happen. Let's please do our best to make sure that BSH does not go down a similar path.

Thanks.

So the Flyers have a big pair of back-to-back games this weekend against the Devils and the Rangers, two weeks after playing a back-to-back against the Devils and Bruins. Ilya Bryzgalov started both of those games, and while he had, IMO, one of his best games of the season that Saturday in Jersey, he struggled a bit in the game against Boston en route to a shootout loss. As a whole, though, Bryz is in the middle of a bit of a hot streak; in his last five games he's rocking a 1.74 GAA and .938 save percentage, and the Flyers have nabbed eight of 10 points in those five games.

In the recap comments for last night's game, I posed the question of what you'd do this weekend as far as starting goalies. We can pretty much guarantee Bryz will start at least one of the games, and that's about it. As there usually is here, there were a couple of comments about how it's not a good idea to start goalies back-to-back. There were also a couple of comments about how it's important to try and get him in a groove, and that's also a claim that has been contested in the past and was contested there.

I was, though, a bit more interested in what people think about goalies in back-to-backs. I've seen criticisms of Laviolette in the comments about playing goalies in back-to-back games, both in the scope of (a) how it affects him in the second game of said back-to-back, and (b) how it affects him long-term as the season goes on.

As of now, I don't really have anything concrete for (b), but given that we've got two big games this weekend back-to-back against two (probably) playoff-bound teams, (a) had me a bit curious. Couple that with the fact that there's been no shortage of discussion/complaints about how Peter Laviolette has handled goalies in his two seasons here, and I decided to look into it, in the scope of the Flyers and the league itself this season. Hit the jump.

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Ok. Let's just pick a date and try it.

Will anyone show up (in any kind of shape to play hockey) if we have it on St. Patty's Day?

Post if you will be there.

I don't usually like talking rumors but this one had some details involved so I wanted to see if anyone out there heard about this or can confirm anything. I heard New York would give up Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov for Bobby Ryan. Has anyone heard about this or think its possible? I think it would put NY over the top unfortunately. Bobby Ryan / Brad Richards / Ryan Callahan would be a pretty dangerous line.

Before I start, I want to let people know that this is my first ever fanpost, so don't be to harsh please and I also want to let you know that English is not my native language, so I am sorry if my message is not 100% clear.

I read this post from the Canucks blog Here and they talk alot about trading for P.K.Subban and that got me thinking if the Flyers should explore the idea.

P.K.Subban is a 22 year old defenseman with a curent cap hit of 875.000$ and is an RFA after this season.

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Hi folks,

First time poster, long time reader of BSH.

Just putting it out there - now that it looks as though Suter won't be moved prior to the deadline this season, what are the opinions of my fellow Flyers fan on potentially not re-signing Carle (aka turnover machine) and instead signing the Pred's star defenseman?

Further, despite the ongoing salary cap woes and Pronger's issues, given that Kimmo's contract is due to expire at the end of the 2012-13 season, is there any way we could reasonably manoeuvre the roster without giving up significant pieces in the forwards and keep both? Surely that would be a nice solution in the long term (correct if I am wrong more learned hockey fans).

I want to hear your thoughts!

Cheers!

Bumped from the FanPosts for obvious reasons.

Remember how awesome July 1 was? Well, yeah, it was awesome. All we were really looking for was maybe a decent winger or a good defensive forward or a depth defenseman. What'd we get? ALL THREE, obviously. Jaromir Jagr and Max Talbot and Andreas Lilja made their way in, and initial reactions seemed to be "eh, whatever" in regards to Lilja and "We probably overpaid, but who cares, LOL Pittsburgh" for Jagr and Talbot. Over time, it seemed like everyone generally soured on Lilja a bit (because giving him a second year was dumb) and warmed up to Jagr a bit (because not only could we laugh at Pittsburgh, but because Jaromir Jagr is actually really good at hockey.)

Talbot, though, was a bit tougher to dissect. Some people thought that he was a guy who could shoulder some of the defensive responsibilities and PK time that we had previously put on Richards and Carter, that he would be a good source of points from the fourth line, that he would be a great character guy, and that his cap hit wasn't that bad. Others seemed to think he didn't serve any purpose that guys like Betts or Carcillo hadn't already served, that his defensive metrics weren't actually that good, that he was a fourth-line guy that we were paying third-line money to, and that all in all we were more or less paying $1.8 million so we can improve our PK and also point and laugh at Pittsburgh. A lot of this escalated again after Blair Betts was first waived, and anyone who suggested "Talbot can do what Betts did" seemed to be shouted down with a combination of (a) "No, he can't" and (b) "Even if he could, he's not worth an extra million".

Obviously, Talbot has contributed more offensively than any of us expected to, but even so, a lot of what he's done has been overlooked. I think the impact he's made on the team might be the most surprising of all of the new guys we brought in this past summer. Let's see how that's so. There's a lot to say about his season so far--be it through simple methods or more advanced ones--and some of it deserves to be mentioned. (all numbers, stats and stuff are as of the All-Star break)

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