The Flyers in Franchise Hockey Manager - Part 12 - The Ovechkin era begins

2019-20: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

2020-21: Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

2021-22: Part 11

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Hello, and welcome back to this next episode of the Flyers in FHM. Today, the 2021-22 season kicks off, as the Flyers look to defend their third ever championship title.

Our season was set to begin at home against the Montreal Canadiens. Claude Giroux, now at 936 career points, captains the squad yet again, with Sean Couturier and Ivan Provorov serving as alternates.

Waivers cuts came along in October before the first games were to be played, and an interesting name was available, so I claimed him! Tyler Toffoli is now a Flyer, and will most likely be interchanging in to the fourth line with Adrian Kempe. Morgan Frost was also still injured from the playoffs, so he’ll slot back in when he is healthy.

Anyways, let’s see how the first two months went...

October

What. A. Start.

11-1-1 is our record as we convincingly ran through the first month of the schedule. Claude Giroux capped off a successful month by providing FIVE assists in the 9-0 thrashing of the Stars, multiple players have already hit 10+ goals, and Alex Ovechkin scored twice in his debut as a Flyer. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Speaking of Ovechkin, his career goal total now stands at 756, ten behind Jaromir Jagr who sits in third, and with 138 more, he would tie Wayne Gretzky’s record. Still a four star player at 36 years old, it is entirely within reason that he could eclipse the record, especially the way he is going this season:

He leads the team in both goals and points, and already has tallied five goals on the top power play unit. Otherwise, DeBrincat, Giroux, and Forsberg are all having spectacular early campaigns.

In terms of possession metrics, Ivan Provorov is killing it, as is pretty much every Flyer skater. The only sub-50 player in terms of CF% is Morgan Frost, who sits at 43.97%.

In other October news, Cam York made his NHL debut! Due to an unfortunate injury to Rasmus Ristolainen, who will be out for a month or two, York has been called up to play in his place. He instantly had an impact, and is already in the top four, playing with Shayne Gostisbehere at 5-on-5.

November

Early on, due to a Travis Sanheim one game suspension, Yegor Zamula also made his NHL debut, though he didn’t play particularly well and is not yet NHL calibre. Nevertheless, he continued to be played later in November due to Phil Myers receiving a four game suspension. He played better the second go around.

As for the team as a whole, it was another highly successful month, as we improved to 21-5-1.

The highlight game was the November 9th contest against the Avalanche, which we won in overtime. Tied at 3-3, just 19 seconds into the overtime period, A Tomas Hertl wrist shot was stopped, however, right on the doorstep was Alex DeBrincat as he fired a backhander past a helpless Antoine Bibeau.

We are now easily atop the standings:

In terms of statistics, Alex Ovechkin continues to crush everyone in his path.

Filip Forsberg and Claude Giroux, however, are right behind him in terms of overall points. The scoring for the whole team continues to be quite balanced, and I’m impressed with how many players now sit at 20 points or above. Heck, we even have six 10+ goalscorers!

Ivan Provorov still leads the team in Corsi-for, though, again, nobody is doing poorly. In fact, every skater is Corsi positive. Now that is unreal.

There haven’t been many lineup changes, though Ristolainen is now back so things have been slightly shifted:

Some players will continue to come in and out of the lineup based on performance, so this is always likely to change.

Anyways, I am very happy with how things have gone so far, and I bet you are too! I’m weighing up trade options, though in honesty, I don’t know if I really need to make any trades. If anything, it would just be to keep things fresh and interesting.

I’ve put that question up as a poll, so let me know what you think!

That will do it for today, and remember to leave comments and feedback!

#NoworNever