Morning Observations is a feature where we break down the previous night’s game with an analytical eye.
#1: Dominant second period erased a sloppy start
The NHL scheduling algorithms did the Flyers no favors this season, forcing the club to start their season on the west coast and against a high-end opponent already playing their second game of the year, fired up for their home opener. As a result, it wasn’t surprising to see Philadelphia look a bit off to start the contest. The Flyers’ forecheck showed flashes of effectiveness, but they could extract little value out of that offensive zone time, and the team’s passing in the neutral and defensive zones was nothing short of disastrous. Only the strong play of Michal Neuvirth kept the game a scoreless tie, as the Czech goaltender stopped 10 shots and faced five high-danger chances in the period.
During the intermission, the easy excuse was that the Flyers were rusty and facing a Kings squad that was just a bit more dialed in due to their game on Wednesday. But considering Los Angeles finished 2015-16 with 48 wins, it was fair to worry that maybe Philadelphia just wasn’t in their league from a team-quality standpoint. Consider that theory demolished. From the start of the second period, the Flyers took it to the Kings, scoring four goals and winning every key statistical category. They outshot LA 21-9, posted a Corsi For percentage of 60%, and generated eight high-danger chances to just two for the Kings.
It was a total mauling, and it all began in the defensive zone via efficient breakouts. Their first two goals came directly as a result of great plays by defensemen (Brandon Manning on goal one, Shayne Gostisbehere on #2), allowing the forwards to work their magic on the attack. The Kings live and die by their forecheck, and the best way to beat them is to make quick, smart decisions under pressure via the breakout. The Flyers from two years ago would have wilted under that forecheck, but this is a better-coached team with much-improved passers on the back end. That showed last night.
#2: A nice low-event third period
There’s always a concern that a team will fall into a passive state in the final period while holding a big lead, allowing the trailing team to put the outcome in doubt late. The Flyers were not immune to these “score effects” last season — in fact, third period collapses were a major issue throughout the year. So when Philadelphia entered the final stanza up 4-1 and then gave up a quick tally just three minutes into the period, it briefly looked like the same old story.
But the Flyers regrouped, and actually put together a pretty stifling final period. At 5v5, they allowed just five shots on goal, ten total attempts at the net, and not one high-danger scoring chance. That’s not to say that the Kings didn’t have puck possession, but Philadelphia was able to both disrupt rushes in the neutral zone and render long cycles in the offensive zone by LA fruitless from a shots on goal standpoint. Aesthetically, it was a boring period of hockey, and that’s exactly the way that the Flyers wanted it to be.
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#3: Konecny’s passing ability is already at a high-end NHL level
Entering last night’s game, all eyes were on the Flyers’ two 19-year old rookies, Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny. Philadelphia wasn’t particularly active in free agency during the offseason, so Provorov and Konecny essentially functioned as the team’s biggest additions for the 2016-17 season. While Provorov certainly had his moments, Konecny put on an absolute show, specifically with his passing ability.
Even in the nearly-disastrous first period, Konecny provided the only bright spot — a picture-perfect pass across the slot to Mark Streit on the game’s first power play. Only a miraculous save by Jeff Zatkoff kept Streit from giving the Flyers the early lead. Learning his lesson, Konecny chose a new target for his passes, earning two primary assists on Sean Couturier tallies in the second period. The first was just a shot-turned-rebound that Couturier gobbled up, but the second was all Konecny’s skill. After helping to force a turnover via the forecheck, the 19-year old made himself a target for a Jakub Voracek feed into the slot, before sending a no-look backhand pass over to Couturier who easily beat Zatkoff. It was the kind of pass that you see from perennial all-stars, not a teenager in his first meaningful NHL game.
In addition, Konecny finished with a solid 52.38% Corsi For percentage and was +6.23% relative to his teammates, implying that it wasn’t just a few great plays for the youngster. He was regularly pushing play in the right direction, and then helping to turn all that pressure into goals.
#4: Provorov made his mistakes, but also made plays
Ivan Provorov’s first NHL regular season contest wasn’t perfect. The rookie blueliner was out-of-sorts early in the first period, turning the puck over on a few occasions and looking flustered with the ferociousness of the Kings’ forecheck. While he delivered a few nice passes, the preternatural calm from the preseason was mostly absent at the start of the contest.
That poise quickly re-emerged in the second period, however. Suddenly, Provorov was jump-starting the offense with clean passes, and even pinching deep into the offensive zone on cycles — something he was hesitant to do even during his impressive preseason. Also, his primary assist came on a play that only veterans think to make, as he purposely shot wide of the net since he lacked a clean lane, allowing for Mark Streit to recover the carom off the boards and beat Zatkoff.
While he made a few more mistakes in the third period (some blind passes up the wall in the defensive zone that became turnovers), it was clear he was a far more confident player by minute 55 than he was at minute five of the game. He even pulled off a Gostisbehere-ian spin-o-rama late in the contest. After all was said and done, Provorov finished the game with an even 50% Corsi For percentage at 5v5, +3.85% relative to his teammates. Expect to see him finish in the black in that metric quite a lot this season.
#5: Boyd Gordon the big surprise
One of the fun start-of-season questions among fans is always which Flyers player will score the first goal of the year. There’s usually obvious choices (Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek), solid darkhorses (Sean Couturier, Shayne Gostisbehere) and then the off-the-board longshots. But there probably wasn’t a player in the lineup with longer odds than Boyd Gordon, the defensive-minded center who scored just four points in 65 games last year. Of course, it was Gordon who kicked things off, trailing a rush led by Brandon Manning(!) and sniping a top corner shot past Zatkoff.
The signing of Gordon was a bit controversial, especially in stat circles. Gordon has been used as a defensive zone/PK faceoff specialist in recent years, but even accounting for that role, his advanced metrics were uninspiring and his scoring metrics had fallen off a cliff. Combine that with an unimpressive preseason, and the doubters were growing louder and louder. But Gordon certainly didn’t look cooked last night. He seemed to have an extra skating gear versus how he looked in preseason, lending support to the theory that he was purposely conserving energy during the meaningless games.
He also proved no liability by the advanced metrics, either, finished at an even 50% Corsi For in his 9:52 of 5v5 ice time. The Flyers did not even allow one Kings scoring chance with Gordon on the ice. It remains to be seen how his season will play out, but the Boyd Gordon who showed up in Los Angeles was the guy who had Hextall so excited this summer. Hopefully he sticks around for the long haul.
#6: First line mostly silent
If you had to pick out a negative from last night’s game, it would have to be the performance of the top line of Claude Giroux, Michael Raffl and Wayne Simmonds. Not only did the trio not factor into any of the four goals, Giroux and Simmonds specifically struggled in terms of advanced metrics. Neither forward posted a positive Corsi rating, and they led the Flyers in on-ice scoring chances against. The Kings were regularly creating dangerous offense with Giroux and Simmonds out there at 5v5.
Much of their struggles can be attributes to tough matchups. Giroux spent about eight-and-a-half of his 14:22 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time battling the Kings’ top pairing of Jake Muzzin and Drew Doughty, and nearly eight minutes against reigning Selke winner Anze Kopitar. It was Kopitar who really got the better of Giroux, with Los Angeles racking up seven scoring chances and allowing just one when the two 1Cs went head-to-head.
The Kings’ star center is obviously a fantastic player, but Giroux is as well, so you would have liked to have seen him handle the matchup a little better. Still, it’s a testament to the team’s newfound depth that the Flyers could score four goals against an elite defensive club without any help from Giroux and company. The top line just can’t make a habit out of this type of performance.
#7: Penalty kill successful, more aggressive
Last year, the Philadelphia Flyers’ penalty kill was a major weakness of the club, and proved to be one of the biggest reasons that the team fell to the Washington Capitals in the first round of the playoffs. In response, the Flyers promised that tactical shifts were coming, with increased aggressiveness supposedly the major change. Last night, we had our first look at the new and improved Flyers penalty kill, and it definitely included some tweaks.
First and foremost, it’s obvious that the team will be employing more defensive zone pressure. Not only are they using the Czech Press — meaning that the high forward in Philadelphia’s formation will actively challenge the PP point man up top and “press” down on the forwards on the half boards — but the lower players in their shorthanded formation were also providing pressure to the flankers on the boards.
As for their neutral zone play, the Flyers appeared to be primarily employing an aggressive variation of the 1-3, which succeeded in forcing a number of dump-ins. At least on the scoreboard, the new tactics worked (LA went 0-2 on the power play), and we’ll see if that continues through the remainder of this west coast trek.
#8: Brandon Manning was all over the place
He may have been in the starting lineup tonight, but there’s no guarantee that Brandon Manning has a spot on this roster once all of the team’s regular defenseman are healthy or no longer suspended. Unless the Flyers plan to keep eight blueliners, Ron Hextall will have to make a choice between Manning and Andrew MacDonald at some point, and considering the praise thrown at the latter during the preseason from members of the organization, the former seems more likely to be sent down. Last night, it sure looked that Brandon Manning was fully aware of his precarious position and planned to do everything he could to impress the coaching staff and the front office.
Manning was the only Flyer who had any jump in the first period during 5v5 play, whether it was pinching in the offensive zone to try and create chances or throwing his weight around in the neutral zone. But his best play came in the second period, when Manning jumped into the rush and executed a variation of a center lane drive, opening up space in the slot for the trailer (Boyd Gordon) to wrist a shot past Zatkoff for a 1-0 Flyers lead. The 26-year old defenseman unsurprisingly did have a few bad moments, most notably on Drew Doughty’s late second period goal as Manning was caught floating in the defensive zone rather than covering his man in front. But at least last night, the good outweighed the bad for Manning.
#9: Couturier’s offensive breakout looking likely
The line that caught the eye of most fans going into the season opener was not the top unit centered by Claude Giroux, but line two of Jakub Voracek, Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny. It makes sense — Voracek looked back to his old self in preseason, and Konecny was obviously the talk of the town after his electrifying push towards a roster spot. The expectation was that these two dynamic wingers would help Couturier dramatically in finally achieving his supposed offensive upside over a full season. It’s hard to argue that narrative after last night’s opener. Couturier scored twice, both due to a combination of dangerous offensive situations created by the wingers and stellar instincts from the heady Couturier to get to the slot area.
When you talk to individual Flyers players, to a man they all call Couturier the smartest forward on the roster. However, through most of his career, that hockey IQ has mostly been used in the defensive zone, due to tough assignments and (most importantly) poor quality linemates who have forced him to spend more time defending than creating offense. Last year, that finally changed and Couturier posted the best offensive rate statistics of his career. This season, he’ll be shooting for the raw numbers — a 20-goal, 50-point year that finally silences the skeptics. A two-goal night in the season opener is one heck of a start.
#10: Usage decisions by Hakstol
Due to injuries and suspensions, the Flyers are currently rolling a roster that is missing a top-line winger and their entire projected first defensive pairing. As a result, Dave Hakstol has been forced to make tough decisions regarding the roles that his players will take while the roster is in a state of flux. A few of those decisions stood out. First, Shayne Gostisbehere actually led all blueliners in 5v5 ice time with 17:33 minutes, and more importantly, was taking regular shifts late in the third period. Last season, Hakstol often sat Ghost when trying to protect a lead, but it seems like the days of heavy score-related sheltering may be over for the 23-year old defenseman.
As for the penalty kill, the top duos were Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde at forward and Nick Schultz and Andrew MacDonald on defense. Many have questioned the continued presence of VandeVelde in the lineup, but if he somehow continues to be dressed even after Brayden Schenn returns from suspension, it will likely be Hakstol’s trust in his PK ability that keeps him in the lineup.
Despite his prominent role last night, however, MacDonald might not have the same protection. It’s not hard to envision the top-four defensemen in terms of penalty kill ice time being Schultz, Gudas, Del Zotto and Provorov (who was 3rd among Flyers d-men in 4v5 minutes last night), once all of the regular blueliners are active. MacDonald will instead have to earn his spot by outplaying Brandon Manning at 5v5 during the coming weeks.
