Monday night saw the Flyers’ series against the Hurricanes shift to Game 2, and as they looked to find quite a bit more in the way of jump and production alike to bounce back from a difficult showing in their first time out, the Flyers made a notable shakeup to their lineup — beyond the addition of Carl Grundstrom and Emil Andrae from the sidelines into depth roles — within their middle-6.
As part of their line shuffling late in Game 1, looking for a mix with a bit more spark, the Flyers moved Denver Barkey to center a line with Alex Bump and Matvei Michkov. And while that line wasn’t able to combine for a much-needed goal, they had some really notable jump, and that was enough to give the coaching staff the confidence to keep this rolling and give Barkey his first complete game playing down the middle at the professional level. It was a big assignment, but Barkey fared reasonably well in it.
Now, the broader context of the new line’s performance — this line having been shuffled slightly to swap out Michkov on the right side for Porter Martone — was less than stellar. The Flyers in this game, broadly, did a lot better to create more looks and get themselves more time with the puck, but the Hurricanes still did what they do and won the much of possession battle pretty handily, coming away with a 55.06 CF% at 5-on-5 (though conceding a bit more along the way in dangerous chances, as the Flyers came up with the edge and 53.2 percent of the Expected Goals share), so from top to bottom on the Flyers’ side, some of the numbers look a little suspect, but the kid line’s impacts were the weakest.
Across eight and a half minutes of time together at 5-on-5, the line put up just a 30.77 CF% (-15.38 percent relative to the rest of the team) and a 32.77 xGF% (-19.76 percent). And, perhaps even more critically, it was this line that was on the ice for both of the Hurricane’s even strength goals — the game tying goal and the ultimate game winner. And while the final goal is difficult to pin on them completely (there’s a degree of bad luck in there, with the goal coming off of a good bounce in front on the scramble in the crease for the Hurricanes and a bit of bad luck for the Flyers) the third period goal was a more egregious breakdown, as the scoring play got started after Martone got caught back, couldn’t transition back to defense quickly enough after his own chance at the other end driving the net, and then a soft play on the entry let Ehlers gain the zone cleanly to set up Jarvis for the shot.
The bad bits for that line were particularly ugly, but there were still some real positives — they were able to keep up their pace of play well, generated a few good looks (or plays that looked promising as buildups to looks, but ultimately lacked the finish), and Barkey in particular continued to thrive in the broader tone of this matchup, causing problems for his opponents off the tenacity of his forechecking game, and his motor created a few good plays for him with the puck, as well as allowed him to step up as an eraser on the defensive side, all while dealing with the more difficult assignments with his new position.
And what’s more, all told, the struggles of this line seemed less to do with the fact that it was Barkey centering it, but rather that it was a line comprised of three rookies still figuring out an undeniably tough playoff matchup, and working through the growing pains that come along with that. Indeed, it feels notable that by the time overtime rolled around, this line was seeing some split shifts in which Travis Konecny was slid in on the right side to see if he might be able to give them a bit more support with his veteran presence.
Whether or not this line did enough to justify their staying together for another game, to see if they can learn their lessons in defensive coverage and cash in on more of the almost looks they were creating, remains to be seen (and could well depend on the fallout from other injury related shuffling elsewhere in the lineup, if they get Owen Tippett back, or do in fact lose Noah Cates). But however this shakes out, one thing is for certain: Barkey did enough to earn himself more runway to continue to show was he can do centering a line at this level, in these big moments.
All stats via Natural Stat Trick and the NHL.
