The season is already 30 games old, where has the time gone? It’s been a few ups, a few downs but nothing has been ordinary when it comes to watching the Philadelphia Flyers so far into the 2024-25 season. Here then are what could be seen as 30 surprises for the Flyers after 30 games.
1) Remember Erik Johnson?
Signed to another year in the offseason, veteran defenseman Erik Johnson saw action to start the season. He scored a goal, joked about his time on the power play regarding Matvei Michkov and celebrated 1000 NHL games with a pre-game ceremony against his old team the Colorado Avalanche.
Well, Erik Johnson remains with the team and has been a healthy scratch since the conclusion of the Flyers 4-1 loss to Carolina on Nov. 20. He has not played a shift since then as the Flyers have gone with Egor Zamula, Emil Andrae and even Helge Grans instead of Johnson. By comparison Marc Staal, who some believed would take minutes away from the defensive corps in 2023-24, ended up playing 35 games. Outside of a rash of injuries it would be safe to say Johnson would be hard pressed to see that amount of action this coming season if the last month is any measuring stick.
Erik Johnson scores a goal and then immediately gets into a fight 🔥
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 12, 2024
Gordie Howe hatty watch 👀 pic.twitter.com/GpUwDtvOeY
2) Penalty kill currently killing them
Last season the Flyers almost relished being down a man with 16 shorthanded goals and near the top of the league in efficiency. This season has been a tire fire. Although it looked okay starting off, the team has fallen off a cliff in November, the nadir being the Panthers’ four power play goals in a 7-5 loss. After Thursday’s game against Detroit, Philadelphia was a meddling and struggling 16th overall (80 per cent), plummeting from when they were in the top five or six at some points earlier.
One aspect which is killing them, aside from the goalies not making the saves, is the amount of inane stick infractions they’ve taken. Outside of a five-game or six-game stretch where they were choir boys and highly disciplined, they’ve done some fairly dumb things, including five minors for too many men on the ice. The penalty kill has been a surprise, but not in a good way.
3) Injury bug avoiding forwards
While the back end has seen its share of pain from blocked shots and various injuries to Nick Seeler, Cam York and Jamie Drysdale, the forward unit has been relatively healthy so far. So far five Flyer forwards played every game thus far (Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Joel Farabee, Scott Laughton and Garnet Hathaway). Throw in Matvei Michkov’s two games as a healthy scratch and Morgan Frost’s four-game absence for poor play and you’d have seven forwards bugaboo free. Sean Couturier and Tyson Foerster have played 28 each while Bobby Brink and Ryan Poehling have played 26 each. The lone “regular” to play the least is 25 games for Noah Cates (and that too was being the odd man out to begin the season).
Continue reading…
