We thought it was fixed. The Philadelphia Flyers started their season with not much changed compared to last year, and we thought that maybe the addition of Matvei Michkov could solve one of the most glaring areas of failure: The power play. It was a new, fresh, and clean slate for this special teams unit to have their way with and try to overcome what has been a historically terrible power play the last few years for Philadelphia.
And it started out so well. Michkov was doing so many things and gelling with the four other players so well that in the first four games of the season, they scored five power-play goals. That rate of success would have been so alien last season. And even further, after coming up with nothing for two games, they found more goals on the man advantage, with three coming up in the following two nights of action. Since then, though — since the barnburner victory over the Minnesota Wild on Oct. 26 — the Flyers have scored just one power-play goal in their last six games. And they have had plenty of opportunities, 14 to be exact. But their once-changed man advantage has now come crumbling down with this terrible streak.
So, which side of this special teams coin is the true Flyers? Have they actually changed things so much and adding Michkov made such a difference that having a substantial improvement is the real them? Or, are they just coming back down to earth after some puck luck? Well, we have some bad news.
This is the true Flyers on the power play. Every single metric or peak behind the curtain or just straight up looking what they are doing on the ice the last week or so, spells it out so clear. The string of success that they found early on, was bound to come crashing down. They were riding on the high of the NHL not really knowing a whole lot about Michkov yet and how fatigue hasn’t really set in at all as they started out on that four-game road trip in Western Canada. But now, after seeing them fail and fail for dozens of times, we can balance it all out and understand that they truly still have one of the worst (if not the worst) power plays in the NHL.
We can make it just oh-so simple for you. We won’t even turn it into prose or try to wiggle our way through words to deliver the information that is so crucial to all of this. Check this out, this is what they have been able to do during their time with more players on the ice than their opponents:
- 82.92 shot attempts per hour (CF/60) — 32nd in the NHL
- 63.96 unblocked shot attempts per hour (FF/60) — 30th in the NHL
- 43.43 shots on goal per hour (SF/60) — 25th in the NHL
- 7.02 expected goals per hour (xGF/60) — 28th in the NHL
That is terrible! They exhausted just every single ounce of puck luck they had for the season and poured it into a strong debut of this supposed new-look power play. They ran out; their bucket was dry by the time they managed to play a couple games at home. Through all 14 games, they are averaging arguably the worst power play in the National. And as a bonus, it could get even worse.
The one area that they are not absolutely dreadful in is getting the shots on goal — feels like a miracle. They are still 25th so it is absolutely dreadful but by the numbers, it is the best thing they can do relative to other teams in the league. But looking at the teams below them, they will surely sink. The Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, and Washington Capitals have all averaged fewer shots on goal on the power play than the Flyers this season. All three of those teams should certainly finish above Philadelphia with the weapons they have on those units. So, we could be looking at a string of numbers that keep the Flyers strictly in the bottom three when it comes to every single offensive metric for the power play.
And for more visual learners, our pal Micah at HockeyViz condensed the Flyers’ efforts on the man advantage so far with a helpful graphic to really see what is going on.
Beyond the blobs — that really show that the Flyers are really only shooting more than league average from in between the top of the circles and right in front of the net, basically where Michkov is getting attempts off from — the Flyers have even a lower expected goal rate according to HockeyViz’s model than the Evoling-Hockey model we used in the points above. It’s just abysmal. And for reference, this was last season’s power play:
Somehow, they got worse! Over the stretch of last season, they managed to actually have a better overall impact on the power play than they are currently having. Just some brutal stuff that makes you really wonder what the problem is.
No one really knows the true solution. You can comb through potential outcomes — changing the power-play units, firing Rocky Thompson and hiring someone willing to change up the strategy, pulling the goalie every single power play you get — but not one really points to something that would concretely solve this issue.
We might just have to wait until some prospects develop and there’s someone new behind the bench, so roughly four to five years from now. But as it stands, we don’t expect things to get much better as this season progresses.
