Travis Konecny had a prime opportunity to be the Philadelphia Flyers’ overtime hero in Raleigh on Monday night. After a faceoff win by the Carolina Hurricanes, Trevor Zegras stole the loose puck from Jalen Chatfield along the wall and sprung Konecny for a breakaway.
Konecny retrieved the puck at the blue line and took a few strides before taking a shot on Frederik Andersen from the top of the hashmarks. At first, it looked like Konecny may have missed the net — a point that some writers are harping on — but Andersen was forced to make a save on the shot.
Not that it really matters, though, as a shot that missed the net by an inch or two may be preferential to one that Andersen is able to gobble up, outside of the chance for an offensive zone faceoff in that case — even then, there were four Hurricanes around the netminder, who has shown a propensity to keep the play moving when possible.
Konecny’s breakaway was 1 of the 10 scoring chances the Flyers generated in overtime, 7 of which were of the high-danger variety. Multiple players had the game on their stick only to be thwarted by Andersen.
But it’s Konecny who has been under fire after the game and into the two off days ahead of Game 3 in Philadelphia on Thursday night.
On one hand, it makes sense. Konecny was the Flyers’ leading scorer in the regular season and should bury chances like that. On the other hand, though, his overall impact shouldn’t be overshadowed by one missed breakaway — and it feels like some have been waiting for a moment like this to dump on Konecny.
Nevertheless, Konecny missed a chance for His Moment in the playoffs. And, unfortunately, that’s been a common theme for the veteran throughout his career.
It’s easy to look at the surface stats and say that Konecny isn’t a big-game player.
Konecny averages 0.31 goals per game and 0.75 points per game during the regular season in his career. In the playoffs, though, he has just two goals and 12 points in 30 games. You don’t have to be a mathematician to see how much of a decline that is.
But context is key. Six of those games came in 2018 when Konecny was a fresh-faced 21-year-old. He scored one goal in the six-game series against the Penguins, when his primary linemates were Valtteri Filppula, Wayne Simmonds, Nolan Patrick, and Michael Raffl.
Then, in the 2020 playoffs in the bubble, which comes with its own set of circumstances, he had just seven assists in 16 games. The 23-year-old Konecny had slightly better linemates then, playing nearly 60 minutes with Kevin Hayes and Scott Laughton, but those guys aren’t exactly offensive dynamos either.
This isn’t to completely excuse Konecny. It’s hard to not score in 16 games after putting up 24 goals in 66 contests during the regular season, but the legitimacy of the bubble is something that continues to be talked about.
This year, Konecny has one goal and four points through eight games. He scored a big goal in Game 4 to get the Flyers back within one, and also played a big role throughout that series by getting under the skin of multiple Penguins players.
Of course, those intangibles can’t exactly be measured by definition, but it’s not too hard to see that Konecny had a positive impact when on the ice against the Penguins.
Travis Konecny has been one of the Flyers’ most impactful players
Luckily, we do have some underlying metrics that show how well Konecny played in that first-round series against the Penguins, which were arguably the veteran’s biggest games in a Flyers sweater.
Konecny was one of the Flyers’ best players in terms of puck possession at 5-on-5 against the Penguins. His 54.56% on-ice expected goals share ranked third among forwards, and his 49.09% shot attempt share led all full-time Flyers in the series (Emil Andrae had 54.29% in 20:39). That resulted in the Flyers outscoring the Penguins 5-3 with Konecny on the ice.
Individually, Konecny generated the most expected goals at 5-on-5 in the first-round series against Pittsburgh. His 1.44 ixG led the team, with Sean Couturier (1.29) and Owen Tippett (1.11) the only other two players above 1.00. That was thanks in part to 11 scoring chances (tied with Tippett for the team lead), five of which were high-danger chances (tied with Dvorak for the team lead).
In terms of setting up chances, Konecny was second on the team with six scoring chance assists — from the tracking data at All Three Zones — second on the team to Trevor Zegras, who had one more than the winger
Furthermore, for all of the accolades that Tippett (deservedly) gets for his ability to enter the zone, he was tied with Konecny with 31 zone entries against the Penguins. While Tippett was able to carry the puck in more, the speedy winger also had five failed entries to Konecny’s three.
And Konecny also helped out a ton with zone exits. Outside of Cam York and Travis Sanheim, Konecny and Porter Martone tied with 18 zone exits, 12 of which were with possession for the veteran.
It’s a new series against the Hurricanes, and Konecny’s failed breakaway in overtime is going to stick in a lot of people’s minds, but it’s not a statement for the player’s career or him shying away from the moment or anything of the sort.
Konecny has been one of the best Flyers for the better part of a decade now. One moment doesn’t erase all of that.
Stats via NHL, MoneyPuck, Natural Stat Trick, and All Three Zones
