The Flyers have always downplayed the significance of needing a righthanded shooting defenseman to man one of the points on their power play. Whenever asked about the subject, they have said that in and of itself, acquiring a RH shot for the point was not important enough to be a major priority.

When the club put together its string of three straight seasons with 20 percent or higher success on the man advantage -- which was snapped in a major way in 2010-11 -- it was hard to argue. Of course, it is preferable to have a skilled lefthander on the right point to putting out a RH-shooting player who doesn't belong on the power play. There are ways to compensate for having to pull pucks off the walls on the backhand and to put shots on net with the stick facing to the natural long-side angle. Likewise, it need not be a major hindrance to have a LH stick defending the opposite side of the ice.

Even so, it still would be helpful to have at least one righthanded shooter/defender, and that again seems unlikely to happen. The club presently stands to feature an all-LH regular starting defense corps for the fourth straight season.

The Flyers have not had a regular starting RH defenseman since Jason Smith (who was a stay-at-home type and not a PP option) and have not had a RH player who played a power play point since Eric Desjardins.

Again, this is not a huge issue. Execution and positioning are still the big keys. Even so, it makes things a little easier preparation and adjustment wise for other teams when everyone on the Flyers' defense corps has the stick on the same side. When you have to adjust to a different look on the angles, it's a little something else to think about.

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