MELTZER'S MUSINGS: APRIL 2, 2018

1) When it comes to potential playoff opponents for the Philadelphia Flyers, it is truly a pick-your-poison scenario, and the Flyers could realistically finish anywhere from second to fifth in the Metropolitan Division.

The Flyers' magic number for a playoff spot is down to 3. Going 1-1-1 in the final three games would be enough to get in with no outside help. In the meantime, Florida is in dire trouble and staring at five games in seven days with one game against Nashville and two against Boston looming among them.

If at all possible, the Flyers would like to avoid falling to the lower wildcard seed and having to play the Atlantic Division winner (Boston, in ever-increasing likelihood). However, there's not a "gimme" matchup among any of the other possibilities although all of the Metro teams in the playoff picture have some flaws as well as strengths.

Exiting Sunday's games, the Flyers are two points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins and tied in points with the Columbus Blue Jackets but trailing via goals differential tiebreaker. The New Jersey Devils are one point plus one ROW behind the Blue Jackets and Flyers and three points in back of Pittsburgh. All three teams have three games remaining, including a head-to-head game between Pittsburgh and Columbus on Thursday. The Penguins have two games left (at Columbus on Thursday, home vs. Ottawa on Friday).

If the Flyers win out by beating the Islanders in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Hurricanes in Philly on Thursday and Rangers in Philly on Saturday -- a big if, but certainly feasible -- they will finish no lower than third in the Metro regardless of what any other team does. However, the other teams' game create a lot of intriguing scenarios if Philly wins its remaining three.

For example, if Columbus also wins out against Detroit, Pittsburgh and at Nashville (the Predators will almost certainly have clinched the Western Conference and quite possibly the President's Trophy before then), the Penguins will drop from second place to a wild card regardless of how they fare against Ottawa on Friday.

It is even mathematically possible, although not likely given the need for nine specific game outcomes in the same week, that the Penguins could drop all the way to the lower wildcard. That would require the Flyers, Blue Jackets and Devils (vs. Rangers on Tuesday, vs. Toronto on Thursday and on the road against the Capitals on Saturday) to win out. Due to the ROW tiebreaker, the Devils would need to beat out the Penguins on points in the same fashion as the Flyers and Blue Jackets.

Thus, it would take a Penguins regulation loss on Thursday combined with three Flyers, Blue Jackets and Devils wins for a scenario to play out where the Atlantic Division winner draws the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins in the first round. The Atlantic runner-up would play Toronto under every scenario.

For the Flyers, it is mathematically possible to play any among Washington, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Boston, Tampa or New Jersey in the first round. The Flyers would have finish second in the Metro -- which would mean beating out the Penguins out points, the Blue Jackets on ROW or the Devils on points and/or ROW -- to have home-ice advantage in the first round. Regardless of opponent or venue, the Flyers will have their work cut out for them once the playoff matchups are locked in place.

2) The Flyers will have an 11:30 a.m. practice on Monday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. In the days to come, it will be worth watching whether Michael Raffl and goaltender Brian Elliott are cleared to return to the lineup. Beyond that, practices will be brief and narrowly focused.

3) Changing a coach isn't a cure-all when the personnel is largely the same. The power play coach was changed this season because there was a sense that things had grown stale under Joey Mullen, despite the Flyers generally being at or near 20 percent success overall.

The power play has been tweaked by Kris Knoblauch with a wider variety of different puck rotation looks and players moving around a bit more frequently to different areas but the bottom line is this: the Flyers had a 19.5 percent success rate last year (ranked 14th in the NHL) and are at 19.8 percent success this year (18th, because more PPGs have been scored this season leaguewide with 17 teams at at least 20 percent).

The net effect -- pun intended -- in year one with Knoblauch has been virtually nil. The Flyers are 51-for-257 this year with three games left and were 54-for-277 last year.

It's unlikely that Philly will get 20 power play chances in the final three games, so they've created fewer power plays overall this year. A good objective to finish the season would be to match or surpass last year's total number of power play goals. If the Flyers can do that, they should be in good shape to win two or all three of their remaining games if their goaltending and team defense fair reasonably well.

4) On a similar note, I am skeptical that changing the penalty killing coach next season from Ian Laperriere to someone else would, in and of itself, create a success percentage spike for the Flyers' PK.

While hockey is a bottom-line business and the Flyers overall PK success rates in recent years have been below average, the "Lappy simply can't coach a PK" narrative would need to account for why the team was at 84.8 percent on the penalty kill his first year and 83.1 percent in the second half of 2015-16 (80.5 percent for the fill season, due to a rough first half). Either he's randomly known and then forgotten -- and then briefly recalls again only to forget anew-- how to coach a PK or it's primarily a matter of personnel not executing.

For example, in the recent game in Dallas, Gudas had a cross-ice pass threaded right between his feet from Tyler Seguin to Alexander Radulov and then, seconds later neither budged Brett Ritchie from his position in front of the net (tough to do against Ritchie even for the bearish Gudas) nor established any sort of stick position. This was NOT a coaching failure or a systemic issue. It was an failure of one-on-one basics that any NHL penalty killer knows he has to accomplish.

Likewise, executing clearing opportunities with the puck isn't a coaching issue. It's a matter of personnel bearing down and getting the job done, as Matt Read very nicely did about 4-5 times in Sunday's game against the Bruins. One can question the choice of personnel and sticking with players who aren't getting the job done but the specific breakdowns that most frequently have hurt the Flyers on the PK have been more about the personnel not executing than how they've been coached.

Incidentally, a longtime NHL pro scout (non-Flyers) told me in a pregame conversation several months ago that he felt Philly's biggest issue from his observations was the roster needing a little bit more speed/ quickness on the PK units -- plus a few more PKing saves from the goaltenders as well as fewer failed attempts on bonafide clearing opportunities -- rather than a markedly different x-and-o system or a different coach.

That being said, if the Flyers do not fare well on the PK come playoff time, it is possible there could be a change in the coaching role among other changes. However, Ron Hextall's decisions are inevitably based on his own assessments and never on public pressure to make a change for change's sake.

Earlier this year, Hextall appeared to put much of the onus for the team's subpar percentage in 2016-17 on not getting enough makeable saves from last year's goalies (Steve Mason primarily). I do not agree with that as the prime root cause. I do think more was and still is collectively needed, which includes the goalies.

Elliott has an .864 PK save percentage this year. Petr Mrazek is at .813 in his 13 games with the Flyers. Michal Neuvirth is at .810 and Alex Lyon is at .864 (identical to Elliott). Last year, Mason was at .840, Neuvirth at .824 and Anthony Stolarz at .867 in seven games.

That's an awful lot of bottom-line similarity among six goalies with pretty disparate styles. While the Flyers collectively have needed more on the PK from their goalies -- the PK save work that Philipp Grubauer turned in for Washington against Pittsburgh on Sunday night was astounding but not sustainable for any goalie -- the primary issues are collective and not specific to one or two skaters or the goaltender.

After Sunday's game, Read said that there is a rhythm to a penalty kill as well as a power pay.

"It’s a lot of talk out there. If you get a good vibe, a good feel out there, I think things kind of go your way. I think in the second period, we had a couple of bad clears and kind of caught up to us in the third period. A bad clear and the next thing, you know it’s in the back of our net. We learn from that. Go forward. Keep doing the little things out there. Keep talking. Make sure we clear that puck," Read said.

Hakstol said that he's been pleased overall with the way the penalty kill has played over the latter part of the season, although there have been a few hiccups.

"As you have a little success, all of a sudden you go from just working hard and trying to working hard and having confidence. That makes a real positive difference," Hakstol said.

The coach was asked specifically about the work of Couturier and Read as a duo, and he implied that they'd stay together. He also defended the oft-maligned forward duo of Valtteri Filppula and Jori Lehterä as a PK tandem, and worked in mentions of Claude Giroux and Scott Laughton as well.

"That [Couturier- Read] tandem has been good together. It’s also everybody involved. It’s a game of inches and our PK has built some momentum and done a good job. The groups up front are doing a good job. Fil and Lets are doing a real good job together. Usually G and Laughts get a little bit of mop up duty. G on faceoffs has been really important for us to get that first clear. It’s a whole bunch of little things. I think Lappy along with the players have really dialed in some of the systematic things," Hakstol said.

While the Flyers have clearly looked better on most of their PKs in recent weeks -- there have been a few exceptions, such as a bad night against Vegas -- the overall success percentage of 75.7 percent (29th in the league) is unacceptable. The playoffs are a different animal but if the Flyers keep on statistically yielding one power play goal for every four PK situations, it's probably going to be a short April unless the Flyers significantly get the better of 5-on-5 goal differential and/or get red hot on the power play to cancel out opposing PPGs.

5) Both halves of the defensive pairing of Brandon Manning and Radko Gudas have had their issues of late, with Gudas having had the worse struggles of the two in Sunday's game against Boston. Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol went with four defensemen late in the game, sitting Gudas and rookie Travis Sanheim. Asked specifically about Gudas, the coach gave a straightforward answer in trying to balance a blunt critique with words of praise.

"A night like tonight, he wasn’t clean enough with the puck," Hakstol said.

"His effort, physicality and the will that comes out of him is always excellent. Games come down to small plays and how efficient you are with the puck, especially when you’re playing against good players, is important. There’s a couple of those tonight. In most cases, he had second efforts that helped them clean it up, but there were a couple of plays tonight that he needs to be cleaner on."

Until the late-game multi-failed clear sequence that led up to the Bruins tying the game --starting with Wayne Simmonds having more-than-ample space and time to get the puck out of the defensive zone and then Andrew MacDonald putting the puck right off teammate Jori Lehterä's leg -- Gudas had been the guilty party on the game's most egregious turnover. However, that one did not end up in the Flyers' net. In regard to the Keystone Kops sequence that led up to Patrice Bergeron's tying goal with 3.8 seconds left, Hakstol again bal

"It’s a play at the end of the game that can’t happen. We all know that. Get that puck and push it out to the neutral zone and it’s probably over," Hakstol said.

"In saying that, the presence of mind to take a deep breath and get ready to go for overtime. A couple of the older guys on the bench saying the right things then going out and doing the right things. It’s a huge two points for us. Had to finish it a little bit different then we wanted to, but at the end of the day, we did finish it and got the two points."

6) Whether rookie Robert Hägg has been a truly healthy scratch or a semi-healthy scratch (he initially returned to the lineup a week ahead of the stated timetable and, shortly prior to being scratched for the first time, admitted to beat writers that he was still a bit less than 100 percent), he is at least well enough to dress for games.

Hakstol recently said that, when a player is scratched (even repeatedly), it isn't always due to the coach being unhappy with his performance individually. He said that he hadn't liked the chemistry between Hägg and Gudas as a pairing (and, by extension, was not inclined to split up the pairing of MacDonald and Sanheim). It is possible that Gudas, who has been a fixture in the lineup when healthy and not serving one of several NHL suspensions over the past few years, could sit a game in favor of Hägg? That would mean a pairing Manning and Hägg, presuming Hägg is not put back again with MacDonald and Sanheim placed either with previous partner Gudas or with Manning.

7) The season is over for the Ontario Hockey League's Guelph Storm. Isaac Ratcliffe had a goal and an assist in a losing cause as Guelph was eliminated from the OHL playoffs in six games after a 5-2 loss to Kitchener (one assist for fellow Flyers prospect Connor Bunnaman) on Sunday. Ratcliffe, who was chosen the third star of Game Six, had a great individual series offensively with five goals and four assists over the six games. He is likely to join the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for the rest of the season, and very well could get into a regular season game or two after the Phantoms clinch their division (they've already clinched a playoff spot). Whether or not Ratcliffe sees any Calder Cup playoff action or not this spring remains to be seen. Overall, he's really come on over the last half season after a bit of a slow start.

8) The second round of the OHL playoffs is now set: The powerhouse Sault Ste. Marie Greyhound (Morgan Frost's team) will go up against the Owen Sound Attack (the injured Maksim Sushko's club). Kitchener (Bunnaman) will go up against the Sarnia Sting (the injured Anthony Salinitri's team). Over in the other conference, the Hamilton Bulldogs (Matthew Strome, who had 10 points in five first-round games against the Ottawa 67's) will play the Niagara IceDogs, while the Barrie Colts will play the Kingston Frontenacs.

The Soo vs. Owen Sound matchup should be a fun one, with Frost going head-to-head against top Las Vegas Golden Knights prospect Nick Suzuki. The last time they played, Frost got the better of Suzuki (two goals, including an end-to-end highlight reel tally, 11-for-15 on faceoffs, and two takeaway at Suzuki's expense). However, Suzuki is quite a dynamic talent in his own right and it should be a great battle.

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