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Meltzer's Musings: Dallas "Pre-Scout", Raffl, Sanheim & More |
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1) Riding a five-game winning streak, the Philadelphia Flyers will take a day off from practice on Friday before returning to the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday to host the Dallas Stars.
The Flyers' 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday was far from flawless, especially in the first period. The club got better as the game went along, however, and Brian Elliott erased a few potential killer breakdowns in front of him. Apart from these several moments were Elliott had to make point-blank saves (including from the dangerous Evander Kane) to keep the Flyers in control, Philly was the better team after the first period.
Pretty or not, the bottom line was that it was a fifth straight regulation win. The Flyers now find themselves two points below the wildcard cutoff and also narrowed their tiebreaker deficit (15 ROW to 13) against the New York Rangers.
The Flyers will have to continue winning, however, to fully climb out of the hole they dug with their 0-5-5 streak, and even then there won't be much margin for error. It took all this work to just get to 5-5-5 over the last 15 games.
2) Up next for the Flyers: a Dallas team that started out the season in Jekyll-and-Hyde fashion but which has played very well recently for the most part other than a rather ugly series of early December losses to Nashville (home, 5-2), St. Louis (road, 3-0) and Vegas (home, 5-3). The ship has seemingly been righted again on their current road trip.
Scheduling wise, Saturday's game will be a gut-check type of night for the Stars.
Ken Hitchcock's team will be in the final match of their four-game east coast road trip, and playing for the fourth time in six nights (the second half of a back-to-back and also the third game in four nights). The Flyers, conversely, will be a rested team and are in a moderate alternating-day phase of their schedule and entering the third match of a five-game homestand.
Under similarly favorable circumstances this season, the Flyers blew out the Washington Capitals but also got shut out (1-0) by the Minnesota Wild. On the flip side, Philly has won games in a couple of tough road buildings (St. Louis and Vancouver) when the Flyers have been the team with the scheduling deck stacked against them. That's why the games are played on ice, and not on paper.
Thus far, the Stars are 2-0-0 on their road trip. They skated to a 1-1 tie through 65 minutes against the Rangers on Monday before winning via shootout. On Wednesday, Dallas dismantled the Islanders in impressive fashion, 5-2. Kari Lehtonen earned both wins.
Before the Stars travel the NJ Turnpike to arrive in Philly, they have a Friday night game in Newark against the Devils. Lehtonen will make his third straight start; Ben Bishop will start against the Flyers on Saturday. Alexander Radulov is questionable with a lower-body injury and did not practice on Thursday. Agitating forward Antoine Roussel (elbow) is expected to return to the lineup after missing the last two games.
It took the Stars awhile to learn how to play under Ken Hitchcock's system and deal with his relentless harping behind closed doors. Early on, the Stars continued to have all the same inconsistency issues (lapses into undisciplined and breakdown-prone hockey) that ultimately cost Lindy Ruff his job. More recently, Dallas has increasingly played a solid two-way brand of hockey with more consistency. However, on the increasingly infrequent nights when they stumble, things can still go off the rails.
The long-running deadly duo of team captain Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin started out the season on the same line (with Radulov often as the third member) but they've more recently been apart. In the win against the Islanders, Benn was with Radek Faksa and Tyler Pitlick while Seguin centered Remi Elie and Devin Shore.
When things are clicking for Dallas, they have four solid lines to roll out, and John Klingberg (coming off a bit of a down year in 2016-17 on the defensive side of the puck despite strong offensive numbers) is having a strong all-around season. The Dallas blueline has become an underrated one after Hitchcock did a lot of experimentation and tinkering with both personnel and combinations. Marc Methot (knee) remains out of the lineup, however.
Three trends of note as Dallas heads into their weekend games in Newark and Philly:
* The Stars currently have the NHL's most favorable shot-attempt differential; a testament to the depth that has emerged and to their ability to move the puck from the back end to the attack.
* Although the Stars have won seven of their last 10 games and the first two games of the road trip, the power play has been in a drought. They are just 1-for-35 on the man advantage over the past 12 tilts.
* Once Dallas gains the offensive zone, they can be a load to deal with. As with most teams, however, the nights where they have problems with turnovers from circle-to-circle and run into opponents that clog the neutral zone can trigger the sort of frustration that leads things to unravel. The Stars have generally done a much better job over the last month-plus of dictating the pace and showing resiliency. Previously, they'd be fine until that first costly breakdown or stoppable goal that leaked through and then the team would have trouble stopping the bleeding until it was too late.
3) Prior to Saturday night's game, the Flyers will have the added attraction of a holiday light show. The other day, I got to see a preview of some of the featured elements, and it should be cool when it's all put together. The Flyers hope that the holiday light show becomes an annual tradition, somewhat akin to the popularity of Fireworks Night around July 4 during baseball season.
To me, quite honestly, hockey is always the thing and winning is the lure. But my eight-year-old son was bummed that, due to the scheduling and travel, he can't be at this game as our annual designated night where I attend a hockey game with him in the stands as a fan rather than working from the pressbox. Benji loves light shows. Taking the kids to the drive-through holiday light show at Shadybrook Farms out in Newtown, Bucks County is annual tradition in my family.
4) Last night was Michael Raffl's 300th game in the NHL. After the morning skate yesterday, he said that it was a milestone that he'd once have believed to be a pipe dream.
"It's special to me," Raffl said. "If you asked me a few years ago, I never would thought it could happen. But now, [being in the NHL] is such a big part of my life."
Raffl wound up generating an assist on the game-winning goal, scored by Valtteri Filppula. That particular goal was as multi-national as it gets in terms of who was on the ice for Philly. A Finn scored the goal, assisted by a Czech (Jakub Voracek) and the Austrian winger. The defense pairing on the ice consisted of an American (Shayne Gostisbehere) and a Swede (Robert Hägg). The Flyers goalie (Brian Elliott) is a Canadian.
5) It was great to see Flyers rookie defenseman Travis Sanheim score his first NHL goal. Although he is a soft-spoken and modest type, he is also very self-aware and analytical about his play. He's also a hard worker. Sanheim is one of the Flyers rink rat brigade of young players, who frequently take extra skating after practice along with the healthy scratches.
On Monday, Sanheim took an almost ridiculous amount of extra skating. He was the last one left on the ice after everyone else had gone off, which led many (myself included) to initially suspect that Mark Alt would be starting in his place against Toronto. To the Flyers' credit, they are allowing Sanheim to simply play through a bit of a rough spell in his overall game.
Even if his minutes are somewhat limited, Sanheim said he considers the opportunity to play a vote of confidence in and of itself and that he's determined to make the most of it. Serially honest about his game, Sanheim said that the first period of Thursday's game -- apart from nabbing his first goal -- might have been his worst of the season on a shift-to-shift basis.
After Thursday's game, Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol pointed to the player's self-awareness and inner drive as two vital assets along with natural ability.
"There is no number you can put on it. He is making progress. The baseline of all of this is he is a player that helps our team. Through all of that, that is the balance of how critical every single point is in combination with the development of a young player," Hakstol said.
"In this case, with Travis as a young defensemen back there, he is helping our hockey team. You look at [assistant coach Gord Murphy] with all of our young defensemen, there is a learning curve there but each and every night there is a high expectation there to go out and be a good player and help us get the job done and along the way have an honest evaluation and try to continually improve little areas of your game and that’s really what it is. It’s finding details that you can improve on a daily basis whether it’s mentally through video or through practice and gain experience.”
6) After a series of rough games, Flyers rookie center Nolan Patrick on Thursday played one of his best games in a few weeks. Apart from saving a goal with a desperation skate block at the post in the first period, Patrick later created a power play for the Flyers, forechecked well at five-on-five and distributed the puck efficiently on the power play. He didn't get a point but it was hopefully a building-block type of game for the 19-year-old.
7) Over the Ontario Hockey League, the Flyers "other" 2017 first round pick, Morgan Frost, and his Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds club (27-3-2) face a tough test in their quest for a 19-game winning streak. They are on the road to take on the Midwest Division leading Kitchener Rangers (20-10-2), featuring team captain Connor Bunnaman. Game time is 7:30 p.m. ET.
Frost, who has racked up 35 points in his last 18 games, has arguably been the top forward in the Ontario League for the last month. He's current on a nine-game point streak with multi-point games in eight of them and continues to rack up primary assists or the front-end secondary assist on tic-tac-toe or direct rebound goals at a hefty clip. For the season, Frost ranks among the league leaders in a variety of stat categories. He has 17 goals (T-12th), 32 assists (2nd), 49 points (3rd), and a +35 (1st) rating in 31 games.
8) Flyers 2016 second-round pick, who has struggled for the last season-plus will get a change of scenery in the QMJHL. He has been traded from Victoriaville to the Quebec Remparts.
9) Long-time public-address announcer Lou Nolan, who recently worked his 2,000th career game, will sign his book “If These Walls Could Talk: Philadelphia Flyers” from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center team store.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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