FLYERS NEED TO MAKE UP GROUND IN HOME-HEAVY SCHEDULE
The Philadelphia Flyers return to practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ on Monday in preparation for playing the Colorado Avalanche at the Wells Fargo Center the next evening. Coming off a 1-3-1 road trip and the end of a six-game losing skid (0-4-2), the Flyers will look to make up some ground now that they have four of the next five (and five of the next seven) games on home ice with no back-to-back games in the mix.
Hockey players are creatures of routine. Coincidental or not, it often seems that teams have their strongest stretches when they settle into a regular alternating daily routine of having a practice followed by a game day. Playing on home ice, of course, is much more conducive that type of scheduling.
Every team in the NHL has to deal with a couple of prolonged, cross-country trips per season. Eastern team used to have easier travel schedules than Western Conference teams but the change in the schedule that was enacted with divisional realignment in 2013-14 took away some of that edge.
Those lengthy jaunts across different time zones with frequent back-to-back, three-in-four and four-in-six game schedules are a gut-check time for teams. The clubs that fare the best during the most unfavorable stretches often help themselves in the standings by the end of the year. Part of the key is going into those stretches already playing good hockey and then riding it out.
As a matter of fact, the Flyers could not possibly have struck upon a worse time to go into the sort of funk they were in heading into the western Canada portion of the recent road trip. They got progressively worse in a home-and-home with the Buffalo Sabres sandwiched around a regulation loss to the New Jersey Devils. The Flyers' performance in those three games set a very troublesome tone heading out west.
Each of the first two games of the western Canada trip continued the donward spiral. The team then played somewhat better in an overtime loss in Calgary and then ended the trip with a win in Winnipeg.
Lack of proper practice time probably had something to do with why problems that arose in the Buffalo and New Jersey games not only went uncorrected the next few games but actually got worse before showing hints of getting better. For instance, issues with breakouts and a struggling power play rarely self-correct when there's no opportunity to work on them between games.
Due to back-to-back games against New Jersey and in Buffalo on Oct. 29 and 30 and then a travel day, the Flyers only got in one practice (in Vancouver last Sunday) before heading into another set of back-to-back games against the Canucks on Monday and Edmonton on Tuesday. Then the team needed rest on Wednesday before a game the next night in Calgary. Finally, the Flyers were able to put in a practice on Friday in Winnipeg before the road-trip ending game on Saturday.
The silver lining for the Flyers is that they did not return from the trip stuck in a deep hole in the Eastern Conference standings. While it is far too early still to talk about playoff seedings and the wildcard chase, no team wants to find itself in a double-digit hole even before the quarter point of the season. The Flyers return home five points behind the third-place Pittsburgh Penguins in the Metropolitan Division and four points (behind New Jersey and the New York Islanders) out of what would be the two wildcard spots if the season ended today.
Considering that the Flyers have picked up just four of a possible 14 points in their last seven games, things could be much worse right now. However, it will take some strong hockey over the next two weeks to start to make up some ground in the standings. The month is going to close out with a very difficult three-in-four (in Brooklyn on Nov. 25, no game on Thansgiving Day, Black Friday matinee hosting the Nashville Predators, another matinee the next day against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden).
As the Flyers approach the next seven games -- including a divisional game against Washington on Thursday -- the Flyers need to build on some of the positives established in the third period of Calgary game (greatly improved puck possession) and the tilt in Winnipeg (two power play goals to end an 0-for-16 skid, 5-for-5 on the penalty kill) and carry them over into upcoming games by any means necessary.
Without question, Michal Neuvirth has been the Flyers' best player through the first 14 games of the season. Apart from setting a franchise record with three shutouts in his first seven starts, Neuvirth has kept the team in games he did not win due to lack of goal support -- a problem so far regardless of who has been in goal. It will be interesting to see if Dave Hakstol gives Neuvirth the first start of the home stand or splits the next two games even though there is no back-to-back.
Flyers goaltender Steve Mason, who is very much dependent on his practice routine to be sharp on game nights, was one of the most affected players by the recent schedule. He dealt with a minor illness during the trip and was unable to participate in the team's Friday practice. As a matter of fact, when talking to the media on Friday, he said that he felt he could use more practice time than he'd been able to put in as of late.
Mason has played inconsistently in the first month of the season -- not horribly except for the second game of the season, not truly lights out except for the game against the Rangers -- but the upcoming schedule should be more favorable to getting him in settled in again to bring his "A game" with greater frequency both from match-to-match and period-to-period.
In the big picture, goaltending -- whether it is Mason or Neuvirth -- is the least of the Flyers' issues. The team needs both goalies playing their best. Right now, Neuvirth is doing just that and Mason isn't too far off where he needs to be (.917 save percentage if one tosses out the fiasco in Florida where he probably was not in the proper mindset to play in the first place).
The bigger issues the Flyers need to figure out are the lack of scoring and coaxing adequate defensive play and puck movement out of the team through a consistent teamwide committment to two-way play. A commonly asked ongoing question is why the Flyers seem to play so much better against playoff-caliber opponents than so-called lower tier teams.
Part of the reason: when playing against the top teams, the Flyers tend to do a much better job of playing a 200-foot game by collectively keeping their feet moving, sacrificing to block shots and clear the zone, and paying more attention to gap control through the neutral zone and breakouts.
When they Flyers do those things, they don't look like a "slow" team even against the top-skating clubs in the league. In fact, sometimes they even dictate the pace for prolonged stretches. When the Flyers stop skating and get too spread out, things get very ugly and the club suffers in every aspect. The gap control in the games against Buffalo and New Jersey was noticeably lacking compared to most of the matches in the club's 4-2-2 start in October. The same thing happened in the first two games of the western Canada trip.
Unfortunately, this is not a new problem. Craig Berube dealt with the same sorts of issues that are now Dave Hakstol's task to find lasting solutions. The Flyers cannot afford the sorts of prolonged stretches of being equally unable to score and defend as they exhibited over the first five games of the recent stretch. No goalie in the world is going to be able overcome that for too long.
There isn't much the Flyers can do in the short term about upgrading their blueline. So they are going to have to make up for it with more opportunistic scoring than they've been getting, as well as more consistent back pressure from the forwards. The latter area was perhaps the most notable during Sean Couturier's absence from the lineup. The last two games, the team has taken steps back toward restoring some equilibrium without the puck.
In terms of the team's offensive struggles, keep this in mind: In 2013-14, the Flyers scored just 22 goals through the first 15 games of the season and posted a 4-10-1 record in the process. After that, the Flyers scored at a torrid pace for most of the rest of the year to finish eighth in the NHL with an average 2.84 goals scored per game.
Last season, the Flyers had trouble scoring goals for much of the year. The top line and especially the top power play unit carried the offense, with irregular secondary support.
While the 2015-16 Flyers probably won't match what they did offensively two years ago over the final 67 games, there remains no reason why they can't at least be a middle-of-the-pack offensive club. The power play will come around and goalless Jakub Voracek (among others) will get back on a more accustomed production pace.
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PHANTOMS GO 0-FOR-3 IN WEEKEND GAUNTLET
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms lost all three games their weekend three-in-three set in regulation to drop to 4-8-0 on the season. On Sunday, the club sustained a 4-1 home loss to the Binghamton Senators. The Phantoms' lone goal was a 5-on-3 power play tally by Tim Brent. Sens goaltender Chris Driedger stopped 31 of 32 shots to earn the win on a day where the Phantoms equaled or bettered Binghamton's play for the majority of the game.
Veteran goaltender Jason LaBarbera -- whose overall play for the Phantoms in the early going has been a downgrade from the performance of Rob Zepp in the same role last season but whose AHL-level preparations and playing time in October were interrupted by multiple recalls to the Flyers to serve as the backup goalie -- stopped 23 of 27 shots in a losing cause. For the season to date, LaBarbera has a 1-5-0 record, 4.15 goals against average and .855 save percentage in six games with the Phantoms.
Former Phantoms forward Zack Stortini was kayoed by Phantoms rookie Tyrell Goulbourne just five seconds into the game and had to be helped off the ice. However, Stortini later returned to the game and even scored his first and second goals of the season.
Phantoms rookie defenseman Christian Marti had a rough baptism into the AHL in his first weekend of play since returning from a shoulder injury that kept him from full participation in his first NHL training camp and held him out the first month of the season. Marti was minus-three on Friday, a healthy scratch on Saturday and minus-two against the Sens on Sunday.
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30TH ANNIVERSARY: LINDBERGH'S LIFE SHATTERED IN AN INSTANT
Thirty years ago tonight, the Flyers hosted the Boston Bruins at the Philadelpha Spectrum. They skated to a 5-3 win, spurred by a hat trick from Tim Kerr and two goals by Rich Sutter. The win was the defending Wales Conference Champion's 10th in a row and raised their NHL-leading season record to a gaudy 12-2-0.
With defending Vezina Trophy winner Pelle Lindbergh off to an even better start than he had been at the same juncture of the previous season, Flyers head coach Mike Keenan gave Lindbergh the night off against the Bruins ahead of a four-night schedule break before the defending Stanley Cup champions came to town for a rematch of the 1985 Stanley Cup Final matchup. In the meantime, backup goalie Bob Froese stepped in and stopped 14 of 17 shots to get the win against the Bruins.
The Flyers were on top of the world on Nov. 9, 1985. So was Lindbergh, in both his professional and personal lives. The sky seemed to be the limit for what was still the youngest team in the NHL. Already the best goaltender in the NHL (and probably in the world) over the past year, Lindbergh was actually showing signs that his game was still improving even from what he'd shown the previous year.
The trajectory from Swedish junior standout to Olympic star to AHL rookie sensation (winning league MVP, Best Goaltender and Rookie of the Year honors), to NHL All-Star and All-Rookie Team in his first full NHL season to winning the Vezina in his third was not always a smooth upward arrow. But the adversity faced along the way had toughened Lindbergh mentally and he also started to take his conditioning seriously in his Vezina year.
The team planned to announce on the Nov. 11 off-day that it had agreed to a long-term contract extension with Lindbergh (a deal that would make him the highest-paid goalie in the NHL). The negotiations had been several months in the making, but now were done apart from the documents being completed and signed. The organization also had an all-but-completed trade worked out with the Los Angeles Kings to exchange Froese -- who wanted more playing time and whose stats were always comparable or even superior to Lindbergh's while playing against a generally lesser grade of opposition over the past year -- for tough defenseman Jay Wells.
Less than 24 hours later, everything was shattered. Lindbergh was rendered brain dead in a car crash in Somerdale, NJ, in the wee hours of the morning of Nov. 10 following a postgame dinner and a late-night party with teammates. Depending on whether one dates his death to the crash itself or to when the respirator was turned off the following day, Tuesday or Wednesday will be the 30th anniversary of Pelle Lindbergh's death.
In recent weeks, I have found myself thinking quite a lot about Lindbergh. Perhaps it's because of the 30th anniversary of the fatal accident. Maybe it's because I am meeting up later this week with former Flyers equipment manager Kevin Cady (who was one of Lindbergh's closest North American friends; almost like a younger brother to Lindbergh).
For whatever reason, though, I have thought about Lindbergh at times that are both hockey-related and even in situations that have nothing to do with hockey. On a whim, two weeks ago, I drove past the accident site where Lindbergh crashed his Porsche. I didn't stop or get out of the car. I just had an urge to go there, even though I was ultimately headed in a different direction.
Hockey-wise, there have been a few times this season where I've wondered what Ron Hextall's career would have been like had Lindbergh not suffered his untimely death. Would he have come up to the Flyers in 1986-87 and still unseated the incumbent starter if it had been Lindbergh rather than Froese? Would Hextall have had the same extraordinary rookie year and went on to a Flyers Hall of Fame career? Would he have followed the post-playing days path that led him to becoming the Flyers' general manager?
I sometimes think of Lindbergh when I see a goalie drinking from the water bottle atop his net. It was Lindbergh, due to severe problems with dehydration, who was the first NHL goaltender to keep a water bottle on the net. Nowadays, everyone does it. The practice is just an accepted bit of common sense. Back then, however, Edmonton coach Glen Sather made an issue out of Lindbergh's water bottle.
Lindbergh was the first European goaltender to achieve success in the NHL. The others who tried before and immediately after him -- until Dominik Hasek came along -- were largely failures at the NHL level. Nowadays, there is such a proliferation of European goalies in the NHL and AHL, especially Swedes, that I sometimes wonder what Lindbergh would think about the way the game and his position have changed in the last 30 years.
Goalies today are so much bigger on average than in Lindbergh's era and they all wear monstrous-sized equipment. Could any 5-foot-9 goalie, even one with Lindbergh's supreme skills even get a look in today's NHL? On the flip side, could today's goalies deal with the much smaller and less protective equipment that goalies of the 1980s wore?
Aside from the hockey-related ponderings about Lindbergh, I sometimes find myself amazed by how the death of someone I never knew personally could affect my outlook on life and how quickly and permanently things can change. As I've matured, I've given a lot of thought to how impulsive and selfish decisions made by an essentially good person -- in the well-liked Lindbergh's case, habitually driving recklessly and, on the night of the accident, mixing that with consuming alcohol -- can hurt not only oneself but also devastate the people whom that person cares about the most.
Ever since Lindbergh's death when I was 15 years old, I have had a little superstition of sorts. When I end a conversation with a friend or especially a loved one, I never say goodbye. For friends, it's always a "talk to you later." For my family, it's always an "I love you."
I try to take the same approach in being a father. Appreciate the moment and the little things. The days may seem long sometimes, but the years are way too short.
We all have work to do, and that's important. But my two-year-old daughter isn't going to forever be two. She isn't always going to happily singing little songs. Her problems won't always be such little ones like her little stuffed animal fell on the floor of the backseat and it's out of the driver's reach. My soon-to-be seven-year-old son isn't always going to be unembarrassed to run up to me and throw his arms around me when I pick him up at school. His idea of a perfect night won't always be to throw a ball around or play street hockey with his father and then retire to watch American Ninja Warrior. He won't always be carrying an R2D2 backpack any more than he'd always be obsessed with Thomas the Train (age two) or Power Rangers (age four).
Pelle Lindbergh, who loved hanging out with his two sisters' children and friends' kids because he was basically just an overgrown kid himself, never lived to experience fatherhood. It's fun to be an uncle but that's no comparison to parenthood.
Pelle's own late parents, Sigge and Anna-Lisa (who was still alive when I visited the family home in Stockholm in December 2006), had to bury two of their own children. Less than two years after Pelle's fatal accident, their middle child, Ann-Christine, passed away at age 37 after a long bout with cancer. To this day, my main memory of meeting Pelle's by-then elderly mother was that her eyes and face all at once looked so pained and yet so kindly.
When Thomas Tynander and I wrote the English version of Thomas' Swedish manuscript, the part that broke me up the most emotionally during our visit to the Lindbergh home was seeing a small stuffed animal sitting on the bed of Pelle's childhood bedroom. The item had enormous and heartbreaking symbolic meaning.
Along with Pelle's brother-in-law, Anna-Lisa visited her son's home in New Jersey for an extended stay leading up to the time of the accident. After the game against Boston, Pelle briefly went back to his house to change clothes. Stopping by the guest room, he told his mother he was going out for a few hours with teammates.
"So late?" Anna-Lisa said to her adult son.
"Yeah, it's only for a few hours. The guys will be mad at me if I don't go. You know how it is, mama," he said.
"Well, be careful," she said.
"Don't worry, mama, I'll be fine," he said.
Pelle then picked up a small blue-and-yellow stuffed animal -- a little good-luck momento that a fan tossed to him years earlier while he was playing with the Swedish national team -- and flipped it softly onto the bed where Anna-Lisa sat.
"Here, hold onto this until I come home," Pelle said with a grin and a little chuckle.
For the rest of her life, Anna-Lisa Lindbergh kept that little stuffed animal on Pelle's old bed at the family's apartment in south Stockholm; forever waiting for her son to come home.
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QUICK HITS: NOV. 9, 2015
1) Over on the Flyers' official web site, Brian Smith has a good article on Flyers prospects experiences this season after being returned to their junior teams. An interesting section features Travis Sanheim (currently sidelined with an upper-body injury) and Radel Fazleev talking about playing against fellow Flyers prospect Ivan Provorov in the Western Hockey League. Sanheim also talks about working with roving Flyers' defenseman development coach Kjell Samuelsson. For more,
click here.
2) Friday marked the 38th anniversary of the Flyers signing 29-year-old Slovakian defenseman Rudy Tajcnar to a contract and assigning him to the AHL's Maine Mariners. The defector from communist Czechoslovakia became the first European born-and-trained player signed by the Flyers. Although Tajcnar was not destined to play any NHL regular season or playoff games, he did make some exhibition game appearances with the Flyers.
Tajcnar, who passed away at age 57 in 2011, may only be a footnote in Flyers' history but his story was both a fascinating and tragic one. A former regular on the Czechoslovakian national team, Tajcnar was plagued by injuries and serious problems off the ice. He had mental health issues and also struggled with alcoholism. Sadly he never found peace in life, either in his homeland or in North America. He eventually went back to Czechoslovakia -- two years before the Velvet Revolution ended the communist era and the Czech and Slovak republics were eventually created as separate nations -- and turned himself in for his defection a decade earlier.
The real reason the Flyers signed Tajcnar was as an attempted lead-in to securing the defections of Peter, Marian and Anton Stastny (the Flyers actually drafted Anton but the NHL later disquailfied the selection because he was underage at the time of the 1978 Draft). The same Czechoslovak expatriate who represented Tajcnar claimed to also represent the Stastny brothers.
The Flyers paid the man, Louis Katona, considerable up front money to deliver the Stastnys with the rest payable upon their arrival in Philadelphia. It never happened.
Ultimately, of course, the Quebec Nordiques beat the Flyers to the punch after the merger between the World Hockey Association and the NHL. The Nords re-drafted the now eligible Anton Stastny in the 1979 NHL Draft. All three Statsnys eventually defected and signed with the Nordiques. While all were good players, Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Peter was the best of the bunch.
The Post-Pessimist Association blog has an outstanding biographical piece on the bittersweet career and troubled life of Rudy Tajcnar, including details of the Flyers' attempted signing of Peter Stastny several years prior to his arrival in North America. Drafting Anton was part of the bigger plan for convincing Peter (and Marian) to attempt defection to come to Philadelphia.
To read the full article,
click here.
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PUCK TALKS IN PHILADELPHIA
On Nov. 18 at 7 p.m., I will be part of the hockey panel at the Puck & Pitch Talks event at Bourbon & Branch (705 N. 2nd St.) in Philadelphia. CSN Philly's Sarah Baicker will be the moderator and my fellow panelists will include Al Morganti (WIP & CSN Philly), Dave Isaac (Camden Courier Post) and Adam Kimelman (NHL.com).
Tickets can be purchased at
PuckTalksLive.com. Use promo code "Bullies" to get a $5 discount off the $20 ticket price. Further information and updates are available on the Puck Talks Twitter page (@PuckTalksLive) and on Facebook (Facebook.com/Pucktalks).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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