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Musings and Quick Hits: Provorov, Special Teams, Marody and More

January 3, 2018, 10:27 AM ET [462 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
1) The Flyers will have an 11:30 a.m. practice in Voorhees on Wednesday in preparation for hosting the New York Islanders at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday.

2) In attendance at today's practice: Jackie Lithgow, the former Bloomsburg student who suffered severe injuries in 2014 while simply attempting to break up a fight on campus. Jackie has been a guest at Flyers' practice at least one a year since then. His recovery has been nothing short of miraculous but also a testament to the work he's put in and the support of his family and the therapists who have worked with him.

3) Ivan Provorov very gingerly hobbled off the ice after blocking a shot off his foot and Pittsburgh ultimately scored a power play goal. However, he remained on the bench, finished the game and, afterwards, was walking around in flip flops without an ice pack or any such thing. Hopefully, he dodged a bullet.

However, having seen plenty of times where a player gritted through a game, seemed OK downstairs after the game and, a day later, it is revealed the player sustained some degree of injury, it can't be said for certain here yet that the player is OK until he's actually on the ice again.

4) There is no positive spin that can be put on the way things unraveled in Tuesday night's game against the Penguins. The Flyers were far from airtight even when the Penguins had low shot totals for the first period and a half. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh was all kinds of sloppy in their own right. There was plenty of time, space and opportunity for the Flyers to capitalize yet few tough saves ultimately had to be made even over the first 30 minutes.

The game was eminently winnable for Philadelphia until the breakaway goal that made it 3-1 and the goal that followed on the very next shift to make it 4-1. Thereafter, the Flyers as a team basically went through the motions in the third period.

Overall, the Flyers were simply not even close to good enough in any important facet of the game for far too much of the night: outplayed on special teams, outplayed at five-on-five (including yielding two goals to a fourth line that has largely been a liability for the Pens), not good enough in goal and lacking any meaningful pushback apart from Brandon Manning sacrificing himself by dropping the gloves with the Goliath-sized Jamie Oleksiak.

4) Dave Hakstol admitted after the game that not calling timeout after the breakaway goal than made it 3-1 was a mistake in hindsight. Even in the moment, though, either a timeout or a goalie change was clearly in order.

There was no benefit in clinging to the timeout for a hypothetical challenge later on, when you'd just given up two quick goals right after tying the game. An attempt at regrouping and seeking equilibrium was of far more dire need at that moments. The hole was deep enough that it was going to take a lot of work just to get to a point where the inability to challenge a goal would have been a factor.

5) The Flyers penalty kill went 0-for-2 last night to fall to an atrocious 75.6 percent on the season. Only the Islanders (74.6) and Oilers (70.8 percent) have been worse percentage wise.

"Sometimes when you only take one or two penalties a game, it’s hard to get your percentage up. That certainly happens but it’s not an excuse. When we do the pre-scout we need to be a little bit stronger, sometimes you need to get in a little rhythm that’s all you need to do," Flyers defenseman Andrew MacDonald said.

No one in their right mind would suggest that a team needs to take more penalties to get more consistently successful on the PK. Ultimately, it's the number of opposing power play goals that matter more than the PK percentage. Even so, the Flyers are tied for 27th in the NHL in terms of number of PPGAs (30) despite being tied for the 11th least-penalized team in the league.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at where the least-penalized and most-penalized teams rank in terms of PK percentage.

Most penalized: 1. Predators (161 TS, 82.6 PK%), 2. Wild (156 TS, 84.0 PK%), 3) Ducks (151 TS, 82.8 PK%) 4) Penguins (146 TS, 81.5 PK%), 5) Avalanche (142 TS, 83.8 PK%), Stars (142 TS, 81.7 PK%), Jets (142 TS, 81.0 PK%), Capitals (142 TS, 80.3 PK%).

Most penalized team with a sub-80 percent PK: Vancouver (9th most-penalized at 141 TS, 77.3 PK%).

Least penalized: 1) Hurricanes (96 TS, 79.2 PK%), 2) Coyotes (108 TS, 80.5 PK%), 3) Senators (109 TS, 77.1 PK%), 4) Blue Jackets (110 TS, 80.9 PK%), 5) Bruins (116 TS, 84.5 PK%).

Top 5 NHL PKs by percentage: 1) Kings (87.4 PK%, 135 TS (11th most penalized), 2) Sharks (85.2 PK%, 122 TS (9th least penalized), 3) Bruins, 4) Wild, 5) Rangers (84.0 PK%, 14th most penalized).

In talking pre-Christmas break with a longtime non-Flyers NHL pro scout, he offered this assessment of what he's seen with Philly.

He said, "Theirs is [structurally] pretty much like a lot of teams, including ours. No one is re-inventing the wheel. You need communication on the ice and most of the rest is about making the clears, blocking shots and getting the saves when there is some traffic.

"Yes, there is on-ice repetition with your personnel, too, but that can a be a little tough to work on at practice when you have PKers who are also power play guys, because the PP units get priority. So there's video and pre-scouts, and your guys communicating.

"Withe the PKs that struggle, what you see is more inconsistency through the middle of the ice, on zone entries. Knowing when there's an opportunity to pressure the puck and be disruptive, pouncing when there's a bobble. Things happen fast down there, and a lot of it is split-second. There's only so much coaching that's involved beyond some little tweaks here and there."

Be that as it may, NHL hockey is a bottom line business. At some point, there's going to be a PK coaching change made even if asssistant coach Ian Laperriere stays on in other coaching capacities. Here's a year-by-year look at the Flyers' PK rankings with Lappy as the assistant in charge of the PK (among various other duties he performs):

2013-14: 84.8 percent (7th overall)
2014-15: 77.1 percent (27th)
2015-16: 80.5 percent (20th)
2016-17: 79.8 percent (21st)
2017-18: 75.6 percent (29th, season to date)

6) In the case of the Flyers' power play numbers, Kris Knoblauch is in his first year after replacing longtime assistant coach Joe Mullen. There have been changes implemented from last year but the bottom line this far has been quite similar.

In Mullen's final season coaching the power play, the Flyers clocked in at 19.5 percent to rank 14th in the NHL. Through the first 39 games of the 2017-18 season, the team is at 19.0 percent (tied for 15th). That's an insignificant differential (one half of one goal difference over 100 power play chances; the practical difference of a single bounce of the puck or questionably disallowed goal over 25 games or so).

A future blog will go much more in-depth on power play but I will say for now that the second unit remains a mess, the top unit remains streaky and the collectively, they are prone to yielding counterattacks.

I am also in agreement with The Athletic's Charlie O'Connor in regard to Dale Weise. His presence in the starting lineup doesn't bother me nearly as much as it a very vocal contingent of fans, but he does not belong on the second power play unit. Yes, there have been some seemingly unlikely guys who end up potting a few PPGs by getting netfront (Ryan White, for example, or even going all the way back to when the Flyers sometimes deployed defenseman Derian Hatcher as a netfront forward) but Weise isn't going to offer much help to an already struggling unit.

7) There really wasn't a ton of exciting Flyers-related news on the prospect front at the WJC on Tuesday but one notable positive development took place in collegiate hockey as Michigan junior Cooper Marody notched a hat trick as Michigan knocked off top-ranked Michigan State. The top two point-getters in NCAA hockey this season are both Flyers prospects (Marody and 2016 second-round pick Wade Allison). The top scorer in the Ontario Hockey League is Flyers 2017 first-round pick Morgan Frost, who returns to action on Thursday as his Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds take aim at a 24-game winning streak.
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