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What Went Wrong and What Went Right. And Why the Bruins Dominated |
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As you all know, I am a rumor guy who covers the entire NHL, but living in Philadelphia and being credentialed to every Flyers game I feel I have more insight into the Flyers than probably any other team in the NHL. And I have been getting a ton of requests this morning for my take on the Flyers being swept by the Bruins.
Make no mistake about it, the biggest reason the Flyers were swept by the Bruins was the Bruins themselves.
I haven't watched many series where a team had a sharper focus than the Boston Bruins. Maybe it was last year's collapse, but the Bruins were simply amazing this round of the playoffs when it comes to focus. In order for a team to come back in a series they need to find an opening to sneak back in to a series. The Bruins never had that moment in this series. Even in game 2, when the Flyers were at their best, the Bruins never lost focus.
Add to that focus the amazing play from their key players, Lucic, Krecji, Chara, and Thomas. In my preview of this series I wrote that the key players would have to be better than they were against Montreal. And they were not only better, they were flat out awesome. What started as a weakness of only getting secondary scoring, ended with a strength of getting solid secondary scoring to compliment the main players.
The Bruins played with confidence and flair. And much of this can be credited to their backstop Timmy Thomas. Great goaltending not only means the other team can get frustrated, it also means the team getting great goaltending plays bigger and without fear.
And that brings us to the Flyers...
This series was a total collapse for the Flyers, and it starts with the coaching of Peter Laviolette.
Laviolette's handling of the goaltending throughout the playoffs was atrocious. It is one thing to play the hot goalie, but in doing so a coach can do the small things to try and keep the confidence level of the team higher. The Flyers players were solidly behind Boucher and from Game 6 of the Buffalo series on a rift developed between the players and coach that could be heard in everyone you talked to. I am not saying Boucher was stellar, be was very up and down, but the fact he was being handled the way he was had his teammates very upset and made Laviolette look indecisive and on more than one occasion I heard the word, "guessing" being used.
The worst moment for Laviolette came 90 seconds into game 3 when he called a timeout to just address Boucher individually. The better way to handle this would have been to swap goalies, even if for a few minutes, and let Boucher catch his breath. Instead I get the impression Laviolette was afraid the team would react badly to Boucher being pulled.
In the end the Flyers had to change their game to compensate for the goalie caravan and the forwards became less and less offensive minded and stopped playing their roles.
To further the case against the coaching in this series, the Flyers looked completely baffled by the neutral zone clogging system thrown out there by the Bruins. I watched two games in Nashville where the Canucks were able to handle the same system when the Preds clogged the neutral zone. I never once saw a Canucks defenseman's forward motion come to a stop as he approached his own blue line looking like he had nowhere to go and no answers to the Preds scheme. This happened at least once or twice a game.
The blame isn't all on Laviolette here of course. The players are still responsible for their play and their play was stifled by Boston time and time again.
The good news is there were some strong positives with this season in Philadelphia. Claude Giroux continued his growth towards stardom, the Flyers defensive 6, when healthy was at times dominant, and the late season rise of JVR was simply thrilling to watch.
JVR's growth will also give the Flyers a chip to make a deal for a goaltender this summer. I have been hearing a lot lately that the Flyers will be able to take one of their core forwards to try and deal for a top flight goalie this summer.. The Flyers won't be dealing JVR, Briere or Giroux, but beyond that it could be an interesting summer...
More to come on game 5 in Vancouver...
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