Quick Hits: January 3, 2022
1) The Flyers (13-13-6) have a practice day in Anaheim today before concluding their four-game road trip tomorrow night against the Ducks (17-11-7). In order for the road trip to be considered any sort of success, the Flyers need a win against a team that's gone 10-4-4 on home ice this season. The Flyers are 1-1-1 on the trip so far. Finishing with five of eight possible points would be a decent trip, no matter how it's accomplished.
Additionally, Tuesday's game is one where no excuses can be made. Rust from a long hiatus no longer applies. Everyone is adjusted to the time change by now. Flyers have been in the Pacific time zone since last Tuesday. There was barely any travel over the weekend from LA to Anaheim, plus there was an off-day on Sunday and an idle schedule night tonight. Last but not least, the Flyers could have both Scott Laughton and Carter Hart back in the lineup for the Ducks game. Both players, along with Derick Brassard, exited COVID protocol on Saturday and joined the team in California the next day.
2) On today's Flyers Daily, Jason Myrtetus and I talk about the reasons why we both feel that the game in Anaheim, even though it's an early January inter-conference game, is an extremely important one for the Flyers to win. We also discuss why, from a process standpoint, the Flyers actually were better in the LA loss than in their win in Seattle or in getting one point from the San Jose game. However, there were enough things the Flyers didn't do well enough in Los Angeles to deservedly lose the game, plus LA's Jonathan Quick played an excellent game in net and Philly's Martin Jones did not.
Another topic of conversation in today's podcast: the Flyers' blueline. With Ryan Ellis still out of the lineup, his return date still nebulous and his ability to stay healthy enough to keep playing once he does far a troublesome question mark, the Flyers need Ivan Provorov to carry his defense pairing the way he did the first couple weeks after Ellis was lost. It hasn't been happing; Provorov's play has been inconsistent.
Ellis' absence forces Justin Braun to be used higher in the lineup than ideal at this stage of Braun's career. He started out great but then leveled off. In the meantime, the Flyers' third pairing has too often had the feel of defusing a time bomb on a game-by-game basis.
Keith Yandle has struggled mightily defensively and has not produced offensively to the level he needs to in order make his defensive limitations livable. Nick Seeler competes hard and is a capable defender but struggles to move the puck. Kevin Connauton has decent wheels and is better than Seeler with the puck on his stick, especially when he has a shooting opportunity. However, the inconsistency of Connauton's defensive play is the root cause of why the player has bounced around the NHL and been on waivers a few times. Connauton had a particularly rough night in the LA game.
Coming into this season, general manager Chuck Fletcher took several leaps of faith. Some of the risks have worked. Carter Hart has bounced back to form in goal. Martin Jones, for the most part, has given the Flyers at least as much -- and arguably more -- in net than Brian Elliott was able to provide near the end of his Philadelphia stint. Rasmus Ristolainen has brought more positives than negatives such coming over from Buffalo.
But the biggest risk that Fletcher took -- banking on the oft-injured Ellis to be healthy enough to play -- has thus far come up snake eyes. Ellis made an immediate positive impact on the opening homestand and then he's been out (minus a one-game return in Dallas where he got reinjured) ever since. The impact has been instability on the blueline.
The pairing of Travis Sanheim with Ristolainen has been an upgrade on what the team got out of the Sanheim/Phil Myers duo last year, but everything else is comparable or has produced lesser results. Even with his bouts of inconsistency and an early-season COVID bout last year, Shayne Gostisbehere gave the Flyers better play in 2020-21 than Yandle has been able to produce beyond the first 10 days or so of the 2021-22 season.
There are issues up front, too. It was clear for well over a month before Sean Couturier exited the lineup due to COVID that he was playing through an injury or possibly even multiple nagging injuries. You don't go from producing 12 points in the first 10 games to struggling offensively to the degree that Couturier did thereafter -- while also having uncharacteristic struggles in puck battles and defensive situations -- without some significant physical causation. Couturier is now on IR with an "upper body injury" and the only timetable is that he's week-to-week.
With Kevin Hayes still struggling to return to the form he showed as a healthy player in 2019-20, Couturier's physical problems could not possibly have come about at a worse time. It has forced the Flyers to move Claude Giroux back to center and burn the candle at both ends with many of his responsibilities. Rookie Morgan Frost continues to show flashes of high-end playmaking ability and is faring better in his all-around game than he did in 2019-20 but still needs to put everything together more consistently in his assertiveness than an impact shift or two each game. Brassard has been dealing with a nagging hip issue that forced him out of the lineup even before his COVID bout.
There are some bright spots. Oskar Lindblom of late has been playing with some renewed confidence and overall effectiveness. Joel Farabee appears to be heating up again offensively. If nothing else, the Flyers' fourth line reliably brings energy. Patrick Brown has arguably played better overall hockey than Nate Thompson was able to provide before his shoulder injury forced the veteran out of the lineup.
When you add it all up, the Flyers are at hockey .500 for a reason. There's enough on-paper talent for the Flyers to at least be a wildcard caliber team but there are also significant holes.
To listen to the full podcast, click here.
3) The 6-3 loss to LA renders the third period power play goal scored by Hayes into something that will be quickly forgotten by most fans. But Mike Yeo made one hell of a gutsy decision to pull his goalie early in the third period with a 5-on-3 power play and three-goal deficit. Everything was executed perfectly. Giroux won his faceoff cleanly. The Flyers were able to sneak Jones off to the bench and get extra attacker Hayes onto the ice. Hayes made a beeline for the back-door shooting lane where Giroux delivered a perfect pass. Hayes made no mistake on the finish. It all started with a Flyers' timeout where the sequence was drawn up. The element of surprise plus perfect execution made it all fall in place.
Just your run-of-the-mill 6-on-3 PPG with 17:18 remaining in the third period. #PHIvsLAK | #BringItToBroad pic.twitter.com/QhlqsHmOxL
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) January 2, 2022
4) Today in Flyers History: The late Rick MacLeish -- a Flyers Hall of Famer, scorer of the 1974 Stanley Cup winning goal and a member of both the 50-goal and 100-point clubs -- was born in Cannington, Ontario on Jan. 3, 1950.