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FLYERS-SENS WRAPUP: FLYERS SUFFER 9TH SHOOTOUT LOSS
The Philadelphia Flyers have had 23 games decided in overtime or via shootout during the 2014-15 season; one short of tying a franchise record set in 1988-89. That has been a bad omen for the team this year as the Flyers are 8-15 in such games.
On Sunday night, the Flyers fell to 3-9 in games decided in a shootout as they fell, 2-1, to the host Ottawa Senators. In games that end with a sudden death overtime goal, the Flyers are 5-6.
The Flyers, who remain stuck on nine road wins for the season (9-18-9), played a pretty solid all-around game against the red-hot Senators. The match was largely an evenly played tilt, but the Flyers' ongoing inability to put the puck in the net made Saturday's 7-2 blowout win over Detroit an oasis in an offensive desert.
Philadelphia is a team that lives and dies on its power play, and the power play has not been producing of late (with the exception of the Detroit game). Both teams went 0-for-3 on the man advantage.
Ray Emery played a strong game in net for the Flyers, stopping 27 of 28 shots in regulation and overtime before stopping two of three in the skills competition. The lone regulation goal for Ottawa came at 5:19 of the second period when the Flyers got outnumbered in front of their net and Jean-Gabriel Pageau tipped an airborne puck past Emery. Bobby Ryan scored in the third round of the shootout as Emery gambled and lost on a pokecheck attempt.
The National Hockey League has yet to figure out 27-year-old second-year pro Andrew Hammond, who is 10-0-1 with a 1.39 goals-average average and .955 save percentage in 12 NHL games after putting up pedestrian AHL numbers prior to his callup from Binghamton to Ottawa.
On Sunday, the "Hamburglar" stopped 27 of 28 Flyers shots in regulation and overtime and then went 3-for-3 in the shootout. The lone Flyers goal, scored by Jakub Voracek at 12:12 of the second period, was a one-timer from just above the top of the left circle directly off an Ottawa turnover deep in their own end of the ice. The goal was officially unassisted but tenacious forechecking pressure by Pierre-Edouard Bellemare made the play possible.
In the skills competition, Hammond denied Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and Claude Giroux in succession. Apart from the shootout and his earlier goal, Voracek (game-high five shots) had a couple of other good scoring chances during the game. Giroux had four shots on goal among 11 shots attempts (four got blocked, three missed the net).
The Flyers return to action on Tuesday. In the second game of a four-game road trip through Canada, Philly will take on the Vancouver Canucks.
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HEXTALL: TEAM KNEW LAST SUMMER UMBERGER WOULD NEED SURGERY
The news that Flyers forward R.J. Umberger will miss the remainder of the season with numerous injuries -- labrum tear in his hip, abdominal tear, two cam lesions -- that require corrective surgery was not a complete shock. Nor was Flyers general manager Ron Hextall's revelation that the veteran forward's skating was affected by the problems for much of the season.
Above-average skating was always one of the hallmarks of Umberger's game along with two-way awareness, and there has been been little explosiveness or extra gear to his game. Without question, the numerous lingering injuries played into the player's struggles this season.
Physical problems also affected Umberger last season in Columbus. Umberger refused to use injuries as an excuse for his subpar final season with the Blue Jackets, where was, at times, a semi-healthy scratch. Umberger dealt with a broken finger, separated shoulder and herniated disc during the 2013-14 season.
The puzzling part of Hextall's discussion with the media about Umberger's current situation was the general manager's admission that he knew even last summer that the player would probably need surgery after the 2014-15 season.
Said Hextall, "We knew he was getting surgery at the end of the year. So this didn’t come out of the blue. It was inevitable last summer, that we knew at the end of the year he was getting surgery. It’s one of those things… you lean on the player, and if he’s in too much pain where he can’t perform and we feel like his performance isn’t helping us, then let’s shut him down and let’s get him ready for next year."
At the time Flyers first acquired Umberger in a trade for Scott Hartnell, Hextall insisted during a media conference call that the player had a clean bill of health and would not be physically hampered in any way this season. It is unclear if the player's issues last season -- especially the back problems -- were in any way related to his current situation.
According to Hextall, the team was satisfied that Umberger's hip and midsection were good enough to hold up for the full season and the player's self-report was that he felt well enough to make it through the seaon. Eventually, it became obvious that Umberger's physical problems hampered his effectiveness on the ice but he tried to solider on through it.
All hockey teams rely heavily on players knowing their own bodies well enough to determine when they are able to play through injuries and when they are too hurt to play. However, all players crave being in the lineup and many overestimate their capabilities to suit up with significant injuries without the issues affected their play. It becomes a vicious cycle when players' refusal to use injuries as an excuse overlaps with ongoing problems that prevent them from performing up to their established standards.
From a Flyers' standpoint, however, the knowledge even last summer that Umberger has mounting physical problem opens Hextall up to criticism. The "hockey rationale" for re-acquiring Umberger was that he is a plus-skater with better discipline, superior conditioning and a higher degree of two-way awareness than the player the team was trading to get him.
Over the balance of his career, Umberger has been a good NHL player. He has scored 20 or more goals five times in his NHL career (topping out at 26 in his first year in Columbus), playing in a variety of different situations, showing the versatility to play any forward position effectively and using his size and speed to his benefit while staying out of the penalty box.
That player was rarely on display last season in Columbus and, to be honest, Umberger seemed to decline even further this season in Philly except for a few short-lived stretches here and there. Will undergoing surgery now with plenty of time to rehab for next season make a difference in 2015-16? Time will tell.
For the short term, the optics of last summer's trade with Columbus look even worse than they did last June. Hartnell has posted a 20-goal season in Columbus (the ninth 20-plus goal season of his NHL career). Umberger's season was a disappointment both to himself and he would need a dramatic bounceback to form in his overall play -- not just goal scoring -- to be the player Hextall thought he was acquiring.
From a salary cap standpoint, it's not like the team was saving significant cap space or Umberger's remaining contract length was THAT much shorter than Hartnell's to justify the disparity in their individual productivity. Yes, the Flyers will get cap relief in 2017 -- two years sooner than Hartnell's contract expires -- but that does Philly no good for the next two seasons.
The Flyers need to hope that Umberger recovers something close to his old two-way form come next season. They could certainly use that player on the forecheck and the penalty kill, even if he scores 12-to-15 goals. The guy in the Umberger jersey that was out there this season was a shell of the player who was once a pretty effective player who earned praise even from the most demanding of coaches, such as Ken Hitchcock.