MELTZER'S MUSINGS: THOUGHTS ON VORACEK, LINES AND THE GOALIES
Coming into the 2015-16 season, two of players about whom the Flyers felt the least amount of concern were right winger Jakub Voracek and goaltender Steve Mason. Now it seems that the pendulum has swung in the other direction, at least among the fanbase.
Thirty games into the regular season, Voracek has scored just one goal. Dating back to least season, he has six goals in his last 64 games: four on the power play, one at five-on-five and an overtime three-on-three goal that stands as his lone tally thus far in 2015-16. While he is second on the Flyers with 15 assists and has always been a better setup man than finisher, Voracek is at minimum capable of posting about 22 goals for the season. His confidence in shooting situations is way down.
As a team, the Flyers have been seeing somewhat improved offensive production of late, having scored three or more goals in seven of the last 10 games and played improved all-around hockey with a 6-3-1 record. For this reason, head coach Dave Hakstol has been reluctant to move Voracek off the third line at even strength -- where he has been for most of his shifts over that same 10-game span dating back to the Nov. 23 game against the Carolina Hurricanes. Voracek has remained on the top power play unit.
At some point, Hakstol is likely to restore Voracek to the Claude Giroux line. Voracek practiced with the top line last Monday, but stayed on the Pierre-Edouard Bellemare unit for most of the last three games. With the Flyers trailing by a goal for most of the third period of Friday's 3-1 road loss to the Dallas Stars, Hakstol (who usually prefers not to juggle line combinations in-game) tried placing Voracek back on the Giroux line and moving Brayden Schenn right wing to left. Ryan White went back to the Bellemare line and Michael Raffl was placed on the fourth line.
Coming off three games in four nights and a road back-to-back in St. Louis and Dallas, the Flyers took a much-needed off day on Saturday. The team will resume practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ on Sunday and Monday in preparation for hosting the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Center. It will become clearer over the next two days whether Hakstol intends to make any tweaks to his lineup.
Even during the team's uptick in recent play, a large segment of the fan base has become almost obssessive about worrying about Voracek's linemates. Keep in mind, however, that Voracek's long-running tandem with Giroux was broken up at even strength in the first place for some compelling reasons. The team as a whole wasn't scoring, and wasn't winning. Meanwhile, Voracek's long goal drought kept going and going even when he played on Giroux's even-strength line for the first 20 games of this season.
Why was Voracek placed on a line with checking forwards Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde?
Some of it was process of elimination. The coach clearly did not want to break up the line of Sean Couturier centering Wayne Simmonds and Matt Read because they were the team's best puck-possession line and the trio -- after a prolonged goal drought of its own -- finally started to put some pucks in the net. Meanwhile, the fourth line, centered by Scott Laughton (and briefly by callup Nick Cousins), was a non-option based on the coach's allotment of ice time.
Some of it was stylistic. Bellemare and VandeVelde, while not NHL-level point producers, are tenacious forecheckers. That's particularly true of Bellemare. The hope was that Voracek's new linemates would force some opposition turnovers in dangerous areas, giving Voracek a chance to pounce. Moreover, many of Voracek's goals when he's been going well, even when playing with Giroux, have been self-created plays where he uses his speed and strength to shield the puck and find shooting space.
Eventually, Voracek will get back with Giroux, possibly even sooner rather than later. Voracek could have helped his own cause in that regard, however, with at least a power play goal or two. He has, after all, remained on the top power play unit.
Brayden Schenn is frequently the Flyers' player chosen to be moved around from one position to another when line combinations get changed. He has mostly played right wing on the Giroux line over the last 10 games, and has posted seven points (one goal, six assists) in that span. That's another reason why a change back to Voracek on that line has been delayed.
The biggest reason, though, is that the team as a whole has played better over the last 10 games. Hakstol has to worry about his entire team, not just one player or one line. On paper, the team is more potent offensively with Voracek and Giroux. The coach is aware of that, but the results have to be there at some point, too. Voracek's contract alone isn't going to be the final determing factor of his linemates.
In goal, while Mason has shown over the last two-plus seasons that he's capable of giving the Flyers sustained good play as a starter, the results haven't been there consistently this season. Michal Neuvirth has played brilliantly on a regular basis and earned the back-to-back starts he had in the last two games. Neuvirth could very well get the nod again on Tuesday, because he singlehandedly kept Friday's game from turning into a blowout.
Nevirth leads the NHL in save percentage. It's impossible to quibble with that. He has played well enough, in fact, that he even earned the right to say after the game in Dallas that his team needs to be tougher physically in protecting him in scrambles around the net. No one took offense or felt thrown under the bus because Neuvirth, by leaps and bounds, was so obviously the team's best player. He'd earned the right to speak his mind.
With Mason, the goaltender's season to date has been uneven. He's had more good games than bad ones, but the momentum saves haven't been coming. Mason seemed to have settled into a strong groove from mid-November to early December but his last two starts have not been up to the standards he's set for most of his Flyers' career. He's had stretches were he's tracked the puck well and other times where screens and deflections turn him inside out.
On two recent goals, Mason had tracking trouble and perhaps also framed himself a bit small in his net while trying to stop fairly long-range shots in which shooters used defenseman Michael Del Zotto as a screen. The first one, scored by Columbus' Nick Foligno, may not have stoppable anyway. The latter, tallied by the New York Islanders' Frans Nielsen, wasn't an easy save but was one the goalie himself said afterwards needed to be made whereas he simply credited Foligno for a perfect shot two nights earlier.
Statistically speaking, however, Mason's only real ongoing problem this season -- and much of the discrepancy between his stats and Neuvirth's -- has been in making saves on penalty kills.
At even strength, Mason has a .926 save percentage. That's not quite as good as last year, when Mason led the NHL with a .940 save percentage at even strength, but it's fine. In 2013-14, Mason had a .923 even strength save percentage. Meanwhile on penalty kills, Mason has stopped just 75 percent (39 of 52) of the shots on his net. That area was also his only significant weakness last season (.845) and was the area he'd come into the season hoping the revised tracking techniques he's work on with new goalie coach Kim Dillabaugh would pay some of their biggest dividends. Mason's penalty killing high-water mark was in 2013-14, when he posted a .894 save percentage.
Neuvirth has a .943 save percentage at even strength thus far; in other words, on a similar pace to what Mason did last year and not really a huge gap given sample size this season. The real difference has been on Philadelphia penalty kills, where Neuvirth has thus far posted a .911 save percentage. On Friday in Dallas, Neuvirth nursed the team through a half-dozen penalty kills with nine saves on as many shots. When one goalie has been sharper than the other in tracking the puck, the PK is an area where it's going to stand out.
Mason has yielded two shorthanded goals this season on 12 shots. Neither one was remotely stoppable, however. One was a pinballing double deflection and the other turned into a 2-on-0 near his net. Neuvirth, who has stopped 11 opposing shorthanded shots on as many save opportunities, would also have yielded goals on either of those as would any goalie.
If Neuvirth had not been playing as well as he has been, Mason would probably have been given the nod in St. Louis with a chance to climb back on the horse. If not, he certainly would have gotten the game in Dallas on the second half of the back-to-back. The decision to go with Neuvirth in both games truly was a case of Neuvirth having played too well NOT to be given the call. The same set of circumstances seem to apply to Tuesday's game.
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QUICK HITS: DECEMBER 13, 2015
* AHL: The Lehigh Valley Phantoms skated off with a 5-4 home shootout win over the Springfield Falcons on Saturday night at the PPL Center in Allentown, PA. In his return to the Phantoms after a very brief callup to the Flyers, defenseman Andrew MacDonald notched even-strength and power play goals. The Phantoms also got tallies from Taylor Leier (power play) and Danick Martel. Leier and Petr Straka both converted their shootout attempts. Winning goaltender Anthony Stolarz stopped 33 of 37 shots in regulation and overtime and then went 2-for-2 in the shootout.
* On Friday, the Flyers Alumni Association unveiled a newly renovated family room at the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey in Camden. Apart from donating the funding for the project and arranging for sponsors to fully equip the room with new furniture, a bubble hockey game and Flyers-related photos, the Alumni gave of their time to paint the room themselves, hang new drapes and otherwise help with the room's setup.
The refit us all done! Proud to be working with RMH. Thanks @MyBobs thanks Ice Works @FlyersAlumni Pretty cool room pic.twitter.com/6xoGgmUu7l
— Brad Marsh (@BradMarshNHL) December 11, 2015