1) During the 2018-19 season, none of the NHL's bottom-10 teams in goals against average (and just two of the bottom 14 teams) made the playoffs. The two playoff teams among the bottom 14 in GAA were the Toronto Maple Leafs (20th, 3.04 GAA) and San Jose Sharks (21st, 3.15 GAA).
Conversely, there were two teams in the goals-per-game top-10, the Chicago Blackhawks (8th, 3.26 GPG) and Florida Panthers (9th, 3.22 GPG) who failed to qualify for the postseason.

This season, at the time of the leaguewide pause and before the expansion of the postseason from 16 to 24 teams, only three teams in the NHL's bottom-13 in goals against average were in playoff position -- the Nashville Predators (T-19th, 3.10 GAA), Vancouver Canucks (T-19th, 3.10 GAA) and Toronto Maple Leafs (T-25th, 3.17 GAA). Meanwhile, two teams in the goal-scoring top 10 -- the New York Rangers (5th, 3.33 GPG) and Florida (6th, 3.30 GP) were below the postseason cutoff line at the time of the pause.

Last season's Stanley Cup champion, the St. Louis Blues, ranked 15th in goals per game at 2.98 during the regular season. They were 5th in GAA (2.68). This year, Dallas Stars ranked 26th in regular season goals per game during the regular season (2.55 GPG) but 2nd in goals against average (2.44 GAA). The New York Islanders, who later reached an overtime Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final, ranked 22nd in GPG but 9th in GAA.

The point here is that team depth, team defense, and goaltending are more important to getting a team into the postseason that how many goals a team scorers. Offensively, it's more important to peak at the right time -- the playoffs -- than it is to score your way to the postseason.

The Flyers improvement this season was largely stepped in lowering the team GAA from 3.41 (29th) to 2.77 (7th), while allowing the fewest average opposition shots on goal during the regular season. Meanwhile, they also bumped up their GPG from 2.94 (18th) to 3.44 (7th).

There were many things in the postseason that do not go as hoped for the Flyers, although they came within one win of the Eastern Conference Final. While a paucity of scoring after the Round Robin was a clear cut issue -- getting a combined five goals out of Sean Coturier, Claude Giroux, Travis Konecny and James van Riemsdyk and only point from Jakub Voracek in the second round was indisputably a big disappointment -- there were other issues that were just as big and arguably bigger.

Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher said recently a drop-off in attention to detail off the puck was his biggest disappointment in the playoff run. You can break that down by cumulative numbers (positive regular season puck possession and expected goals team stats turning into negative differentials in the postseason) or you can break it down by video (for example, failures by wingers van Riemsdyk and Jakub Voracek to cover their assigned checks in the first two Islanders goals of Game 7 or Selke Trophy winner Sean Couturier, of all players, abandoning net-front defense with both defensemen behind the net to try to help out below the goal line on the sequence that extended New York's Game 1 lead from 1-0 to 2-0 in the third period).

Any which way you slice it -- turnover rates, zone exit failures, odd-man rushes allowed -- the Flyers had a dropoff in the post-Round Robin games in some of the key areas that propelled them to regular season success. The big equalizer, fortunately, was the play of Carter Hart.

As far as goal scoring goes, the players the Flyers counted on for goals did not produce nearly enough and the secondary scoring apart from up-ice contributions from the defense (which loomed huge in all three of the games the Flyers won against the Islanders) also dropped off when supporting cast players on their "natural lines" rather than playing higher in the lineup due to line juggling.

At the end of the day, teams have to be able to win a variety of different ways. Philly did win a couple 5-4 overtime games plus a 4-3 OT game in the New York series, but they didn't get the goal support in the other games. In the Montreal series, the Flyers won 2-1, 1-0, 2-0, and 3-2 games. But they clearly spent too much time in their own end of ice over the course of both series.

No one is saying that it wouldn't be nice to add another finisher to the mix but there appears to be a bigger need for players who contribute to the process of putting the team in position to win in the playoffs; supplementary players who add both speed and muscle are valuable, even if they are not big scorers themselves (impending UFA Tyler Pitlick is a good example). Internally, the organization hopes that players such as Tanner Laczynski and Linus Sandin can bring up the two-way contributions from the bottom end of the lineup, while a full and healthy season from Oskar Lindblom will bear the same sort of process and result benefits he contributed before his Ewing's Sarcoma ordeal.

Barring a blockbuster trade or an unexpected major free agent signing, the Flyers will still need more from players like Konecny, Giroux and JVR in the playoffs. During the regular season, there's no reason to believe the current team cannot once again ranked in the top one-third of the league.

Join the Discussion: » 129 Comments » Post New Comment

» Quick Hits: End-of-Season, Phantoms, Rizzo

» Wrap: Flyers Unable to Muster a Go-Ahead Goal in 2-1 Loss to Caps

» Flyers Gameday: 4/15/2024 vs. WSH

» Quick Hits: Practice Day, Phantoms

» Quick Hits: Practice Day, Phantoms