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Quick Hits: Flyers Back on Ice, Quarter Pole, Alumni

November 20, 2018, 8:18 AM ET [462 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Quick Hits: November 20, 2018

1) After being off the ice on Sunday for the annual Flyers Wives Carnival at the Wells Fargo Center and a complete off-day on Monday, the team returns to the ice on Tuesday for an 11 a.m. practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. The team will prepare for Wednesday's road game against the Buffalo Sabres. The Buffalo game will be the start of a tough three-in-four set that will continue with the annual Black Friday matinee when the Flyers take on the New York Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center and then a Saturday road game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

2) Twenty games into the 2018-19 regular season, the Flyers are 9-9-2 at the official one-quarter pole of the campaign. At 5-on-5, Flyers are 6th in goals scored. Despite a massive power play drought that came to an end on Saturday with a 3-for-5 performance against Tampa Bay (which entered the game ranked 4th in the NHL in penalty killing success percentage), the power play should be fine in the big picture. It's not offensive side that is a significant concern.

However, the same areas that looked to be trouble spots heading into the regular season -- particularly the penalty kill and goalie play -- have proven to be major issues through the first quarter of the season.

The penalty kill, after going 1-for-4 in the Tampa game, dropped to an abysmal 68.2% (64.7% at home) for the season and has allowed 22 goals in 20 games. There are other reasons the team is only at the statistical .500 mark, but the starting place is giving up more than a goal a game via opposing PPGs over a 1/4 season sample size.

In goal, the omnipresent injuries to incumbent veteran Michal Neuvirth were (sadly) predictable and a major concern given that primary starter Brian Elliott was himself coming off an injury-plagued second half to last season and offseason surgery. Apart Elliott's stellar recent 7-game run (1.55 GAA and .944 save percentage) and one especially sharp start by Cal Pickard in Arizona, there have too many "one bad goal per game" nights to compound defensive miscues or turnovers. With Elliott sidelined again for an estimated two weeks with an apparent groin injury, the Flyers will have to make due with Pickard and Alex Lyon in net over a tough stretch of games.

Pickard's .852 SV% and 4.60 GAA in his eight appearances is a worse statistical pace than the infamous struggles of Stephane Beauregard during his 16-game stint with the Flyers in 1992-93 (4.41 GAA, .854 SV%). While Pickard's career-wide body of work has been of a better caliber than his play as a Flyer to date, the bottom line is that the team needs much than what he's provided thus far whether it comes from him or someone else. This week, it could mean that the Flyers tab Lyon to start two of the next three games. In the big picture, the Flyers goaltending may be game-to-game patchwork for quite awhile.

3) Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to spend about 15 minutes talking to Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim about his road to the NHL. The article will run on the Flyers' official website at the end of November or beginning of December. On Friday, Sanheim sat down with Flyers play-by-play broadcaster Jim Jackson for a personal profile piece that is a bit different from the upcoming article in the topics it covers.



4) Every year during the holiday season, the Flyers Alumni Association has a tradition of having its members deliver Thanksgiving foods to St. Francis Inn to serve to the less fortunate, and to personally serve food to the homeless at St. John's Hospice as well as assisting CityTeam Chester in their annual holiday toy program for impoverished families.

Yesterday, members of the Flyers Alumni Association, including Brad Marsh, Danny Briere, Bob Kelly, Doug Crossman and Bill Clement as well as Flyers Community Relations exec Jason Tempesta and Flyers Youth Hockey Director Rob Baer delivered 144 turkeys and all the fixings from Sysco Foods in South Philadelphia to St. Francis Inn.


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