Philadelphia Flyers Season Review: Forwards

May 18th, 2021

The Philadelphia Flyers season was abysmal, it was tough to watch, and we were lucky this was a shortened season because I don’t think we could’ve taken 82 games. Last year was such a breath of fresh air, it finally seemed like the tide was turning. What went wrong? How did we end up here? Who’s to blame? I am going to examine the season in 4 parts: 1) Forwards, 2) Defense, 3) Goaltending, and 4) Management/Coaching Staff.

Everyone from top to bottom needs to have fingers pointed directly towards them. Starts off with general manager Chuck Fletcher sitting on his hands and hoping that Matt Niskanen would return. Coaching staff continuously made terrible lineup decisions, scratched players randomly while not holding others to the same accountability, and they were horrible in regards to the facets of the game that they were in charge of. However, at the end of the day, the players on the ice have to dictate the face of the game and on most occasions they fell completely flat.

Whether you believe the Flyers collapsed after their run with covid or before is irrelevant to the fact that they were awful in every sense of the word. Even though they started the year 7–2–1 and then came into March 11–4–3, they didn’t overpower or dominate their opponent in any of those games and they could’ve easily lost most of them. There was very little evidence to prove they were actually a team worthy of the division crown. The final 2 months of the season proved that those first few months was nothing but a fluke. We ended up witnessing a team without life, passion, or determination to want to win games.

Unlike the top contenders, the Flyers don’t have a top-end superstar who can take over a game. Toronto has Matthews and Marner, Boston has their trio of Bergeron, Pastrnak, and Marchand, Colorado has Mackinnon and Rantanen, and Edmonton obviously has Mcdavid and Draisaitl. Even though they lack a bonafide superstar, the Flyers have a pretty good, maybe even dangerous group of forwards and that was proven last year when they were a driving force to their hot run before Covid-19.

Heading into the season they looked like this:

Giroux-Couturier-Konecny

Farabee-Hayes-Voracek

Van Riemsdyk-Patrick-Lindblom

Raffl-Laughton-Aube Kubel

If things clicked and if things worked out the way they did last year, their top 9 could go up against anyone, even their fourth line has a little pop to it. In 66 games last year, they had 6 players score 40+ points, they practically had 5 players score 20+ goals, they had 9 players score 10+ goals, and only 2 of their top 9 players didn’t have a positive plus/minus rating.

The offense wasn’t necessarily their biggest issue up until mid-March. They were scoring at a rate that had them ranked in the top 10 and a lot of their players were scoring at a decent points-per-game average. Then all of a sudden everything dried up. Players like Van Riemsdyk, Hayes, Farabee, and Konecny all went through slumps where they scored only twice in 25+ games. There is no way, shape, or form, you can excel in the NHL, when your top 6 has 4 players mired in 25+ game slumps/droughts. In 56 games they only managed to have 4 players hit the 40 point plateau (a three way tie for the team lead), 7 players managed 30 points, and only 5 players scored in double figures.

Key players went through major slumps and cold spells at the most inopportune times. Travis Konecny, who broke out for 61 points in 66 games last year, only managed 34 in 50 this year. Kevin Hayes, who scored 23 goals last year, only managed to hit 12 this year. James Van Riemsdyk may have led the team in points but most of those came at the beginning of the season. He scored 25 points in 18 games. In his final 38 games, he only managed 18 points.

Even though nobody knew what to really expect from Oskar Lindblom and Nolan Patrick this year, we were still fairly disappointed in the fact that they didn’t contribute at all. Nolan Patrick only managed 4 goals and Lindblom could only muster 14 points all year. Scott Laughton was proving to being a reliable scoring option in the first half of the season. However he also went though a major slump and only secured 2 goals and an assist in his final 23 games. The depth was nowhere to be found from March-onwards and it really put the Flyers at risk. To close out the season, the Flyers only scored more than 3 goals once in their last 18 games.

The trio of Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, and Jake Voracek produced at their usual rate. Giroux and Voracek tied with Van Riemsdyk for the team lead in points at 43. Sean Couturier, who missed a slew of games at the beginning of the season added 41 points in only 45 games.

Claude Giroux was the most surprising forward for me in terms of his effort and on-ice visibility. Over the years, especially the lean years with Dave Hakstol, when the going got tough and the offense dried up, it was basically because Claude Giroux was having a tough year. There was never any secondary scoring, so if you were able to shut him down, you essentially shut down the entire team. Sometimes his effort was lacking, sometimes he was invisible on the ice, but this year you could tell he really wanted it. It’s somewhat ironic that he was sometimes the only one who showed up on a game by game basis, and his effort should not go unnoticed, especially from the crowd that likes to belittle his impact.

In the last few years, Jake Voracek has played the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde role almost flawlessly. He is always at the top of the scoring charts because when he is on his game, he is nearly unstoppable. Making plays left, right, and centre, while grabbing multiple assists like it was nothing. Whenever the well dried up, he would be nowhere to be found and his solo efforts would prove rather costly. The good usually balanced out the bad, which is why he was always scoring upwards of 70 points in a full 82 game schedule. This year was no different because he had 10 multi-point games, where amassed 23 points but in the other 43 games he was only able to add 20 points. The consistency wasn’t there for anyone really, but to be successful your top players have to be lighting the lamp at a point-per-game pace, at the very least.

Sean Couturier was his usual consistent self. Even though it was very apparent that he was dealing with injuries all year long, he still managed to put up 41 points in 45 games, in a very disappointing year. His skating was hampered, his decision making was slower, and you could tell from his body language that something was wrong. He was still one of the very few noticeable players on a game by game basis. He had a few different line combinations throughout the year, but that didn’t matter as he was always the driving force of whatever line he played on, which is why he earned the Flyers team MVP.

Even though the offense as a whole was severely disappointing, there were a few silver linings to keep an eye on for next year. Even though Joel Farabee went through a long scoring drought, he ended up hitting the 20-goal milestone this season. He was extremely noticeable for the most part and his offensive instincts proved to be lethal when counted on. The other surprise was the arrival of Wade Allison. Flyers fans have waited on Allison for 4+ years and they weren’t disappointed. He brought energy and life with every shift he took and he even added 4 goals and 7 points in 14 games, primarily flanked in the bottom 6. Instant chemistry was forming between the 2 young forwards and this should bring some excitement for next year.

Their powerplay was a very big reason why they didn’t win more games. Their powerplay was clicking at a rate under 20%, they never took any shots while on the man-advantage, and the powerplay seemed to suck the life out of their game. You’re supposed to gain momentum, not lose it. Jake Voracek ended the year without a powerplay tally, Claude Giroux only had 1, Couturier and Hayes only managed 3, Konecny had 4, and powerplay “quarterback” Ivan Provorov also had 0. A player like Dustin Brown almost had as many powerplay goals as all of these players combined. Shayne Gostisbehere had 5 powerplay goals, yet he was sometimes rarely used. It was a life-less unit that could never muster up any chances while having the extra man. They passed it way too much, always fiddled with the units, got rid of the one-time options for awhile, and had trouble with their zone entries. Yet, Chuck Fletcher feels very comfortable in bringing back powerplay-assistant-coach Michel Therrien.

Once the calendar hit March, the Flyers offense hit a complete standstill. They had trouble scoring the first goal, they always had to play from behind, and their depth was completely irrelevant by mid-season. Injuries played a hand for some players like Kevin Hayes and Sean Couturier but for the most part it was the lack of drive, passion, and fire that lead to their downfall. What was their claim to fame last year, quickly became their Achilles heal. This is a talented group on paper but for whatever reason, they couldn’t figure it out. Whether that was an attitude problem, a lack of motivation, or maybe lack of preparation, no one really knows. At any rate, it was disappointing and sometimes extremely embarrassing season to watch.