Is this really a .500 team or better??

[Progeriakid]

Just when you think they have turned the corner and will go on a run in the right direction and make up some ground in the standings they shit thier pants everytime! WTF, is this team just a .500 team that will battle to stay there all year or are they better then that and will contend??? The ups and downs of this season are insane, would really like to see some more consistency instead of complete off days like today where no one showed up.

 

[Cobiemonster]

Obviously I would love to see more consistency on the good side but there's a lot of good teams right now - not many teams that are really struggling - hopefully the game in Ottawa will help them get back on track

I think getting a defenseman that can move the puck and be quicker would really help them - I would like to see them get a guy like Kulikov - it's not going to cost them a ton most likely and it'll be a smaller, yet good move to help the defense - they seem stagnant and it affects the forwards

 

[Progeriakid]

Obviously I would love to see more consistency on the good side but there's a lot of good teams right now - not many teams that are really struggling - hopefully the game in Ottawa will help them get back on track

I think getting a defenseman that can move the puck and be quicker would really help them - I would like to see them get a guy like Kulikov - it's not going to cost them a ton most likely and it'll be a smaller, yet good move to help the defense - they seem stagnant and it affects the forwards

I would love to see them make this move, especially if he comes on the cheap, something needs to be done to shake things up, they are very complacent at times and look like they are just going through the motions.

 

[Cobiemonster]

I would love to see them make this move, especially if he comes on the cheap, something needs to be done to shake things up, they are very complacent at times and look like they are just going through the motions.

What do you think the Flyers would have to give up for him? Maybe Wayne Simmonds and Luke Schenn, or Wayne Simmonds and Andrej Meszaros? What do you think?

 

[Retroram52]

I think that is too much. I'd keep Simmonds.

 

[Progeriakid]

Mesz & a late round pick maybe?? No way Simmonds gets dealt and I'm on the bubble with Luke, depends on the day, one day I want him gone the next I want him here.

On a side note if they traded away Luke does that concede that the JVR deal was a shit deal for the flyers???

 

[Cobiemonster]

Mesz & a late round pick maybe?? No way Simmonds gets dealt and I'm on the bubble with Luke, depends on the day, one day I want him gone the next I want him here.

On a side note if they traded away Luke does that concede that the JVR deal was a shit deal for the flyers???

I'm thinking the Panthers would want more for Kulikov since he's still very young - of course I would love it if the Flyers didn't have to give up much but I think they might have to give up a little bit more

Maybe a prospect like Robert Hagg and then Andrej Meszaros?

 

[raptorlife4]

deep breath people. They are in the hunt. LOOOOOOONG season going to have games like this

 

[awaz]

deep breath people. They are in the hunt. LOOOOOOONG season going to have games like this

This.

 

[Maverick426h]

deep breath people. They are in the hunt. LOOOOOOONG season going to have games like this

Agreed. Even the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks, who are also tops in goals, wins and points, have been thumped badly two or three times on the road this season. Believe me, I have Crawford in fantasy and he's occasionally been lit up. The same for Fleury. It happens.

I'm especially not going to put a lot of stock in a one minute lapse in defensive coverage that resulted in three goals against. Otherwise, this would've been a pretty damn close game.

I truly believe that this is better than a .500 team as is, we just haven't found the consistency yet that we're looking for. Once we start playing our division rivals again, we're going to find out what this team is really made of. It's going to be sink or swim in games like the upcoming home and home with the Caps.

 

[Progeriakid]

And the Jeckyl and Hyde season continues, looks like hell one game and stellar the next.

 

[FlyerFinFan]

Welcome to today's NHL heck even NFL you never know what's going to happen. They're also playing without Vinny.

 

[Cobiemonster]

Welcome to today's NHL heck even NFL you never know what's going to happen. They're also playing without Vinny.

Hopefully Michael Raffl playing with G and Jake get each other going, along with that third line continuing to play well so that when Vinny comes back, there will be a good problem to have in terms of figuring out who's going to play with who

 

[lasgop8]

Hopefully Michael Raffl playing with G and Jake get each other going, along with that third line continuing to play well so that when Vinny comes back, there will be a good problem to have in terms of figuring out who's going to play with who

I think Raffl rubbed off on gee and had him playing his best all around game of the season

 

[JBM73]

From ESPN Insider:

Inconsistency, identity crisis plague Flyers


The emotion steaming from Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider during the Peter Laviolette firing news conference three games into this season is one of the most memorable moments of the early NHL schedule. Especially when he was questioned about the culture of his franchise.

"The culture is to win," he said, agitated by any implication otherwise.

The anger was real and, at least before the Flyers were blown out by the Blackhawks on Wednesday night, appears to have lifted.

Snider is far from satisfied with where his team is, but he's seeing progress.

"We're still not where we want to be, but we're certainly a lot better off than we were," Snider said when we chatted after the NHL's board of governors meeting in Pebble Beach, Calif. "I think we have to be more consistent with the system. Some games we played it beautifully and things have gone very well. Other games, we lose sight of it. It's something that has to be ingrained over a long period of time."

The Flyers' freshly concluded road trip exemplifies that assessment. It's not even a game-to-game issue, but period to period. On Wednesday night against the Blackhawks, Philadelphia looked strong in the first then got absolutely steamrolled in the second.

In a victory over the Red Wings earlier in the trip, the Flyers were outplayed for parts of two periods then scored four times in the third to win in Detroit for just the second time since 1989-90.

On this six-game trip, the Flyers finished 2-3-1, returning home with just as many questions about where they are as a group as they left with.

Craig Berube's assessment of the road trip? "Nobody's satisfied with it," he told reporters in Chicago on Wednesday. "I don't think my players are either. We could have done a lot better."

The best thing the Flyers have going for them is that they play in the awful Metropolitan Division. Even with flaws, Philadelphia is still just three points outside the No. 3 seed in the Metro, a spot currently held by a Carolina team with flaws of its own (and a minus-16 goal differential that is better than only the Islanders within the division).

With this road trip concluded, it's perfectly feasible to expect Philadelphia to go on a little run during the rest of December. Not because the Flyers are particularly good, just that the schedule sets up for it.

There's an upcoming home-and-home with a Capitals team that is playing well but is certainly beatable. Then another with a Blue Jackets team that plays hard for Todd Richards but doesn't stack up talent-wise with the Flyers. The schedule goes West-heavy after that, but it's against the more winnable cohort of the West, highlighted by games against the Oilers and Flames.

If the Flyers are going to emerge at all from the marshes of mediocrity in the Metro Division race, this is the stretch to do it.

To do so, they have to find the mix of defensive play and offensive production that eludes this group at times, although they have shown under Berube that they're capable of tightening things up defensively, which is promising.

"That's one area of the game we've gotten better. Whoever is out there, we skate more, we battle more. We're tighter as a five-man group out there. It all comes down to skating to me," said defenseman Kimmo Timonen when we chatted last week.

Timonen said they've watched a lot of tape, and when the team is struggling, it often looks like this: one guy battling and four guys watching him battle.

"Earlier in the year, we kind of separated," he said. "Now, it's a five-man unit. It doesn't matter who is out there, we work as a unit."

A veteran scout took in one of the Flyers' games during their road trip and a couple of things stood out.

One was the play of Sean Couturier, whose growth this season has been impressive. The line of Couturier, Steve Downie and Matt Read has been Philadelphia's best recently. According to behindthenet.ca, Couturier starts just 42.4 percent of his even-strength shifts in the offensive zone, plays against tougher competition than any other center on the roster and still has a Relative Corsi of 4.4. (Relative Corsi is a comparison of a player's Corsi, shot differential when he is on the ice, to that of the team.) When he's on the ice, 51.2 percent of the even-strength shot attempts are in Philadelphia's favor, according to ExtraSkater.com.

As it should, his ice time has increased dramatically this season from 15:53 in 2013 to 19:04 this season.

"He's going to be a great No. 2 guy," the scout said. "His skating is starting to come. He's a real good player."

The other thing that stood out to him was that -- and Snider probably wouldn't like this notion -- he saw a team with an identity crisis. With impressive young talent in guys like Couturier, Brayden Schenn and Read, players they can build around, there was still a sort of desperate attempt to play a brand of hockey that fits the classic Flyers reputation but may not best highlight the skill set of their young players.

"They need to let this team establish their own identity. They'll have a much better chance to win," he said. "They fall back into that goofy 'You have to be tough to play for the Flyers' [notion]. Guys like [Zac] Rinaldo and Jay Rosehill and Scott Hartnell pushing and shoving. Time moves on. It's not the 1970s anymore."

Another departure from the past is that this team may actually have a goaltender worth keeping in Steve Mason. He's come back to earth a bit in December, but his work with goalie coach Jeff Reese is paying off.

Mason has lost weight, is in great condition and is playing a simpler game. He's staying back in net more, and his patience playing that style has helped with consistency. If he can maintain that .926 save percentage over the course of the season, which is certainly a big if, the Flyers will remain in the hunt. Credit Mason and Reese for getting a talented young goalie's career back on track.

"Everything that we've done is such a simple tweak, but at the same time, it's made just huge improvements upon my game," Mason said. "It's made me feel confident in what I'm doing out there. In previous seasons, I was doing different styles of play that I wasn't comfortable with, and it was frustrating me not being able to play that way. Jeff is really taking what I'm comfortable with and making it work."

If Mason can retain that consistency while the team in front of him figures out a way to find its own, the Flyers are capable of making the playoffs in their division. They just haven't proved they can find that consistency yet.

"I feel a lot more confident about the team than I did in the beginning," Snider concluded. "Rome's not built in a day. I think it's going to get better and better."

 

[Cobiemonster]

From ESPN Insider:

Inconsistency, identity crisis plague Flyers


The emotion steaming from Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider during the Peter Laviolette firing news conference three games into this season is one of the most memorable moments of the early NHL schedule. Especially when he was questioned about the culture of his franchise.

"The culture is to win," he said, agitated by any implication otherwise.

The anger was real and, at least before the Flyers were blown out by the Blackhawks on Wednesday night, appears to have lifted.

Snider is far from satisfied with where his team is, but he's seeing progress.

"We're still not where we want to be, but we're certainly a lot better off than we were," Snider said when we chatted after the NHL's board of governors meeting in Pebble Beach, Calif. "I think we have to be more consistent with the system. Some games we played it beautifully and things have gone very well. Other games, we lose sight of it. It's something that has to be ingrained over a long period of time."

The Flyers' freshly concluded road trip exemplifies that assessment. It's not even a game-to-game issue, but period to period. On Wednesday night against the Blackhawks, Philadelphia looked strong in the first then got absolutely steamrolled in the second.

In a victory over the Red Wings earlier in the trip, the Flyers were outplayed for parts of two periods then scored four times in the third to win in Detroit for just the second time since 1989-90.

On this six-game trip, the Flyers finished 2-3-1, returning home with just as many questions about where they are as a group as they left with.

Craig Berube's assessment of the road trip? "Nobody's satisfied with it," he told reporters in Chicago on Wednesday. "I don't think my players are either. We could have done a lot better."

The best thing the Flyers have going for them is that they play in the awful Metropolitan Division. Even with flaws, Philadelphia is still just three points outside the No. 3 seed in the Metro, a spot currently held by a Carolina team with flaws of its own (and a minus-16 goal differential that is better than only the Islanders within the division).

With this road trip concluded, it's perfectly feasible to expect Philadelphia to go on a little run during the rest of December. Not because the Flyers are particularly good, just that the schedule sets up for it.

There's an upcoming home-and-home with a Capitals team that is playing well but is certainly beatable. Then another with a Blue Jackets team that plays hard for Todd Richards but doesn't stack up talent-wise with the Flyers. The schedule goes West-heavy after that, but it's against the more winnable cohort of the West, highlighted by games against the Oilers and Flames.

If the Flyers are going to emerge at all from the marshes of mediocrity in the Metro Division race, this is the stretch to do it.

To do so, they have to find the mix of defensive play and offensive production that eludes this group at times, although they have shown under Berube that they're capable of tightening things up defensively, which is promising.

"That's one area of the game we've gotten better. Whoever is out there, we skate more, we battle more. We're tighter as a five-man group out there. It all comes down to skating to me," said defenseman Kimmo Timonen when we chatted last week.

Timonen said they've watched a lot of tape, and when the team is struggling, it often looks like this: one guy battling and four guys watching him battle.

"Earlier in the year, we kind of separated," he said. "Now, it's a five-man unit. It doesn't matter who is out there, we work as a unit."

A veteran scout took in one of the Flyers' games during their road trip and a couple of things stood out.

One was the play of Sean Couturier, whose growth this season has been impressive. The line of Couturier, Steve Downie and Matt Read has been Philadelphia's best recently. According to behindthenet.ca, Couturier starts just 42.4 percent of his even-strength shifts in the offensive zone, plays against tougher competition than any other center on the roster and still has a Relative Corsi of 4.4. (Relative Corsi is a comparison of a player's Corsi, shot differential when he is on the ice, to that of the team.) When he's on the ice, 51.2 percent of the even-strength shot attempts are in Philadelphia's favor, according to ExtraSkater.com.

As it should, his ice time has increased dramatically this season from 15:53 in 2013 to 19:04 this season.

"He's going to be a great No. 2 guy," the scout said. "His skating is starting to come. He's a real good player."

The other thing that stood out to him was that -- and Snider probably wouldn't like this notion -- he saw a team with an identity crisis. With impressive young talent in guys like Couturier, Brayden Schenn and Read, players they can build around, there was still a sort of desperate attempt to play a brand of hockey that fits the classic Flyers reputation but may not best highlight the skill set of their young players.

"They need to let this team establish their own identity. They'll have a much better chance to win," he said. "They fall back into that goofy 'You have to be tough to play for the Flyers' [notion]. Guys like [Zac] Rinaldo and Jay Rosehill and Scott Hartnell pushing and shoving. Time moves on. It's not the 1970s anymore."

Another departure from the past is that this team may actually have a goaltender worth keeping in Steve Mason. He's come back to earth a bit in December, but his work with goalie coach Jeff Reese is paying off.

Mason has lost weight, is in great condition and is playing a simpler game. He's staying back in net more, and his patience playing that style has helped with consistency. If he can maintain that .926 save percentage over the course of the season, which is certainly a big if, the Flyers will remain in the hunt. Credit Mason and Reese for getting a talented young goalie's career back on track.

"Everything that we've done is such a simple tweak, but at the same time, it's made just huge improvements upon my game," Mason said. "It's made me feel confident in what I'm doing out there. In previous seasons, I was doing different styles of play that I wasn't comfortable with, and it was frustrating me not being able to play that way. Jeff is really taking what I'm comfortable with and making it work."

If Mason can retain that consistency while the team in front of him figures out a way to find its own, the Flyers are capable of making the playoffs in their division. They just haven't proved they can find that consistency yet.

"I feel a lot more confident about the team than I did in the beginning," Snider concluded. "Rome's not built in a day. I think it's going to get better and better."

I love that quote and it's flat out accurate

 

[awaz]

really like to hear people praising couturier.. he's been a beast this season

 

[banditshcky11]

I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet and I might be alone here but I really think L Schenn and Mez have picked it up and been playing much better lately. They haven't been lighting the world on fire but they've been steady as a pair & L Schenn has been vastly improved on the PK. I even think L Schenn is starting to find a little more confidence in shooting the puck since he's been doing it much more frequently and is starting to develop a knack for knowing when to throw that oddly timed shot on goal to create opportunities.

I dunno maybe I'm crazy...

 

[Cobiemonster]

I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet and I might be alone here but I really think L Schenn and Mez have picked it up and been playing much better lately. They haven't been lighting the world on fire but they've been steady as a pair & L Schenn has been vastly improved on the PK. I even think L Schenn is starting to find a little more confidence in shooting the puck since he's been doing it much more frequently and is starting to develop a knack for knowing when to throw that oddly timed shot on goal to create opportunities.

I dunno maybe I'm crazy...

They'll have an occasional good game where they're noticeable but they're too inconsistent for a team that needs every guy going in order to win

 

[awaz]

I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet and I might be alone here but I really think L Schenn and Mez have picked it up and been playing much better lately. They haven't been lighting the world on fire but they've been steady as a pair & L Schenn has been vastly improved on the PK. I even think L Schenn is starting to find a little more confidence in shooting the puck since he's been doing it much more frequently and is starting to develop a knack for knowing when to throw that oddly timed shot on goal to create opportunities.

I dunno maybe I'm crazy...

they both had a real rough game against the hawks IMO.. but aside from that i agree. gus was back in for mesz last night