With Jaromir Jagr on the shelf for (at least) 7 to 10 days with some combination of a strained calf and groin pull, it is going to be interesting to see how the Flyers fill the void on the top line in his absence.
In recent weeks, the Flyers have become a bit of a one-line team in terms of goal production. The lines other than the Claude Giroux line have creating scoring chances but have struggled to finish consistently of late. For all the talk about the Flyers' goaltending, something that has been masked is how little the team is scoring unless Giroux and his linemates tally multiple goals in a game.
Apart from goaltending, why have the Flyers lost five of the last seven games?
In the NHL, three goals is usually the "magic number" for winning a game. Yes, goaltending has been an issue for Philly of late but an equally big problem has been that the support scoring has disappeared.
The club has scored two or fewer goals in all five of the losses. They've been shut out by Boston, been held to a single goal by Tampa Bay and scored two goals in the remaining losses (a pair of regulation losses to the Rangers and a shootout loss in Colorado).
For now, it looks like James van Riemsdyk -- who took over Jagr's spot in the Winter Classic game against the Rangers -- will get the first shot at playing with Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell. But JVR, who missed time in November with a small abdominal tear and also reportedly has a hip issue that may require off-season attention, has not been effective in the last month-plus.
Dating back to JVR's return to the lineup on Dec. 7, he has just one regulation goal, one shootout goal and two assists to show for his last 12 games. He was also held without a point in his final game (Nov. 23 on Long Island) before sitting out with the midsection injury. There have been signs of improvement in a couple recent games, but for the most part, van Riemdsyk has struggled for the last five weeks to have any impact on the forecheck, much less the scoring department.
If JVR is unable to do the job on the Giroux line until Jagr gets back, the next candidate for the spot would likely be Jakub Voracek. While his overall play has been solid (although not as good as it was in November to early December), Voracek has fallen back into a goal-scoring drought.
The Czech forward has not scored in eight games and has just one goal and six assists to show for his last 15 games, dating back to the games since the Black Friday matinee against Montreal. The Flyers need more than that from him, especially now that Jagr is going to miss several games.
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My reaction to the fact that the Winter Classic drew the lowest television rating of any of the games so far is a gigantic "so what?"
By every measure other than the raw television rating number -- which is deceptive, anyway -- the 2012 Winter Classic in Philly was a smashing success.
1) This year's Winter Classic was an absolute financial grand slam for the league and the Flyers. The event raked in huge money, between the game being a legit complete sellout, the Alumni Game being virtually a sellout, and enormous amounts of merchandize being sold at WAY inflated prices.
2) This year's game was on Jan. 2 -- when many folks in the country were already back at work -- not New Year's Day.
3) The game's starting time was moved from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., which was beneficial to the game play but a bad network television time slot.
4) The TV rating was huge compared to an average NBC hockey broadcast.
5) The outdoor games have lost their novelty effect for those who tuned in strictly for that reason the first year or two.
By the way, this past week also put to rest the ridiculous and antiquated notion that certain local non-hockey media people love to trot out out that there are "only 20,000 hockey fans in the Philadelphia area, and they're all at the Flyers' games."
Want to get a sense of just how important the Flyers are to sports fans in the Philly metro area? Consider this: On the same day the Alumni Game event packed nearly 46,000 people in Citizens Bank Park, the exhibition game's live game broadcast on Comcast SportsNet was the #1 show in its time period in the Philadelphia market.
Locally, Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia pulled in a staggering 6.2 household rating (186,000 households) for the exhibition game, with the pregame and postgame programs also drawing big numbers. The Pregame Live show delivered a 2.3 rating (69,000 households tuned in) and the Postgame Live show with the rink-level and locker room interviews raked in a 3.7 rating (110,000 HHs).
Although the NHL-related events at CPB are over, there is still the AHL game to go on Friday and even THAT should draw out a decent crowd. So the visibility, demonstrated popularity and financial health of pro hockey in Philadelphia has never shined brighter than it has this last week.
But, hey, hockey is just a little cult sport in these parts, right?
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