PREVIEW 6:30 AM EDT
For teams like the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins, the success or failure of a season is judged on what they do in the playoffs rather than the regular season. In one of the toughest first-round playoff clashes in recent memory, the clubs with the second- and third-best records in the Eastern Conference will square off right off the bat.
Tonight's game in Pittsburgh starts at 7:30 p.m. EDT and will be broadcast locally on CSN Philly and nationally on NBC Sports Network.
The Flyers went 4-2-0 in the regular season series against Pittsburgh. That has little to no bearing on the impending playoff matchup, beyond the fact that Philly enters with confidence that the team can come back on the Penguins should Pittsburgh take the lead in any given game.
In the first meeting (home) of the regular season, the Flyers roared out to a 3-0 lead and then held on to win 3-2. In the second game in Pittsburgh, the Penguins scored first but the Flyers surged to ultimately win, 4-2. The third game in Philly saw the Pens go out to a 1-0 lead, the Flyers rebound for a 2-1 lead (behind two closely spaced goals by Jaromir Jagr), the momentum seesaw to a 3-3 tie after two periods and then Pittsburgh control the final stanza for a 6-4 win.
The teams also played three times down the stretch. The next game in Philadelphia saw the Penguins take a 2-0 lead into the third period only for the Flyers to rally to tie the game on goals by Wayne Simmonds and Scott Hartnell and then win it in the final second of overtime on a Hartnell goal. In the chippiest game of the season series, played April 1 in Pittsburgh, the Pens again jumped out to a 2-0 lead only to see the Flyers come back for five unanswered goals before Philly skated off with a 6-4 win.
The final game of the regular season, April 7 in Pittsburgh, had no bearing on the final standings. The Penguins had already wrapped up home ice in the impending series by virtue of their four more shootout victories giving the club enough points to offset Philly's advantage of one more regulation/OT win. In the game itself, the Penguins took leads of 1-0 and 2-1. The Flyers twice came back to tie the score before goals by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin sealed the victory for the Pens.
Goaltending is paramount in any playoff series. Ilya Bryzgalov had a frustratingly uneven regular season and is currently nursing a chip fracture in his right foot, but he closed out the stretch drive by winning NHL First Star of the Month honors in March and playing well in his final start (second game after his return from the foot injury). Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury had the more consistent season of the two goalies.
For the Flyers, apart from the goaltending, it all comes down to gap control, puck management and scoring depth. Malkin and Crosby are the two biggest individual "superstar names" in the series, with Claude Giroux third. But the playoffs are about attrition and depth, not just big names. Both clubs are very deep through their top lines but Philly's scoring depth runs about nine players deep in terms of guys who can be the difference makers in any given game.
Discipline is also paramount. The Flyers need to be aggressive and yet avoid offensive zone penalties and retaliatory stick/roughing infractions. That is easier said than done, especially in the first game of a series. Philly and Pittsburgh both clicked on power plays at a 19.7 percent rate during the regular season but the Penguins were the better penalty killing team. Both clubs also have several shorthanded scoring threats.
On the injury front, the Flyers will be without James van Riemsdyk (foot surgery) at least until the latter part of this series if it goes six or seven games. Andrej Meszaros (back surgery) is still several weeks away from being able to return. In a somewhat surprising move, Peter Laviolette's practice lineup this week had rookie Marc-Andre Bourdon and veteran Andreas Lilja starting over veteran Pavel Kubina.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
FLYERS
Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
Schenn - Briere - Simmonds
Talbot - Couturier - Voracek
Wellwood - Read - Rinaldo
Carle - Timonen
Grossmann - Coburn
Lilja - Bourdon
Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]
PENGUINS
Kunitz - Malkin - Neal
Sullivan - Crosby - Dupuis
Cooke - Staal - Kennedy
Adams - Vitale - Asham
Martin - Letang
Orpik - Michalek
Strait - Engelland
Fleury
[Johnson]
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FLYERS REGULAR SEASON IN REVIEW
If Flyers history has taught us one thing, in fact, it’s that so-called transitional seasons need not be losing ones. In the tradition of the 1979-80, 1984-85 and 2007-08 editions of the team, pundits questioned whether the made-over roster of the 2011-12 Flyers would be ready or able to compete in one of the NHL’s most difficult divisions. In particular, pundits questioned whether the club would have enough scoring depth to be successful.
After posting 103 points in the regular season and scoring the third most goals (264) in the league, the only remaining question is whether the club will be able to survive a brutally difficult playoff gauntlet that starts with a clash against the arch-rival Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal.
Even without the benefit of four extra points gained via shootouts, the Flyers posted 99 points this season. The team’s 43 regulation and overtime victories were the second most in the Eastern Conference (the New York Rangers had 47) and tied for third in the NHL with the Vancouver Canucks and Nashville Predators. This is significant because there are no shootouts in the playoffs.
While there are no guarantees for any team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs – arguably the toughest championship tournament anywhere in the world of team sports – the 2011-12 Flyers are nothing if not a resilient and talented squad. The following is a look back at five key factors and developments that shaped the club’s regular season.
1. Handling adversity
Entering the season, the club appeared to be ill-prepared to handle another long-term absence for newly appointed team captain Chris Pronger. As it turned out, Pronger would be limited by a serious eye injury and career-threatening concussion issues to just 13 games this season. The team as a whole was decimated by injuries, ranking near the top of the league in man-games lost.
Apart from Pronger, the club lost projected 30-goal-scorer James van Riemsdyk for 39 games due to assorted injuries, including an abdominal injury, a concussion and foot surgery (from which he is currently rehabilitating). The squad was without last year’s Barry Ashbee Trophy winning defenseman, Andrej Meszaros, for 20 games. The team missed Danny Briere in 12 matches, Jaromir Jagr in 9 and Claude Giroux for 5. Highly touted rookie Brayden Schenn missed most of the first half of the season, while big-ticket goaltending acquisition Ilya Bryzgalov sustained a chip fracture in his right foot late in the season interrupting his NHL First Star of the Month campaign at the end of March.
At two key junctures of the season – mid-December and the stretch drive – the team was missing two or more starting defensemen (not including Pronger).
Kimmo Timonen, an NHL All-Star and the winner of the Barry Ashbee Trophy this season, battled through nagging injuries all year and was eventually forced to sit out six games down the stretch. Shutdown defenseman Nicklas Grossmann, acquired from the Dallas Stars shortly before the trade deadline, missed the final week of the regular season with a lower-body injury sustained early in the penultimate regular season game against Pittsburgh.
To their credit, the Flyers never used injuries as an excuse, nor did the club quit on games in which they fell behind. In a league in which the team that scores first wins roughly 70 percent of the time, the Flyers were tied for the most overall wins (20) and had the second highest winning percentage in the NHL when yielding the first goal of the game.
Seven times, the Flyers were able to come back from a deficit of two or more goals to win the game. Three additional times, Philly gained one point via regulation tie after rallying back from two or more goals. The Flyers also won five games when trailing after two periods after managing the feat only once the previous season.
Philly’s comeback ability manifested itself against many of the top teams throughout the NHL. In games against the Penguins, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings this season – four of the top 12 defensive teams in the NHL in terms of fewest goals allowed – the Flyers came back to erase deficits of at least one goal in 12 of the games. While Philly did not win all of these games (5-5-2 overall), the club showed that is capable of coming back against any team in the league on a given night.
2. The Kids are Alright
The Flyers dressed 12 NHL rookies during the 2011-12 season, with as many as eight simultaneously in the starting lineup. Eight players scored their first NHL goal this season for the Flyers, matching a feat last accomplished during the 1993-94 campaign.
Among the rookies who appeared for the Flyers this season, three became important parts of the forward corps (Sean Couturier, Schenn and Matt Read), while as many as five (the aforementioned three plus defenseman Marc-Andre Bourdon and one of speedy forward Eric Wellwood or agitator Zac Rinaldo) could be in the starting lineup for the first game of the series against Pittsburgh.
Read’s 24-goal, 43 point campaign could earn him a spot as a finalist in the Calder Trophy balloting for the NHL’s Rookie of the Year. He also went 4-for-6 in shootouts and was a threat to score shorthanded goals. The versatile young forward primarily played left wing but appeared at all three forward positions and skated everywhere from the first to fourth line.
Couturier primarily played on the fourth line at even-strength during the regular season before moving up to center the third line down the stretch. Possessing off-the-charts hockey sense and unusual defensive prowess for a teenaged player, the Flyers 1st-round pick in the 2011 NHL Draft boasted a plus-17 rating at even strength. He also got a couple of hot streaks offensively, despite his mainly defensive role, tallying 12 goals and 25 points. At one point in January, Couturier scored goals in five straight games; most of which were high-skill goals in one-on-one situations against opposing goaltenders.
Schenn lost nearly half a season to injury and shuttled between center and left wing on the second and third lines. He did not score his first goal until tallying the first score of the Winter Classic game against the New York Rangers. The rookie went on to post a dozen goals and 18 points in 46 games after the calendar flipped to 2012.
Bourdon provided surprisingly steady defensive play upon his initial callup from the Adirondack Phantoms before a downturn in his performance and concussion-like symptoms set him back and temporarily cost him a spot in the Flyers’ starting lineup. He finished the season strong with the big club after a second recall. Overall, Bourdon posted four goals, seven points, a plus-four rating and 52 penalty minutes in 45 games.
Rinaldo ranked second in the NHL in penalty minutes (232 this season). However, for the most part, he played under control. Although he had a few self-admitted slip-ups in picking his spots wisely, many of the penalties Rinaldo received were marginal ones based on his role on the team, rookie status and pre-NHL reputation for recklessness. Apart from his aggressiveness in hitting and willingness to mix it up with much larger players, Rinaldo’s speed and forechecking ability at times injected needed energy into the lineup.
Wellwood, meanwhile, was a revelation down the stretch in the regular season. His explosive speed presented problems for opponents, especially in penalty killing situations in which Wellwood saw open ice ahead of him. Splitting time between the fourth- and second lines at even strength (dependent on the overall health of the forward corps), Wellwood tallied five goals and nine points in 24 games.
3. Veteran leadership
The counterweight to all the youth in Philly’s lineup was the presence of a corps of veteran leaders who have been on winning teams – including several Stanley Cup winners or finalists – in their careers. Even without Pronger available, the veteran quartet of Jagr, Timonen, Briere and Max Talbot have seen and done it all over the course of their respective careers.
The Flyers brought in Jagr as a free agent hoping to replace the 19 goals and 53 points they got last season from Ville Leino, who departed the club via free agency. Statistically, the club got exactly what it wanted (19 goals, 54 ponts) from Jagr but his positive impact in the locker room went far beyond the team’s loftiest hopes. Jagr’s incredible work ethic, eagerness to help young players and all-around willingness to embrace his role as a veteran statesman earned him a Masterton Trophy nomination and the Yanick Dupre Memorial Class Guy Award for his influence in the locker room.
Talbot was one of four Flyers veterans – along with Giroux, Hartnell and Wayne Simmonds – to shatter his previous career highs for both goals and points in a season. Of the four, Talbot’s 19 goals arguably came as the biggest surprise because of his primarily defensive role on the team.
Giroux entered the season with the heavy burden on his shoulders of replacing the traded Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to become the go-to offensive player on the team. He succeeded in a major way, emerging as an early favorite to win the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP and a strong contender for the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer.
Although Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin won the Art Ross and is likely to take home the Hart Trophy, Giroux could still be a Hart finalist and he was a shoo-in for the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the Flyers’ MVP. His 93-point season led the club by a wide margin.
Hartnell has become a bankable 22-to-30 goal scorer over the course of his career but few
if any expected him to produce an All-Star season this year, especially after he got off to a slow start in October. The power forward ended up shattering his previous career highs in goals and points (30 goals, 60 points in 2008-09) by seven apiece and leading the team with 16 power play goals.
Fellow power forward Simmonds had shown flashes of future 20-plus goal scoring ability during his days with the Los Angeles Kings. However, the 23-year-old had not previously topped 16 goals until coming to Philadelphia in the Mike Richards trade and racking up 28 goals (11 on the power play) and 49 points.
Despite his bony build, Simmonds also proved to be a fearsome fighter with remarkably good balance and surprising punching power. He also displayed courage in going to the net and standing up for teammates; best exhibited by a play in which a puck hit him in the face (Simmonds was credited with the goal, as the puck went into the net after striking him) and he returned to action minutes later after being stitched. The following day, he got into a fight in defense of his smallest teammate, Briere.
Apart from Briere and Simmonds, the Flyers lineup boasted another pair of up-and-coming “young vets” in Jakub Voracek and van Riemsdyk. Voracek established himself as a solid two-way player over the course of the season and the team’s best puck-holder on the boards after Jagr (his mentor and childhood idol). He quietly posted 18 goals – a new career-high – and 49 points.
While van Riemsdyk suffered through a disappointing campaign on the heels of a dominating playoff run last spring, he was on a 30-goal pace early in the season prior to the onset of a series of significant injuries from November onward.
4. Bryzgalov delivers down the stretch
The 2011-12 season was an uneven and often frustrating one for Ilya Bryzgalov in the first season of his lucrative nine-year contract with the Flyers. He played by far his best sustained stretch of hockey in the month of March, winning the NHL’s First Star of the Month award.
In March, Bryzgalov went 10-2-1 with a 1.43 goals-against average and .947 save percentage. He won his first seven starts of the month and became the first Flyer to pick up four shutouts in a five-game span. Bryzgalov recorded three consecutive shutouts (March 8-13) to set a new franchise record with a 249:43 shutout streak. In total, he allowed two goals or fewer in 11 of his 13 starts.
A chip fracture in his right foot sustained during pregame warmups of the Flyers’ March 26 game against the Tampa Bay Lightning forced the big Russian netminder out of action for the next week following the Tampa game. He played in two of the final three games of the regular season, playing well in a 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres in the last home game of the campaign.
Goaltending and team defense are closely related to one another. When one is sufficiently strong, it helps to elevate the other. Likewise when one springs a leak for too long, the other is eventually dragged down with it. With that in mind, Bryzgalov’s statistical splits this year reveal a lot both about his own performance and the defensive play of the entire team during the regular season.
Bryzgalov started 34 games that the Flyers win during the regular season. In these matches, he posted a sterling 1.81 goals against average, .936 save percentage and five shutouts. He also made 25 appearance (23 starts) in games the team lost. In those tilts, Bryzgalov had a 3.44 GAA and .864 save percentage. The Togliatti native also posted a shutout in a 0-0 game against the New York Islanders that ended in a shootout defeat.
5. Fast start, strong finish
The Flyers opened the season with an extremely difficult slate of games, which included an opening night road meeting with the defending Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins and the home opener against last year’s other Cup finalist, the Vancouver Canucks. Philly won both of those games in regulation en route to posting a respectable 6-4-1 record while getting a variety of new players acclimated to Peter Laviolette’s system.
Historically, the Flyers’ strongest months of the regular season have been in November and/or December and the weakest months in January and/or February. They held true to form this year, going a combined 16-6-3 in November and December before stumbling to a combined 12-11-3 over the next two months.
As the stretch run hit in March and April, the Flyers surged to a 13-3-2 finish. This included an 11-3-2 performance in the month of March. Overall, the club was exceptionally strong when playing on the road but a little weaker-than-hoped on home ice. For the second straight year, the Flyers won 25 games on the road, equaling the franchise record.
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Thank you to WHYY for having me on as a guest on Dave Heller's
NewsWorks Tonight program to preview the Flyers-Penguins series. We taped my segment yesterday afternoon.
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