FLYING INTO THE OLYMPIC BREAK
It wasn't the prettiest or best-played of games, but the Philadelphia Flyers did just enough to skate off with a 2-1 win over the Calgary Flames at the Wells Fargo Center yesterday afternoon. Ray Emery authored 32 saves, making a second-period goal by Brayden Schenn and a third-period deflection goal by Scott Hartnell hold up for the regulation victory.
Philadelphia played a generally solid opening 20 minutes in a scoreless first period. Their commitment to skating and puck support deteriorated in the middle stanza after Schenn gave them the lead. The team was also a little too reliant on Emery to get them through the latter portion of the third period. A late goal by Matt Stajan ended Emery's shutout bid but Calgary never found the equalizer.
The Flyers got outshot by a 25-12 margin over the final 40 minutes of the game. Calgary is one of the bottom teams in the NHL and struggles to put pucks into the net, but is a hard-working squad that came into yesterday's game with six wins in its previous seven games.
Ideally, Philly would have sustained its all-around game to a comparable level to what the team showed against Colorado (especially in the second period) on Thursday and during the recent West Coast trip. That was not the case.
By nature of the lengthy schedule break, however, there's nothing good or bad from yesterday's match that can roll over into the team's next game. With the team dispersing for Olympic play and vacations, there was nothing from yesterday to be worked on in practice in upcoming days.
At the end of yesterday's game, all that really mattered was taking two points into the break. The Flyers accomplished that goal, largely thanks to Emery.
Calgary is still a team that lacks much in the way of finishers. The Flames had a lot of good looks at the net yesterday but didn't do much with the opportunities. Apart from the many good saves that Emery made to thwart the Calgary shooters, the Flames also missed the net on 18 attempted shots; many of which from good shooting angles. Meanwhile, the Flyers' skaters also blocked another 18 shots.
Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds were the Flyers' two most effective forwards over the course of the game. Along with linemate Vincent Lecavalier, they generated speed on the attack and also forechecked effectively.
Flames goaltender Reto Berra (21 saves) played a strong game in net in a losing effort. He took away everything in the lower part of the net, including several excellent stops on both Schenn and Simmonds in the opening period.
Finally, at 8:04 of the second period, Schenn elevated a shot through a Lecavalier screen to give the Flyers the first goal of the game. Simmonds and Andrej Meszaros received the assists on Schenn's 15th goal of the season.
At 4:04 of the third period, the Flyers got some insurance. Jakub Voracek got just enough of a puck sliding around the right side half boards to get the disc to nearby Claude Giroux. The Flyers captain fired at the net and the shot deflected off Hartnell past Berra. Initially, Giroux was credited with the goal but the official scoring was changed shortly after the game.
Emery took it the rest of the way. Stajan scored from the slot with 2:26 left in the third period. Calgary coach Bob Hartley pulled Berra for an extra attacker in the final minute, but there was no further scoring for either side.
Winners of four games in a row and five of their last six, the Flyers head into the Olympic break with a 30-23-6 record and 66 points. The Flyers are in third place in the Metropolitan Division, one point behind the New York Rangers.
The Columbus Blue Jackets (63 points, one game in hand), Washington Capitals (63 points), Carolina Hurricanes (61 points, two games in hand) and New Jersey Devils (61 points) all remain within striking distance. Only the last-place New York Islanders (52 points in 60 games played) are far in the rear-view mirror.
After each of the last two games, Flyers coach Craig Berube put out a public message to his players who are not going to Sochi that it will be their responsibility to keep up their conditioning and be both physically and mentally ready to go when the team reconvenes.
Berube said that he plans to hold several days of high-tempo (i.e., skating-intensive) practice before the schedule resumes on Feb. 27 when the San Jose Sharks come to town. The coach also cautioned that there is no significant advantage to playing a home-heavy schedule now that a pair of six-game road trips and a three-game California trip are done.
In the meantime, five Flyers players -- forwards Jakub Voracek (Czech Republic) and Michael Raffl (Austria) as well as defensemen Kimmo Timonen (Finland), Mark Streit (Switzerland) and Andrej Meszaros (Slovakia) will depart today for the Olympics in Sochi.
SUNDAY QUICK HITS
* Claude Giroux finished the last four games heading into the Olympic break with three goals and seven points. He leads the NHL in scoring over the last eight weeks.
* Flyers defenseman Nicklas Grossmann missed the third period of the game yesterday with an upper-body injury, believed to be a minor shoulder issue. According to the coach, the player will be fine and he was held out of the latter part of the game for precautionary reasons.
Roughly a half-hour after the game, Grossmann held court in the locker room with a group of family and friends visiting from Sweden. He seemed OK.
* Meszaros returned to the lineup yesterday after sitting out the previous game as a healthy scratch when Kimmo Timonen returned to the lineup. Erik Gustafsson, whose ice time was cut to 13:28 in the Colorado game, was a healthy scratch yesterday.
Berube said after the game that his plan all along, barring other injuries, was to have Gustafsson and Meszaros split the last two games heading into the break. Personally, I though Gustafsson played very well on the California road trip and pretty well in the Colorado game, too. I had wondered if perhaps he was shaken up by a heavy hit he took in the game against the Avs.
Meszaros played well yesterday, too. He logged 21:24 of ice time and was credited with a pair of hits and three blocks as well as assisting on the first Flyers goal. He was originally credited with the second assist on the latter goal, too, but that was erased by the scoring change.
* For the second straight game, there were two scouts from the Dallas Stars (Les Jackson and Dan O'Brien) in the Wells Fargo Center pressbox. Ditto the Tampa Bay Lightning (Pat Verbeek and Jamie Pushor).
* Over on the Flyers' official site, Anthony San Filippo wrote a piece
defending the value of Grossmann to the Flyers' lineup. I agree with Anthony on this and was going to raise similar points in a blog.
Before Thursday's game, I had a good discussion with an NHL pro scout on the topic of advanced stats. He is old-school in his beliefs. I did not agree with everything he said in terms of painting the new-stats proponents with the same brush but I respect him for his experience and knowledge of the game. He did say some things that I think have merit and are worthy of a productive discussion.
"Hockey isn't math," he said. "In math, if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A must be greater than C. That's not always so in hockey. Hockey is about team play and matchups. You need a mix of players who can do different things for the team."
Ordinarily, I try to stay out of the advanced stats debate. I see a middle ground here. I think it's a positive thing to look at the game from a variety of standpoints -- including puck possession, shot attempts for/against with certain personnel, zone starts, zone finishes, etc -- but I still see value in the tried-and-true observational methods and traditional stats as well as the belief that the game is still primarily team-dependent.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people on both sides of the fence who are dismissive and intolerant of the other side. They talk at each other endlessly, dig in their heels and denigrate others' knowledge of the game. Frankly, it gets tedious.
My personal view is that there is legitimate value to be gained from the "advanced" data. At the same time, there are some interpretive biases on both sides. Some players can look great or terrible on an advanced stat chart but there is still good reason why they don't play more/less often.
Nikolay Zherdev may be not be a good example due to his personal problems and the fact he's a forward, but he was perhaps the ultimate divisive player between the advanced-stats advocates and the traditionalists. From strictly a hockey standpoint, he was a guy whom the advanced stats crusaders loved and with whom coaches -- both in North America and in Russia -- quickly lost patience.
The scout with whom I spoke was of the belief -- and I agree with him on this -- that while teams need their share of mobile puck movers and on defense at least one or two who can contribute on the power play, they also need one or a pair of guys with size and muscle. They may not be fleet of foot or skilled with the puck but their main jobs are to battle down low in the defensive trenches.
"I know [the advanced stats people] hate those big stay-at-home guys and say they have no value in today's game," he said. "Oh really? Pittsburgh won their last Cup with [Rob] Scuderi and [Hal] Gill as regulars in their mix. With all their talented puck guys around the lineup, how have they done in the playoffs since then? Los Angeles had Scuderi and [Willie] Mitchell. You still need those sorts of defensemen in the mix, same as you ever did. Guys like Gill stay in this game year after year for a good reason; the same reason as [Craig] Ludwig did or [Brad] Marsh or [Grant] Ledyard. They block shots. They clear traffic. They force guys to the perimeter. They pin guys to the walls and give their teammates a chance to get the puck. It has value you'll never see on one of their puck possession charts. Every team needs to have some size and muscle on the back end, especially in the playoffs, and that hasn't changed."
I asked him specifically about Grossmann, who was the first NHL defenseman this season to reach the combination of 100 credited blocks and 100 credited hits. The response:
"Yeah, he's that type of player I was just talking about. Big, very strong physically. I know Chief likes him. His goalies would agree, too. That's more important to a team than what [outsiders] think."
As a matter of fact, over the course of Grossmann's NHL career, numerous goalies on his teams -- including both current Flyers goaltenders and former Dallas teammate Kari Lehtonen -- have singled him out as someone who is particularly helpful at canceling out opponents around the net and coming up with blocks when they need them.
I won't go so far as to say one should simply toss out Grossmann's advanced stats, which are poor ones. He definitely needs help from his defensive partner and from supporting forwards to get pucks out of the zone once the puck gets down low. But I also won't toss aside what those on the team and who have worked in the game for many years have to say of about both this player and defensemen of his style. He has liabilities, but he also brings some assets that are not as easy to find as some might believe.
Grossmann had a terrible month of January. So did a lot of Flyers. He has some deficiencies. So do all role-playing defensemen in the league, in one way or another. There is also a good reason why Craig Berube keeps putting his name in the lineup and why his teammates consider him one of their steadiest players.
*********
Click below to follow me on Twitter:
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»