MELTZER'S MUSINGS: APRIL 5, 2016
1) The Philadelphia Flyers resume practice on Tuesday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ at 11 a.m. EDT. Their magic number for a playoff spot holds at six; meaning any combination of points Philadelphia gains in its final four games plus points that the odd-team-out (currently the Boston Bruins by one point) fails to gain in its final three games.
While every game is crucial at this point, Wednesday night's game in Detroit is arguably the most important of the four games remaining on the Flyers' schedule because the Flyers and Red Wings are currently tied in points and the Flyers need to strengthen their hand in the event Boston finds a way to surpass Detroit in the final standings.
The ideal scenario would be for Boston to lose in regulation on Tuesday, the Flyers to beat the Red Wings on the road in regulation on Wednesday and then beat the Maple Leafs at the Wells Fargo Center by any means on Thursday (or for the Red Wings to beat the Bruins).
That would be the quickest route to the playoffs for the Flyers, and would take the weekend back-to-back against Pittsburgh (home) and the New York Islanders (road) out of the equation. The Islanders beat Tampa Bay to move four points ahead of the Flyers on Monday in the battle for the higher wildcard seed, so New York has the spot virtually sewn up at this point.
The Bruins host the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, in a battle of teams that have only won three of their respective last 10 games. The Canes are out of the playoffs but have a chance to do severe damage to the Bruins' postseason hopes as well.
A Boston loss in regulation would cut the Flyers' magic number to four, while an overtime or shootout loss would shave the number to five for the Flyers but pull the Bruins into a points tie with the Red Wings and Flyers.
A Flyers win against Detroit would break the points between the teams, potentially (if the Flyers win in regulation or overtime) even up the ROW tiebreaker in the event Detroit pulls even again in points in their final game and secure the secondary tiebreaker of head-to-head record.
Yesterday, Philadelphia Inquirer beat writer Sam Carchidi got clarification from the NHL as to how the ambiguously worded secondary tiebreaker works -- and it is not currently good news for the Flyers. Even though the Flyers have won each of the first two meetings of the season and have four points in the two games to one for Detroit, they have NOT clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker of most points in the head-to-head. Because there were two games played in Detroit to just one in Philadelphia, the first game played at the Joe (a 2-1 shootout win on Jan. 17) will be tossed out for tiebreaker purposes. It makes zero sense but that's the rule.
The tertiary tiebreaker is goal differential. The Flyers' edge in that category narrowed with the 6-2 pasting they took in Pittsburgh on Sunday, but they still have that advantage.
The best news for the Flyers at this point is that they control their own fate. If they win three of their final four, it doesn't matter what anyone else does. They'd be in the playoffs. But a little help from Bruins opponents and the Flyers stepping up in their next two games would be the most painless way to get it done. Lose in regulation to Detroit and things would get very messy.
2) Andrew MacDonald has already been ruled out for Wednesday's game in Detroit with an upper-body injury (suspected to be a potential concussion). Evgeny Medvedev will re-enter the lineup. In certain games this season, Medvedev has played at a very high level. He has lacked consistency, however, especially in his own zone.
The advanced stats and the "hit somebody!" segments of the fan base -- diametrically opposite in many ways -- both tend to despise MacDonald for different reasons. Nevertheless, the player has been useful since his return from salary cap-related exile to the American Hockey League in a couple of different ways. First of all, while not infallible from turnovers, he usually makes a good first pass and has some mobility. Secondly, he's a good shot blocker. Like it or not, shot blocking takes on added emphasis this time of year.
My assessment of MacDonald is that he is an above-average positional defender in his own zone. He usually has good stick and body position on his man. In the offensive zone, he's adequate at the NHL level (above-average at the AHL level) to chip in a few points.
His main weakness is in the neutral zone to his own blueline. He has a tendency to give up real estate and retreat, even when there is some back-pressure from the forwards. As a result, the Flyers give up quite a few controlled entries on his side of the ice or dump-ins to his corner with a head of steam on the forecheck.
That's where much of his unsightly Corsi/Fenwick stems but the team also does not hemorrhage goals against, especially when he's not put into a shutdown role against top lines.
Medvedev tends to be more of a risk-taker in the neutral zone and the blueline. When it works, it means a lot more puck-possession time for the Flyers. When it doesn't, it often means he gets on the wrong side of the puck and a high quality scoring chance results. There are also times in his own zone where he reverts to something that works better on the big-rink game; throwing the puck sideways under pressure. On the international rink, it's a safer play because the boards are further away from the net.
Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol seemed enamored with Medvedev during training camp but the player increasingly fell out of favor, despite stretches of good games. Ultimately, I think Hakstol is like most coaches in that he wants consistency from a player's game so that it's easier to assign him a role and manage around it. At times, Medvedev has been very solid in all three zones. At other times he's been an offensive non-factor while doing more harm than good elsewhere with his level of risk-taking. MacDonald tends to play the safer and more predictable game, for better and for worse.
For what it's worth, without much prompting, Hakstol said that MacDonald's overall play has been a "signficant asset" and a couple of teammates said that he's been an unsung part of the reason why the team withstood the loss of Michael Del Zotto. For months, Hakstol has been much more measured in his response whenever asked about Medvedev. He doesn't criticize the player publicly (except for a single early-season statement that he wanted to see Medvedev compete a little better in his own zone) but he also doesn't issue much praise.
Agree or disagree all you want, and point to any stat you'd like, but the perception by the coach and among the core of the team seems to be that MacDonald has been a better-fitting piece of the puzzle since Del Zotto went down than using Medvedev as the alternative. Lastly, a secondary part of that may have to do with the fact that Shayne Gostsibehere is still a rookie and Medvedev's English remains limited.
Personally, I'd have liked to have seen Medvedev get a little more leeway this season to work through his consistency issues -- perhaps he could have played his way through them rather than stretches of being in and being out of the lineup. I will also say that he has a great opportunity in the final week of the season (and possibly in the playoffs) to make some good things happen at the biggest time of year.
Medvedev has done that at times this season -- in particular, Medvedev's game in New York over Thanksgiving weekend was one of the best two-way performances by any Flyers defenseman this season or last, and it came with the Flyers playing shorthanded on the blueline. Now the Flyers need him to do it again.
3) It is too little and too late for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms to get themselves in the playoffs, but they are suddenly a much more formidable-looking team in the final two weeks of the season. For one thing, the club finally broke through its prolonged losing skid that ended any hopes of a playoff spot. They've played well lately. Secondly, the addition of multiple Flyers prospects, can only help in the final couple weeks. Oskar Lindblom has looked strong in his first two AHL games. Reese Willcox, generally more of a puck-mover and positional defender, has already scored his first pro-level goal. Now Travis Sanheim, Radel Fazleev and Nicolas-Aube Kubel will be added to the Lehigh Valley lineup.
Overall, this has been a stellar season for the Flyers farm system. With the exception of second-year Phantoms defenseman Robert Hägg and UND freshman goalie Matej Tomek not getting into a single game, most everyone whom the Flyers' organization had high hopes of seeing taking significant strides forward in their development have done just that this season.
A few years ago, folks would have been giddy over Aube-Kubel and collegiate defenseman Mark Friedman. This year, they were almost afterthoughts, despite strong seasons. Even the breakthrough QMJHL season of Philippe Myers and strong final junior season for Radel Fazleev took secondary focus to the excitement over the all-around potential of defenseman Ivan Provorov and the offensive upsides of forward Travis Konecny and defenseman Travis Sanheim.
I will have more to say about the strong year for the development chain in a series of blogs after the season. Hopefully from a Flyers standpoint, that won't be for a while to come, because that would mean there's Stanley Cup playoff hockey to talk about first.
4) Congratulations to the Flyers Alumni for a monstrously successful season of fundraising games for a variety of charities, community services organizations and individuals in need. While the "Orange vs. White" game that sold out Santander Arena in Reading got the most public attention, the nine games overall that the Alumni were involved in from September to this past Sunday raised over $440,000 for a variety of good causes. For a full breakdown,
click here.
Sunday's "Goals for Giving" game at the NE Philadelphia Skate Zone to raise money for NHS Human Services was the fundraising equivalent of an upper-deck grand slam. Both the game and the post-game meet-and-greet were sold out days ahead of the event, and an initial fundraising goal of $125,000 (pretty ambitious in its own right) will be topped by $20K by the time the final public donations and the Alumni Association's own contribution are tabulated. The public and corporate donations alone are already at $133,291 with three days left to
contribute to the campaign.
No doubt the involvement of Danny Briere playing in Goals for Giving this year helped give public interest a spark as did the idea of having multiple Flyers Alumni play on the NHS Blues team side (Brian Propp, Kjell Samuelsson, Todd Fedoruk and Larry Goodenough among them) to make the game more competitive and get more Alumni participants involved. Those things helped put the event over the top but it would have been a success regardless.
The all-Alumni (Team Orange vs. Team White) game in Reading raised $40,000 alone for Reading Royals Charities, with all proceeds staying right in that community. The other $45,000 went to the Flyers Alumni and Flyers Charities.
Over the next year, the Alumni are going to put heavy focus on their $2 million contribution pledge to Snider Hockey, so that's where the Alumni Golf, Fantasy Hockey Camp, the Flyers Alumni vs. Penguins Alumni game at Wells Fargo Center and several yet-to-be-announced events involving public interaction with the Alumni will also help raise money toward that goal.
Keep up the great work, guys!
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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