Today I continue my series that will look at three different categories of teams right now...
#1. The Play-In Matchups
#2. The Teams Already Eliminated
and today we begin #3....
The Top Four Teams in Each Conference...
So let's start that category with the team closest to home for me...The Flyers
Season Review...
When I placed my prediction about how this group would respond to Alain Vigneault and the new staff of "older school" coaches I said that this season would either be an outright disaster or a crazy success....And for the most part you'd have to label this season a success...and a strong success considering that this team finds itself with a playoff bye right now.
I looked around and I couldn't find ANYONE who picked the Flyers to finish in second place in the Metro...
This season has really seen a lot come together while a few major areas of concern were prevalent until even they started to loo a lot brighter during the last few weeks of the season which saw the Flyers go 9-1 and look like world beaters...They ended the season as one of the hottest teams and had they won what turned out to be their final game ( a 2-0 loss to the Bruins) the Flyers would have finished FIRST in the Metro...
What changed this year after a year that saw the Flyers missing the playoffs all-together?
The play of two of their younger players shifted up in a major way...Travis Konecny (who led the Flyers in scoring) and Ivan Provorov, who will one day contend for the Norris, truly found their stride... Meanwhile, Sean Couturier continued to look better and better and is not just a Selke favorite, but truly one of the calmest and most confident players with the puck.. He developed that rare skill among star players of being able to slow the game down around him...Claude Giroux fell off his previous seasons point totals a bit, but Jake Voracek was one of the biggest surprise rebound players, leading many to believe that Hakstol's "don't carry the puck over two lines" system really affected Voracek...
The additions of Kevin Hayes and Mats Niskanen were often criticized, but both players performed up to their potential and both turned into stellar moves for the short-termed at least..
Carter Hart showed at times brilliance and at times that he still has a ways to go, but he did put up some fine numbers...and enough can't be said about backup Brian Elliott, whose numbers aren't as impressive, but who more often than not played well when Hart went down or needed a break. Elliott won some very big games...
The biggest improvement I noticed with these Flyers as the year went on was their starts to games...The Flyers have been terrible game starters for a few years now and that continued into the first 2/3rds of 2019-20....But in the final month or so they came out a lot quicker...
Going into the playoffs...
The round robin....
Against the other three top teams the Flyers went 5-3-1. Tampa has matched up very well against Philly for a few years now...
Boston 2-1
Tampa 0-2
Washington 3-0-1
The Playoffs...
So who should the Flyers want to play?
The Flyers had one of the best records (I haven't worked them all out) when it comes to their regular season matched versus their possible first round opponents...They went 17-5-3 against the teams they could play...with only 1 team, the NY Islanders having a winning record against the Flyers...
Below are the records the Flyers had against their possible opponents...listed in order of best to worst....
vs. CBJ 4-0
vs. NYR 3-0
vs. CAR 3-0-1
vs. TOR 2-0-1
vs. MTL 2-1
vs. FLA 2-1
vs. Pitt: 1-1-1
vs. NYI 0-2-1
So how do you think these Flyers will fare in the playoffs?
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