The Flyers have signed free agent goaltender Niko Hovinen to a three-year entry level contract. The 23-year-old was originally a fifth round (132nd overall) draft pick by the Minnesota Wild in 2006 but never signed with the club.
The 6-foot-7 Hovinen is a player who has intrigued NHL scouts for years. Although he is not nearly as polished as Pekka Rinne (or Rinne's current understudy Anders Lindbäck), there are some who have said he has a similar upside if he can harness his abilities. He had been very slow to develop until recently.
Under the tutelage of Pasi Nurminen, Hovinen took a major step forward this season in Finland. Despite playing for a bad Pelicans Lahti team, he posted a 2.74 GAA, .920 save percentage and 3 shutouts in 48 games. In relegation play, he was unbeatable against the low-grade opposition, posting a pair of shutouts in 4 starts and stopping 95 percent of the shots he faced overall. A goalie who does not mind handling the puck, he registered his first SM-Liiga assist this year. He had four during his junior days in the Jokerit system.
Helsinki native Hovinen served as the third-string goalie for the gold medal winning Finnish team at the recently completed IIHF World Championships in Slovakia. He did not dress in any games.
Hovinen remains somewhat raw in his game according to at least one European scout. He is still learning to stay on top of his mechanics. But, at 23, there is no denying the upside if the huge and lanky goalie continues to progress. There is also no denying his athletic pedigree. His father and mother were both Olympic track and field athletes. Seppo Hovinen represented Finland in javelin. Mother Ulla set a still-existent national record in discus and placed fourth in the women's discuss event at the 1984 Summer Olympics Los Angeles.
Hovinen is slated to spend the 2011-12 season in Finland before joining the Flyers the following season. He is likely to attend the Flyers' summer prospect camp before returning to Europe.
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The NHL has
suspended Flyers forward Dan Carcillo for the first two games of the 2011-12 regular season as a result of his actions after the first period of Game 4 of the Flyers- Bruins series.
During intermission, Carcillo instigated a confrontation outside the official's locker room. He then continued to verbally assault linesman Brian Murphy near the Flyers' player bench prior to the start of the second period.
Carcillo is a restricted free agent this summer. The suspension applies no matter where he plays next season.
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One of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the Flyers' 2010-11 season is what happened to the team's power play. After posting 20 percent-plus success ratios in each of the three previous seasons -- as well as during the team's run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final -- Philadelphia's power play slipped to16.6 percent (19th in the league) during this year's regular season and 14.3 percent in the playoffs.
During the Flyers' first-round playoff series against the Sabres, the team went 5-for-35 (14.3 percent). This included several failed two-man advantages. Against Boston in the second round, Philly had an identical 14.3 conversion percentage, going 2-for-14. I guess you could say at least the Flyers were consistent in one regard in the postseason.
It should be noted that Philly scored three PPGs over the final two games of the Buffalo series. As one would expect, the Flyers looked considerably better on the man advantage in the games with Chris Pronger available (despite the weakness in his surgically repaired right hand) than the ones he missed.
But the long-term absence of Pronger alone does not fully explain why the team's power play was so unreliable after November. Even when the club was winning and Pronger was in the lineup, the Flyers generally won games on the strength of their five-on-five play this season.
The Flyers had trouble getting point shots on net with any consistency this season, especially when Pronger wasn't there. Kimmo Timonen struggled on the power play, as did Matt Carle. Andrej Meszaros has a booming shot and looked good at times manning one of the points but he is not a power play quarterback type. On the occasions when Mike Richards (who had success on the point in the past) was asked to run a point, the effect was negligible at best.
In the meantime, there were far too many times this season where the Flyers forwards didn't keep their feet moving. If someone couldn't carry the puck into the zone, Philly rarely were able to dump the puck in, get it back on the forecheck and then get set up. They often made life easy on the opposing PK box or triangle, especially since there was wasn't enough traffic in front to create screens and deflections or get to rebounds if a point shot did get through.
The Flyers' lack of a true power forward who thrives at collecting the garbage in front -- a need that has existed since the departure of Mike Knuble -- did not really hurt the club in 2009-10.
A season ago, the point men kept the D honest and the presence of some slick passers (such as Claude Giroux, Ville Leino and Richards) often created good looks at the net for players like Danny Briere, Simon Gagne or Jeff Carter. Add these play in with with whatever someone like Scott Hartnell and even sometimes Pronger or Dan Carcillo was able to deflect in or stash in from near the crease, and it added up to a power play that was able to live without a winger like Knuble setting up shop on the doorstep.
This year, though, the finesse goals were just not there often enough, because the point presence and the power threat near the crease were insufficient to open up the ice. To me, those were the biggest reasons why the Flyers' power play took such a major downturn this year despite the fact that, minus Gagne, it was largely the same collection of players that had success in the regular season and/or postseason a year ago.
There are at least two other common theories floating around on why the power play was so unreliable this season:
1) It was power play coach Joe Mullen's fault. Mullen has often gotten a large share of credit for why the Flyers had power play success in recent years, so perhaps it figures that he'd receive blame when it went awry this season. I do not think coaching really had much to do with what happened this year, especially if you believe that Mullen helped the team improve in the recent past. The players are the ones responsible for executing the fundamentals the team had excelled at in previous years -- gaining control, getting good puck movement with at least some sort of traffic, creating chances from different angles (from the point, moving in off the half-boards or from behind the net) and then actually finishing off a significant percentage of these chances.
2). It was Peter Laviolette's fault for juggling combinations too often. This was apparently an internal complaint the Flyers' players' had this season, voiced publicly by captain Mike Richards in the latter part of the season. There may have been some validity to it -- it's hard to get into a rhythm when people are constantly being shuffled in and out of the two five-man units. On the other hand, if a coach simply sits on his hands while his team fails miserably time and again to generate more than one decent scoring chance during its power plays -- if they get even one good look at all -- he's also going to get criticized.
Accountability starts with looking in the mirror when things don't go according to plan. If a player isn't happy with the flip-flopping of power play units, the top guys need to produce more chances to get extra ice time and create a more well-defined unit. Same thing with the guys aren't getting on the power play at all. Skate harder and play the right way at five-on-five and they may be rewarded with power play time.
Moving ahead to next season, it would be nice if the Flyers could add a power forward to the top nine. James van Riemsdyk is not really a John LeClair, Tim Kerr or Mike Knuble type of player on the power play, although he can show similar capabilities at times. Scott Hartnell tries his best but he is at most a secondary option. Unfortunately, I don't foresee this need being addressed this offseason because of the club's salary cap situation and the need for a goaltender.
As a result, the Flyers in 2011-12 will probably have to find ways to replicate what they did the previous season to work around the issue. They will need a healthier Pronger and Timonen and better execution all the way around.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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