CLEAN-OUT Day ROUNDUP
If someone who follows hockey missed the entire 2014-15 NHL season, this would information enough to describe how the campaign went for the Philadelphia Flyers: the team held its locker clean-out day and exit interviews on April 13. There wasn't much to celebrate as the players and head coach Craig Berube sorted through the rubble of an 84-point season and were asked about where the team goes from here.
In the past, in addition to the holding player exit interviews with the coach and general manager, the locker room was opened to the media one final time. Interviews typically took place in rapid-fire scrums, with the coach and general manager later holding separate formal press conferences upstairs at the Skate Zone.
First-year general manager Ron Hextall changed things around this year. Exit interviews with Berube and Hextall were scheduled at intervals throughout the day, with players arriving at various junctures. Players had individual press conference in the media room upstairs with the head coach going last.
Hextall will not hold his own press conference until Wednesday. However, he did sit down with Jay Greenberg to discuss topics ranging from what he views as the team's biggest needs -- another bonafide top-six forward and a mobile two-way defenseman being atop the list -- as well as the plan to simultaneously contend for a playoff spot and while developing young talent and resisting the urge to trade draft picks and prospects for quick fixes at the NHL level. He also briefly touched on the NHL Draft.
During Monday's press conferences, there was a dual focus to most of the sessions. Half of it was geared toward getting comments on dressing room leadership and Berube's future (most players simply deferred the question to Hextall). The other half consisted of honed-in questions on players' satisfaction with their roles and individual performances as well as their opinions on the causes of the three major areas where things went wrong for the team.
Veteran players and the coach alike were asked to account for: 1) the discrepancy between the team's home (23-11-7) and road (10-20-11) records, 2) the team's tendency to defeat playoff-caliber opposition but lose to non-playoff teams, and 3) the nosedive in the team's penalty-killing (77.1 percent success in 2014-15 after it was 84.8% in 2013-14 and 85.9% the previous year).
Perhaps the most interesting comments of the day came from Jakub Voracek. The All-Star right winger said that he felt the team badly missed Kimmo Timonen's leadership this season; specifically, his voice in the dressing room. While Timonen did not say much in the room, he always had his finger on the pulse of the team. When he had something to say, everyone listened. Timonen said things succinctly and demanded accountability from everyone while simultaneously leading by example on and off the ice.
According to Voracek, this year's team did not have a player who could galvanize the entire room the same way Timonen did. The team had a leadership-by-committee group and many individual players who are self-motivated types who lead by their deeds but not an individual leader on the order to Timonen. Interestingly, Hextall told Greenberg that he felt Voracek himself took enormous strides this season toward becoming that sort of leader.
Both Berube and Hextall share Voracek's opinion that the team's dressing room leadership group needs further development and perhaps the infusion of a veteran leader or two brought in over the off-season. This is part of the reason for the team's home-road discrepancy and the tendency to struggle to win games against clubs at the bottom of the standings.
Interestingly, I had a discussion several weeks ago with former Flyer and HockeyBuzz blogger Brad Marsh about the club's home/road splits and record against playoff/non-playoff teams. I asked Brad what could be at the root of the problem. He had an immediate answer, although he no longer gets regular opportunities to watch the team play.
"When the difference is that big -- home to road, beating the good teams and losing to the bad ones -- that's a leadership issue much more than a talent issue," he said.
Considering that Marshy played over 1,000 games in the NHL and was either the captain or an alternate captain on every team for whom he played, that was an eye-opening comment. That was especially true because it came before Hextall, Berube or any of the players publicly stated that they thought internal leadership in the dressing room needed improvement.
That is not to say that players such as Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Voracek and veteran defenseman Mark Streit are not good leaders. The younger vets are growing into the role, while Streit has certain Timonen-like qualities about him (although he expresses things in a rather soft-spoken way). Nevertheless, the team's mixed results do suggest more leadership help is needed.
One player who craves being part of the leadership group is goaltender Steve Mason. The goalie said he feels he can be part of the solution next season, and wants to do it. When asked during his session, Berube essentially said that he feels goaltenders play too solitary of a position on the ice and have enough to worry about already in playing the toughest position in all of team sports without dividing their focus to worry about everyone else.
For his part, Mason said that he would like to take pride in his 2014-15 season but he can't because the team success did not go along with his strong individual stats. When asked what specific areas in his own game he feels could still improve, he said that he still sees room for improvement when called upon to play both ends of back-to-back games. He also said that he feels it is easier -- both for himself and for any team -- to play at home than on the road, and winning on the road is what truly separates the contending teams from the average ones.
Flyers captain Claude Giroux said that he feels the team is not too far from climbing back on the horse in putting together a respectable road record. He felt that, as the games piled up where there were points within the team's grasp that slipped away, it became a mental hurdle for the team. Thereafter, winnable road games turned into narrow regulation losses or overtime/shootout losses instead of two-point nights.
Simmonds opined that he felt there were too many games, especially early in the season, where the Flyers had control of the match but then panicked when they faced some third-period adversity as the other team made a full-scale push. As a result, the team found ways to turn two points into one or zero.
Something else that separates the contenders from the pretenders in today's NHL is even-strength goal differentials. The teams that win with the consistency the Flyers seek are the ones that more often than not win the battles at even strength. In part, this is because there is much less special teams play nowadays than in past seasons.
There was good news and bad news in the Flyers' even-strength play this past season.
The good news is that the Flyers actually ranked in top one-third of the NHL (ninth overall) for fewest 5-on-5 goals against, yielding 137. That's a reduction of 20 goals compared to the previous season: a mark of significant progress. The bad news: The Flyers had a net drop of 15 even-strength goals compared to 2014-15.
Berube said he felt the team made big strides in its five-on-five play this season, although he conceded that the team has yet to put it all together. The objective, of course, is to produce goals-for numbers at five-on-five similar to their 2013-14 output while also ranking in the top one-third of the league in fewest goals against. Right now, it's still an either/or proposition.
Simmonds agreed with Berube that the team is on the right track in improving at five-on-five and he feels that bodes well for upcoming seasons because its become such a critical part of consistent winning and the team already has a potent power play. Streit, however, said he prefers not to isolate specific areas from the bigger picture.
"You can look at the stats -- even strength, power play, penalty kill -- but all that matters at the end of day is did you win the game," Streit said.
This season, Philly scored a total of 215 goals while yielding 234 across all manpower situations. A year ago, the team scored 236 goals while giving up 235. Since every goal and every goal against counts the same on the scoreboard, Streit is fundamentally right.
For much of the 2014-15 season, the Flyers had eight healthy veteran defensemen. That created a numbers game in which, at various junctures, Michael Del Zotto, Andrew MacDonald or Luke Schenn ended up as healthy scratches along with Carlo Colaiacovo. While the affected players said they understood there was a juggling act for Berube to perform -- with lineup decisions often based on a combination of the opponent and a desire to balance off puck-movers and stay-at-home defenders -- they conceded it was tough on themselves.
MacDonald conceded that his own season was a big disappointment. He said that injuries and struggling returns, self-imposed pressure to live up to his lucrative contract in the first season, and the numbers game on the blueline all weighed on him at times. Schenn said of his own season that he had a little bit of a slow start but otherwise felt he had a solid season.
Del Zotto, a restricted free agent this summer who could become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2016, said that his agent and Hextall have not yet met to discuss a new contract. The player said he very much wants to stay with the Flyers and prefers a multi-year deal but wants a deal that is "fair to both sides." In other words, Del Zotto feels he proved himself on his one-year discount contract after being discarded by the Rangers and Predators last year. Now he wants to get paid. Pre-empting one or more years of unrestricted free agency will raise his cap hit significantly above a one-year deal where he has the freedom to test the open market in the summer.
Impending unrestricted free agent Ryan White gave the most emphatic endorsement of Berube of any of the players interviewed yesterday, although Simmonds gave a pretty solid endorsement in his own right by saying he felt Berube was a player's coach who made expectations clear and let players know where they stood. White said he loves playing for Berube and is very appreciative of the opportunities Berube gave him upon his return from a torn pectoral muscle that cost him the first half of the season. White said he strongly prefers returning to the Flyers if a new deal can be worked out.
Vincent Lecavalier's unhappiness with his role on the team -- playing wing instead of center, sitting out frequently as a healthy scratch and starting on the fourth line instead of the second or first -- has been a poorly kept secret for a long time. It is not his style to rock the boat. Yesterday, however, Lecavalier said as respectfully but as clearly as he could that he does not want to return next season if Berube is back as coach. While he left the door open to being willing to stay if there is a coaching change he considers favorable, Lecavalier also made it fairly clear that he prefers starting with an entirely clean slate.
In terms of Berube's job security, there were no new revelations nor are there likely to be in the immediate future. Hextall planned to meet with Berube after talking with all the players and gave no hint of a timetable to make decisions. That is understandable, but it is unfair to Berube and the assistant coaches to keep them in limbo while waiting to see who else may become available.
Last summer, both Hextall and Berube heavily emphasized a rigorous conditioning program for each and every player, demanding they report to training camp in the best shape of their respective careers. Hextall specifically said that he felt this was going to pay dividends in avoiding a slow start to the season and, over the balance of the year, expediting shift-to-shift recoveries, reducing third-period fatigue, and performing well in the second half of back-to-back games.
At training camp, both Berube and Hextall expressed satisfaction that the players took their programs to heart and came to camp in outstanding condition. Berube said on clean-out day last spring that he wanted players to come into camp in exceptional condition, not just "good shape."
For some players, the intense exercise and diet regulation reaped benefits. Voracek, for example, said that he physically held up great this season and plans to follow a similar off-season regimen after playing for the Czech national team in the 2015 IIHF World Championships.
However, on a team-wide basis, it is hard to argue that it made a difference in on-ice results. I revisited this issue with Berube during his press conference and asked if he was satisfied that last summer's conditioning program produced the desired results and should simply be replicated.
Berube said that it's never good to be satisfied, especially after a season where the team misses the playoffs. He felt that players need to push themselves even harder over the summer on every possible front, including their conditioning programs.
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TUESDAY QUICK HITS
* Sean Couturier said that he does not want to be viewed as "just" a shutdown defensive center and wants to be a two-way contributor who produces 50-plus points per season. Berube reiterated that he feels it is making excuses for the player to entirely attribute his slower-than-hoped offensive development to the player's defensive responsibilities.
* Mark Streit said that he planned to talk to Ron Hextall before making a decision on playing in the IIHF World Championships.
* Steve Mason was contacted by Hockey Canada about playing in the Worlds. However, Hextall told the player he does not want him to go due to his knee issue this season.
* Mason said that he ideally would like to start between 60 an 65 games next season. Although he missed well over a month's worth of time due to his back and knee-related absences this season, based on usage when available, he was actually on pace to exceed 65 games.
* Mason said that he regards the continued lack of respect he gets around the league -- from NBC's Mike Milbury calling him a run-of-the-mill goaltender and Jeremy Roenick saying the Flyers need an upgrade on someone who ranked third in the league in save percentage to Pierre LeBrun
excluding him from the top nine candidates worthy of Vezina Trophy consideration -- as motivation heading into the offseason.
* At the Colorado Avalache's clean-out day in Denver, former Flyers forward Danny Briere said that he is mulling retirement this summer. HockeyBuzz's Rick Sadowski was on hand and
spoke to Briere about his future.
* Former Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov was at the Skate Zone late yesterday afternoon. He was there with his hockey-playing son. However, Bryz did joke to Philadelphia Inquirer writer Sam Carchidi that he's free and available to fill the vacant goaltending coach spot with the Flyers.
* WHL Playoffs: The Calgary Hitmen took a two games to one lead in their second round series with the Medicine Hat Tigers after earning a 5-4 regulation win on Game Three in Tuesday. Flyers 2014 first-round pick Travis Sanheim led the way with a power play goal and two power play assists. One of the assists in particular was a dandy. Sanheim was a minus-two at even strength in the game, and was partially culpable for one of the two goals. Flyers 2014 sixth-round pick Radel Fazleev did not record a point in this game.
* AHL: The Lehigh Valley Phantoms take on the Hershey Bears on Tuesday night at the PPL Center. Thereafter, the club has three games remaining (two on the road before the season finale at home on Sunday) in its 2014-15 season.
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