Meltzer's Musings: Nov. 20, 2016
1) Injury update: Per Ron Hextall, Chris VandeVelde will practice with the team tomorrow at the Skate Zone in Voorhees at 10:30 a.m. before the team departs for its two-game road trip to Sunrise and Tampa Bay, Florida.
2) Saturday afternoon's 3-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning was a bookend of sorts to Thursday's 5-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets. After the first game, a reporter asked Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol about the team being significantly outshot and outchanced by Winnipeg despite the multi-goal victory.
“You don’t get points for outshooting teams," Hakstol said. "That’s the bottom line. I think the last time that we got outshot was probably Detroit maybe here at home. That’s a number of games ago. Our goaltender was good tonight, we scored some timely goals, we battled hard, and that’s a good two points for us. That’s hockey.”
On Saturday, the Flyers had a 70-to-29 shot attempt advantage against the Tampa Bay Lightning and 32-18 in shots on goal advantage. The Lightning also blocked 21 Flyers shots and Philadelphia missed the net -- including on several of their best scoring chances -- on 21 other occasions.
Asked afterward about the disparity, Hakstol recalled his comments of the previous game.
"Like I said the other night, you don’t get points for winning at shot attempts or winning on the shot chart. We did a lot of good things today. This is a tight hockey game against a good team. There were a lot of positives in our game, but as I said, a critical error at the wrong time changes the outcome of the game. ...We didn’t get give up much tonight. [But] that’s the area that I’ll look at and say we can do better in a couple of those areas.”
Hakstol was correct in his assessment of both games. The Flyers were the deserving winner of the Winnipeg game, although goaltender Steve Mason had to bail the team out on several occasions. On Saturday, Tampa was the better team regardless of what the shot attempts might have suggested. The Bolts were content to counterpunch or take advantage of breakdowns off the rush, executed with remarkable precision on all three of their goals and their lead never really seemed in jeopardy.
On Saturday, Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy was brilliant when he had to be. Mason was essentially a non-factor in the game, allowing nothing soft but also not coming up with two rather tough but not impossible stops on a low number of total shots (which can often be much tougher on a goalie than some of the 30-plus shot nights, especially when the most of the few shot he did see were on big-time breakdowns in front of him that would have required a 10-bell save or the shooter making a mistake with net staring at him.
Goaltending did not cost Philly the game on Saturday. The Flyers deserved to be shut out despite their volume of shot attempts. Vasilevskiy was a biggest piece of the puzzle but there was really only one certified 10-bell save required -- a point blank chance for Nick Cousins in the second period where it initially looked there was scant chance at a save. The looks at the net were there quite a few times, but too many shots were fired wide of the net. That does not take anything away from how Vasilevskiy played -- I picked the three stars of the game, and he was a no-brainer choice as first star because his positioning was great, stopped everything that got to him and he looked huge in the net in general.
3) When picking the third star of the game, the only Flyer I considered was Ivan Provorov, who was hands down the best player on the ice for Philadelphia in this game. The rookie has now strung together a few weeks of consistently strong play, especially on the defensive side of the red line. Although the points don't show it -- yet -- his offensive game is starting to come around as well. He's getting shots on net with regularity, making some intelligent pinches (with opportunities growing to do with greater frequency) and his reads have been much more decisive and effective as he's picked up the pace of the NHL game.
Prior to Thursday's game, Hakstol made an interesting observation about Provorov, saying that he could ask the rookie about a given play from a previous game -- even one from weeks earlier -- and Provorov would have instant recall of the sequence. While there were will undoubtedly be some more adjustments to make and he'll endure the occasional hiccup play or bad game, Provorov looks every bit the fast-rising young NHL defenseman the Flyers thought he would be. The rough patch of games in October were a good test for him and he handled the adversity and has been better for it.
Ultimately, Victor Hedman was the choice for third star because of how dominant he was on the penalty kill especially for Tampa -- a huge part in assembling their victory, especially in the first period -- but Provorov had a strong afternoon in his own right.
4) With all the recent focus on the struggles of second-year defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, primarily in his play without the puck although some have focused on how he's found it tougher to create time and space for himself so far in his second season, not much has been said yet about badly Michael Del Zotto has struggled defensively since rejoining the lineup.
The struggle is understandable to a large degree, however. It is exceptionally hard for a player who missed the stretch drive and playoffs last year with a wrist injury that required surgery and then was out until Nov. 5 of this season with a knee injury, to jump right back into the type of responsibilities he was handling last season prior to exiting the lineup due to injury.
Del Zotto's biggest issue so far has been in leaving his feet to try to break up plays and coming up empty. Either a pass has gone right across or else, as Ondrej Palat did on Saturday when Del Zotto made an ill-advised dive was his stick in the circle and the attacker simply cut over the middle (ultimately using Wayne Simmonds as a screen and scoring from the slot).
Del Zotto should return to form at some point, as should Gostisbehere but the Flyers really need it to happen sooner rather than later if the play of the projected upper end of the blueline is going to help the team to push through the hump of hovering around .500 as the team has done all season.
5) Saturday's game was just the second all season in which the Flyers were never tied or led in the third period. To be sitting at 8-8-3 is a disappointment but an improvement over where the Flyers were at the same time last season when they were 6-8-5 through 19 games. The two games in Sunrise and Tampa Bay followed by the Black Friday home matinee against the New York Rangers -- about as tough of a 3-on-4 gauntlet as the team can possibly play -- will be a crossroads as the season nears the quarter pole.
6) The Lehigh Valley Phantoms saw their eight-game winning streak come to an end on Saturday at the hands of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Over on the Flyers' official website, there is a
report on how the Phantoms put together their run, how the key veterans and young players have performed as of late and the outlook moving ahead now that the streak is over. The Phantoms return to action on Wednesday night.
6) Weighing in at five pounds, 14 ounces and spanning 594 lavishly illustrated pages, Jay Greenberg's new book, "The Philadelphia Flyers at 50" is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com and similar sites for December fulfillment and is slated to be available locally for the holiday season. The hard-cover book, of coffee table book size but with a page-turning narrative in Hockey Hall of Fame writer Greenberg (the recipient of the 2013 Elmer Ferguson Award), is symbolically priced at $50. The book should be on shelves beginning week of Nov. 28.
7) Another book that will be of interest to Flyers fans is "Keith the Thief," a memoir of legendary Hockey Hall of Fame enshrined Flyers coach and general manager Keith Allen written by his son, Blake Allen. Containing over 30 sections of memories, insights into and reminiscences about Keith Allen the hockey man, the human being and the father, the book also contains dozens of previously unpublished photographs.
The book will be released on Dec. 10, with a special signing event at the Wells Fargo Center in which Blake will be present to personally sign copies. The Flyers play the powerhouse Dallas Stars in a matinee game.
Yesterday, I received an advance copy of "Keith the Thief" from its publisher, Cedar Tree Books. A review will be forthcoming around the time of its public release. Copies of the book can also be purchased via
for $15 plus shipping.
8) Flyers Alum left winger Todd Fedoruk, who is one of the subjects featured in the highly anticipated warts-and-all "Ice Guardians" documentary on hockey's most misunderstood fraternity posted the following event update on his Twitter page:
9) Speaking of the Flyers Alumni, tomorrow (Nov. 21st) is the day that members of the Flyers Alumni Association will make their 11th annual holiday food delivery to St. Francis Inn in Kensington, helping the facility to once again provide Thanksgiving meals -- turkeys with all the trimmings, fresh produce and more -- to the indigent and homeless members of the community that St. Francis assists on a daily basis. Every day, St. Francis Inn serves upwards of 350 meals to those in need.
The participating Alumni this year include the likes of Brian Boucher, Danny Briere, Terry Carkner, Doug Crossman, Fedoruk, Bob Kelly, Brian Propp, and Brad Marsh; all of whom have been regulars in this tradition of giving. The Alumni themselves help load up the truck of donated food and personally deliver it to St. Francis Inn.
Next month, the Alumni will continue two other annual holiday season traditions; personally serving meals to the homeless men who turn to St. John's Hospice for their most basic of human necessities. The Alumni will also pair up with Cityteam to deliver holiday toys to children of indigent families.
While the Alumni have never done these things with publicity as their primary aim, it is their hope that awareness is raised for the services these outreach programs and facilities provide. However, in addition to having directly raised and donated approximately $10 million for charitable and community organizations -- not including the current $2 million capital campaign to assist Snider Hockey's rink-building project in the Delaware Valley -- the Flyers Alumni are incredibly generous in donating their time as well.
10) In addition to the coming together of an unprecedented roster of on-ice and off-ice Flyers Alumni participants -- topping even the group assembled for the Winter Classic's Alumni Game on New Year's Eve day of 2011 -- there will shortly be an announcement that will be of great interest to Flyers fans from any and every era of team history.
In terms of the Alumni Game against the Penguins Alumni on January 14, the upcoming game will be your one and only chance to see the likes of the LCB Line, the trio of Tim Kerr, Dave Poulin and Brian Propp and the fully intact original Legion of Doom line, as well as the likes of Mark Howe, Eric Desjardins, Danny Briere and many others all on the ice as teammates. Kerr is rarely available for Alumni events, the passage of time means that is the probable final time the trio of Bill Barber, Bob Clarke and Reggie Leach will suit up together, and Mikael Renberg is traveling from Sweden for a second time in less than two months in order to play alongside Eric Lindros and John LeClair.
In the weeks to come, the Flyers Alumni website (FlyersAlumni.org) will have a variety of previews and special features related to the upcoming events, as will the Flyers Alumni's Facebook and Twitter content.
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