QUICK HITS: APRIL 17, 2018
1) The Philadelphia Flyers players had an off-day on Monday. On Tuesday, the team will practice at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ, in preparation for Game 3 of their first-round series with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Tuesday's practice is slated to start at 11 a.m.
The Flyers will hold a morning skate at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday at the customary 10:30 a.m. start time. Game 4 is a critical swing match that will mean the difference between going back to Pittsburgh on Friday tied at 2-2 in the series or down 3-1 and facing elimination.
2) There is no denying that Claude Giroux has yet to have his "A" game in the series against the Penguins. It's also true, however, that he's been a little bit unlucky at times.
In Game 3, he collected a Kris Letang giveaway and had Michael Raffl set up at point blank range. Raffl tipped the puck wide of the net. Later, Giroux used Nolan Patrick and a defenseman as a screen and fired a shot on net on which Matt Murray made a tougher-than-routine save.
Many folks fail to recognize just how razor thin the margin is in hockey between success and failure. Things can turn on a single play. If either or both of the aforementioned plays go in the net -- through no different actions by Giroux himself, but rather by a teammate directing the ouck on net instead of wide or a fractional miscalculation by the opposing goalie on an underrated tough save -- then suddenly the stories would have "Giroux steps up big again" rather than "Giroux disappeared." Points equal perception. It's just the way it is.
Thing is: Even if Giroux had an assist, a goal or a two-point day, the reason why it is fair to say that he hasn't been at his best is that he really hasn't had the puck on his stick in the series nearly as much as he does when he's at the top of his game. The Penguins have been very much focused on preventing that, and the line as a whole needs to adjust to that.
I thought there were some steps taken in that direction in Game 3, especially in the first period but also during the rare stretch of five-on-five play late in the second period after the Travis Sanheim goal that finally got the Flyers on the board. There were some chances to get the deficit back to two goals, which still would have been a mountain to climb, but totally not out of the realm of possibility. Being still down by three heading into the third was mission impossible.
Giroux attempted 10 shots in Game 3. Four were on net, one got blocked and five -- including one where he had a good look at the net and absolutely needed to at least force Murray to make a save -- went wide. The misses were excessive but at least the opportunities were there. He had four shot attempts in Game 2 (one on net, one blocked, two misses) and five attempts in game one (two on net, one blocked, two misses).
3) Dave Hakstol spoke to the media on Monday about a variety of topics related to the series. He said that he was undecided about whether there would be any line combination or personnel changes for Game 4. Tuesday's practice combinations will be interesting to see.
4) Hakstol noted on Monday that the Penguins have done a very good job in the series of layering their defenses when the Flyers get the puck in their zone. That is something the Flyers must better handle to win in Game 4.
Even in the dominating first period of Game 3, Philly got blocked a dozen times against the 11 they put on goal. Not a single puck bounce off a blocked shot or rebound went the Flyers' way but that probably would have turned for the better if the Flyers had sustained it for more than 20 minutes.
"When you look at the way they play defensively, it’s not just the first layer. They’re a team that layers and it makes it tough to get pucks to the net. Part of it is that movement, but against anybody, not just this year but you’ve seen it the last couple years, if you’re completely reliant on low-to-high plays and outside shots, it’s hard to generate offense in the league," Hakstol said.
"We’ve consistently been at the net. I don’t think that’s been the issue. It’s more so possession in the offensive zone. They defend quick. They get five guys around the puck defensively really quick and they do a good job, so you’ve got to be sharp there. For me it hasn’t been getting traffic to net front. I think we’ve been there, but we haven’t consistently gotten enough pucks there when we have the traffic."
The Penguins' runs of extended puck possession, especially in Games 1 and 2, has also been a factor in lessening the exposure of Pittsburgh's so-so blueline corps. When the Flyers have been able to attack off the rush -- think of Travis Konecny's goal in Game 2 after beating Chad Ruhwedel wide on a counterattack and then cutting in on net or of Nolan Patrick abusing Olli Määttä one-on-one and nearly scoring early in Game 3 -- they've had some success.
There just haven't been enough opportunities to it. With the exception of the first period of Game 3, the Penguins have had the puck too much. Even when the Flyers get the puck out of their own zone, it's often been in situations where the only thing they can do is get the puck to a safe area for a line change and then try to stifle the next wave in timely enough fashion to try to generate some push of their own.
Hakstol has said several times in recent days that the Flyers need to be better with the puck in a variety of areas. He hasn't gotten into specifics -- saying he "doesn't want to get into strategy" in public, even in generic terms.
At various times, though, the team issues with the puck have included struggles to generate clean breakouts or accurate passes a little further up ice, too many lost 50-50 puck battles (an area in which Oskar Lindblom, normally one of his strengths, has really struggled), too many one-and-done forays into the offensive zone and too many perimeter shots that don't get through the Pittsburgh defenses.
The first period of Game 3 was the first truly extended stretch where the Flyers were the team stringing together multiple shifts of territorial control. Thereafter, the Flyers shot themselves repeatedly in the foot with a slew of penalties. Most of the penalties were of the needless and careless variety.
5) Hakstol dissected the penalties after Game 3, and expanded slightly on the topic on Monday. He reiterated that he didn't think Giroux deserved a stick-slashing penalty early in the second period -- the Penguins turned it into the goal that made it 2-0 -- but the other ones were justified and preventable.
"I thought the call on G, and that was a critical power play goal for them… I still don’t think that was a penalty, but at the speed of the game, things get called. G tapped his stick, the stick comes out of his hand and that’s one that when that happens a lot of times it gets called. But my point is, beyond that, I thought they were penalties. We had our sticks where they shouldn’t be and we also took a too many men on the ice penalty. Again, that is what it is, whether it’s regular season or three games into the playoffs," Hakstol said.
For the record, I personally felt that every one of the penalties called on the Flyers in periods 2 and 3 -- including the stick slash, which is a virtually automatic call if it breaks a stick, knocks it from the recipient's hands or there's an obvious chop -- was the correct call.
However, Giroux's infraction is the type of thing that will come up sometimes when trying to play defense (especially against Sidney Crosby). The other stick infractions the Flyers committed were atrocious.
Game 3 was lost when Jakub Voracek's careless stick use put the Flyers down on a 4-on-3 penalty kill, which Evgeni Malkin cashed in on a scorching shot that Brian Elliott had little chance of stopping. Back at 4-on-4, the Penguins scored again five seconds later. Now the still-manageable 2-0 deficit was a 4-0 crater. On top of that, the crowd energy disappeared after the house had been rocking.
6) Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott is normally a team-first, standup guy who is the first to admit when there's a stoppable goal that gets past him. I was disappointed in his postgame response to a question about the Brian Dumoulin goal that made it 4-0.
“We can’t get beat off of a neutral zone draw like that and have a guy walking down Main Street. It’s just another thing that I don’t think we were ready for right off the draw there," Elliott said.
Yes, Giroux cleanly lost the center-ice faceoff to Crosby, who went straight forward after working the puck through Giroux. No, the two forwards on the ice weren't very good in the way they came back into the defensive zone, with both defensemen occupied (Shayne Gostisbehere was tight to his man and Travis Sanheim had to play off enough to cut off a potential Crosby lane toward the net).
However, the clear-sighted Dumoulin shot (i.e., Elliott was unscreened) came from the left circle above the faceoff dot and near the upper hash mark. It's an area where goals are sometimes scored but mostly if it's a perfect shot, or if there's a moving screen or deflection. Otherwise, it's a save the goalie has to make more than 90 percent of the time.
Dumoulin's shot itself wasn't some laser beam that picked a corner. The shot beat Elliott, who had come out to challenge, right through a gaping five hole. Lastly, let's be honest here in saying that Dumoulin (7 career goals in 243 regular season games, 4 goals in 57 playoff matches) isn't exactly Brent Burns or Shea Weber pinching to that shooting area.
I wasn't surprised or upset that Elliott talked about the breakdowns on the front end of the play. That was fair and accurate. To just leave it at that and not add something like "the bottom line, though, is I needed to stop that shot and I didn't" was akin to absolving himself while pointing the finger at his teammates. Hopefully, once he had a chance to rewatch the play, Elliott realized the goal was just as much his fault as that of the team around him, and said so accordingly to his teammates.
Again, Elliott is almost unfailingly a stand-up guy in situations such as these. I was really surprised by his response. That's not usually his MO. That would be like Raffl ignoring his own egregious turnover that started the first Pittsburgh goal sequence and saying instead, "We can't have our goalie overplay it so much near the post and then get beat on the wraparound."
Elliott is a human being and, no doubt, he was speaking from frustration. The rest of his answers in his Sunday postgame were also reflective of a disappointed competitor who hadn't yet shifted -- he was a bit on the brusque and snippy side with a lot of "If I knew that answer, it wouldn't have happened in the first place" type of responses to questions about how the game got away after such a good start What's odd, though, is that he's normally pretty quick to decompress and present in a very even-keeled way whether it's after a win or loss.
Chalk it up to a bad day, both on the ice and afterwards. It's just not the norm for him. A big part of the reason why Elliott is so well-respected in the locker room is that he had never thrown anyone under the bus, even during the 10-game winless skid where he was individually playing well but the team around him was either scoring one goal too few or having one breakdown too many where an unstoppable goal resulted.
7) Side note to the 4-on-4 goal by Penguins: It was a pretty bold move by the supposedly ultra-conservative Hakstol to put Sanheim and Gostisbehere out as a pairing in that situation. The Flyers needed a quick offensive response to get the goal back. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh scored again five seconds later for reasons having nothing to do with the defensemen out for that particular shift.
On the flip side, Hakstol deserved the second-guessing he received for not calling a regrouping timeout with the score, 3-0, and the teams about to return to 4-on-4 play. At that point, you can't worry about preserving the timeout for a hypothetical goalie interference or offside challenge later in the game. Hakstol, to his credit, did not even wait to be asked after Game 3 about whether he'd considered a timeout. He volunteered on his own that he regretted not calling timeout and it looked even worse in hindsight since the game ended with the Flyers having never used their timeout.
8) Over on the Flyers' website, I have an article on
the impact of young players in the Flyers' lineup during the series thus far. Five players have made their Stanley Cup playoff debut, with four of them scoring a goal in the series. Playing in his second career playoff series, Shayne Gostisbehere also has collected his second career playoff goal.
9) Hakstol was asked on Monday about the play of the defense pairing of Andrew MacDonald and Travis Sanheim, both late in the season and in the series to date.
"You’ve got to be able to defend well, and they’ve done a pretty good job of that. Sanny adds a different element than really anyone else on our D-corps. We’ve got other guys that are good offensively [Ivan Provorov and Gostisbehere]. I think that goes without saying; we know that," Hakstol said.
"But Sanny adds a little different element in terms of his skating ability and his ability to get up ice and join the play and at times come from way back to enter the play. That’s the element that he really brings to that pair and that’s the element that he brings to our team. He’s not as heavy in terms of the way he defends as a couple other players on our roster, but he brings that attack and skating mentality getting up ice."
10) Hakstol did not deny that he's struggles from rookie left winger Oskar Lindblom in the series; not in terms of his defensive responsibility and puck support (which are constants in his game) but in winning puck battles and generating offense. That was the reason for Hakstol moving Lindblom down to the fourth line in the second period.
"It’s an adjustment. [Playoff hockey] takes another level. Oskar’s got, I don’t know how many games [25,so he’s handled that so well. When you think of him coming up at the time of year that he did in a pressurized playoff run, and Oskar came in and it took him a couple games to get his feet wet and adjust to the level of play, but he did that," Hakstol said.
"Right now, Oskar, being honest, I think he’s going through some of that same process right now, only there’s a little more on the line and the time for opportunity is a little bit shorter. Oskar’s working hard. He’s still doing a lot of things well; really, everything right without the puck. He hasn’t been able to complete probably as much as he would like to with the puck and offensively. That’s why we made the adjustment [in Game 3] and we made that switch in-game."
11) One of the under-discussed topics Game 3 was that the Flyers really didn't do much on the penalty kill that was all that different from what they had done in Game 2. They continued to do a good job with preventing Pittsburgh entries and getting zone clears when there an opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, once the Penguins eventually get set up in the offensive zone, it is hard to stop them. Crosby missed an open net in the waning seconds of the second period of Game 2, otherwise the Flyers' perfect 4-for-4 would have been their statistically ugly norm of 75 percent despite turning in generally stronger work than the norms of the regular season.
Right up through Pittsburgh's 4-on-3 power play goal (which made them 2-for-3 on the afternoon at the time) and even during the too many men penalty they killed successfully, I thought the Flyers penalty killers overall were doing what they could do; although there was a structure breakdown (a PKer without a stick, a defenseman down on the ice) on the goal that made it 2-0 early in the second period. Up til then, the Flyers had been doing fine on the PK.
The real lesson here is this: Don't put the Penguins on the power play more than once or twice a game because it's going to eventually burn you.
12) Game 7 of the Ontario Hockey League second-round series between the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (Morgan Frost) and Owen Sound Attack (Maksim Sushko) is in Tuesday night. It has been an odd series, with the massively favored Greyhounds getting blown out in all three of their losses, winning two comfortably and one in OT. In Game 6, Frost was held without a point for the first team in the postseason, took a minus-3 and also took a stick to the face in a disastrous second period for his team. The Greyhounds, who remarkably scored at least two goals in every game of the regular season this year, have twice been held to a single goal but a speedy, harder-working Owen Sound team.
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