Time to Hold Flyers Core Accountable

(Kate Frese/Sports Talk Philly)

By Dan Heaning, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 

Another year, another frustrating Philadelphia Flyers season.

It makes many Flyers fans wonder what went wrong and how did this happen.

That tends to make fans and experts look for someone to blame. One popular argument includes pointing the finger squarely at second-year head coach Dave Hakstol, who has gone through his own sophomore slump during this campaign.

However, the simplistic view of merely laying blame on the man behind the bench pardons the pitiful continued performance of this hockey team’s core players.

Yes, Hakstol needs to play better players. Yes, he needs to stop running his goaltenders into the ground, but there is no proper lineup optimization with this team because it lacks the capable players to make them a contender.

That’s not to say the team’s core players aren’t good. That’s madness. Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds and Jake Voracek are very talented hockey players. The rest of the core: the likes of Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier have good aspects of their respective games, but haven’t become the players they should be.

And that’s the problem with the Philadelphia Flyers. The team is built around players who cannot take the franchise to another level. With this core, they are doomed to mediocrity.

Not many agree with this notion. They’ll point to Simmonds’ goal totals, Voracek’s glimpses of dominance, Giroux’s advanced stats, Couturier’s defense and Schenn’s power-play production. They contest the blame goes to another head coach, the bottom six forwards, the defense or the goaltending.

Yet, that ignores the longevity of this core’s inability to achieve more. This Giroux-led Flyers squad has proven time and time again that they are simply not good enough.

In the six years after former general manager Paul Holmgren rocked the franchise by trading then-captain Mike Richards and top goal scorer Jeff Carter, the Flyers have made the playoffs three times. During that period, Philadelphia has gone through three coaches.

Could it be that Peter Laviolette’s voice had grown stagnant in the locker room while Craig Berube and Hakstol aren’t head coach material? Yes, it very well could be.

But why do the core players who have been on this team for the entire tenure of these three coaches get a pass? Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

How many postseasons do the Flyers need to miss? How many coaches need to take the fall? How many times does the excuse of "bad luck" arise before it’s considered inability? It’s time for the core of this team be held accountable.

Giroux’s downward trend has been well documented. The Flyers captain was once a point per game player, but hasn’t reached that mark since 2013-14. His expected goals-for has been steadily declining since his 93-point season in 2011-12.

Giroux's advanced stats may indicate that he’s still a first line player. However, traditional stats argue otherwise. So the process is there, but the execution isn’t. Some see this as luck, but for Giroux, it’s a trend, a pattern you simply cannot have in a top line center and expect to be a good team.

During his regime, Giroux has had the nasty habit of trailing off in a coach’s second year. Let’s say Laviolette’s "first year" in the Giroux era was 2011-12 despite having coached the Flyers for two seasons prior to that. Giroux had an 11.6 shooting percentage during that campaign. He had a marginally higher shooting percentage in Berube’s first year and Giroux shot nine percent in Hakstol’s first season.

In all of those coach’s second terms, Giroux shot from 5.8 to 7 percent. The captain routinely has massive drop-offs from one year to the next. Now, those drop-offs like this season's could be attributed to injury. However, injuries usually become more problematic as a player ages. Therefore, it would be wise for the Orange and Black to plan around Giroux's health.

As for his usual linemate, Voracek, this was supposed to be his bounce-back year. It was a popular sentiment earlier in the season. However, his expected goals per 60 is lower than last season’s. Voracek goes in and out of being the dominant player this team sorely needs.

Perhaps that is Voracek being left to his own devices with a center who is trending downward and with a rotating door of left wingers. Voracek is the only Flyer with remotely decent five-on-five point totals who wasn’t recently acquired at the trade deadline. However, those numbers, while good enough to lead the Flyers, aren’t good enough to place him in the elite category in the NHL.

Simmonds seems to be the only Flyer with consistent hands on him as he leads the team in goals for the fourth straight campaign. He’s also playing all situations and excelling, well, maybe not so much at five-on-five given his 49 Corsi For and his -2.7 relative percentage despite starting in the offensive zone 60 percent of the time.

In fact, in Simmonds’ six seasons as a Flyer, he’s only had a positive Corsi percentage relative to his teammates during five-on-five play in two campaigns. His best percentage coming last season and the year before that. So with Simmonds, the process isn’t where it should be, but the execution is there.

Brayden Schenn is a more extreme case than Simmonds. He can bury the puck seemingly only when the situation is not at five-on-five. He’s worse at even-strength situations, not a strong defensive player by any means and hockey sense leads to mistakes.

While it looked Schenn was turning the corner last season, it appears he stopped halfway through to stare at traffic.

But, like Simmonds, Schenn is capable of potting a few tallies. No one will argue with 22 goals even if most of them have come on the power play.

Couturier is the best defensive forward on the team. His advanced stats are usually very good. Marc Naples produced a chart earlier this week showing just how close his analytics are to the likes of Jonathan Toews and Anze Kopitar.

Yet, his offensive progression has been a slog. Is that because he primarily lives in the Flyers zone? Maybe. However, Hakstol has given Couturier plenty of time on the Philadelphia power play and he has not looked good there at all.

So what then? Repeat a Richards-Carter style fire sale of the team’s core? No, that’s not the solution. A fire sale, like the last one, would be a mistake. The Flyers never recovered down the middle from losing Richards and Carter.

Instead, these players just need to have their roles diminished. Treat them as their production and advanced stats would have any coach treat them. Knock them down a line.

While general manager Ron Hextall said earlier this week that he wants the young players to be the team’s depth players, it’s time the Flyers put their veteran players in situations they can succeed in as second and third-line players.

However, with the amount of money and term they all demand, Philadelphia cannot simply go out and acquire a Matt Duchene or Gabriel Landeskog.

The solution is patience. Just as the Orange and Black are awaiting the cavalry to arrive on the blueline, so too are they on the top line. And they may have the pieces already in the system to build that unit.

Travis Konecny should be the first piece of that top line. Even as a young, raw talent finding his way through the big show, Konecny has given fans glimpses of his first line abilities by creating offense essentially on his own. When he was put on the fourth line, he created offense despite Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde’s propensity to not. He’s shown speed, tenacity and a scoring touch not too many of his teammates have.

The next prospect to come up with first line potential may be Oskar Lindblom. While not a general consensus like Ivan Provorov was thought to be last season, many expect Lindblom to be a Flyer next season.

It’s hard to argue with that assertion despite the fact Lindblom does not have an entry-level contract with the team as of yet.

Lindblom is currently dominating the Swedish Hockey League. He is second in the SHL in goals (22) and fourth in points (47). At 20, Lindblom is a pup compared to the players above him in league scoring, who are at least eight years his senior.

He’s also proven he can produce at the North American professional level when he accumulated seven points in eight games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms after his SHL season concluded in 2015-16. That’s a small sample, but it does lend itself to the idea the Lindblom can enter the lineup and immediately produce.

Whereas Konecny would provide speed and a growing ability to create offensively, Lindblom can provide a big body and net presence. The wings would have speed, size and offensive touch.

To round out that potential top line the Flyers would need a solid two-way center. Someone deadly in the offensive zone but capable of keeping the opposition quiet.

Philadelphia may just have that in German Rubtsov. Depending on who you talk to, Rubtsov has been compared to Pavel Datsyuk or Kopitar. Either one of those would be a Flyers fan’s dream. He is commonly renowned by scouts for his two-way play, a staple of Datsyuk and Kopitar, and his tenacious puck pursuit.

If Rubtsov is to make the Flyers next season, he faces a logjam down the middle. With Hextall acquiring Valtteri Filippula, the team has its four centers already. It could be possible for Rubtsov to force Filippula to wing, but cap issues and Hextall’s patient process may delay that for another year or so.

The other hiccup is putting all of these young players on a line together may not be the most prudent approach. This is why it would be wise for the Flyers to hold on to their current core. That way the young players can be eased into the lineup with veterans to play with.

Then when line juggling demands it, put the kids together and see if they gel.

No matter how angry Flyers fans get, this is the way the team gets better. Not by gutting the roster or filling bottom six forwards around the current core, but to make the current core the role players and usher in a new era of talent. Follow the example of what the Toronto Maple Leafs have done.

The youth and inexperience of Rubtsov, Lindblom and Konecny will need to be countered with experienced leadership. Giroux, Voracek and Simmonds can provide that. They can also provide secondary scoring. And if they aren’t expected to produce like top tier players and face second and third defensive pairings, they’ll likely be able to score more consistently as age begins to take its toll.

So while Hakstol needs to atone for the mistakes he’s made this season, let’s not forget that this core group of Flyers has cost two other coaches their jobs. While they are talented and can help win hockey games, it’s time to stop relying on them to win.

It’s time to rely on the future.