Many NHL teams use a benchmark of special teams success that is derived by combining their power play and penalty killing success percentages to arrive at an index number. Now with the St. Louis Blues, former Philadelphia Flyers head coach Ken Hitchcock has said that he uses 105 (in any combination) as a target goal for an outstanding special teams index.
During the 2013-14 season, the Flyers had a 104.5 special teams index (19.7 percent on the power play and 84.8 percent on the penalty kill). This was a major factor in why the club was able to reach the playoffs despite a negative goal differential at 5-on-5; 151 goals scored with both teams skating at full strength but 157 goals yielded.
In 2014-15, now former coach Craig Berube's emphasis on structure actually produced an improved goal differential at 5-on-5; the team scored 138 goals — a dropoff of 13 goals that was offset by yielded 137 for an improvement of 20 fewer goals allowed. Meanwhile, Philly's power play clicked at a robust 23.4 percent for the season.
On home ice last season, the Flyers skated away with a healthy 53 points. If the team had done even halfway decently on the road, they would have been a playoff contender. Alas, combined with their own struggles to put pucks in the net, a sharp downturn in the Flyers' penalty killing success rate served to cost the team dearly. That was especially true on the road, where Philly mustered a meager 31 points (10-20-11 record).
The Flyers' overall special teams index in 2014-15 was 100.3 (77.1 percent penalty kill plus 234 percent power play). However, these numbers were not surprisingly carried by the team's play at home. On Wells Fargo Center ice, the Flyers had a stellar 109.7 special teams index (league-best 28.0 percent power play plus an adequate 81.7 percent penalty kill). In road games, however, the Flyers had an unacceptably low 91.1 special teams number (18.5 percent power play plus a 29th-ranked 72.6 percent penalty kill).
Not coincidentally, one season after mustering an adequate 43 points in away games (18-16-7), the 2014-15 Flyers managed just 31 points on the road. If that had been the Flyers' home record, too, they'd have finished with 62 points; just six more than in the worst overall season in franchise history. Meanwhile, if the Flyers had duplicated their home success on the road, they'd have finished with 106 points. Home-to-road discrepancies do not get much more pronounced than those two extremes.
Flyers forward Matt Read has been a mainstay on the team's penalty kill in recent years. He felt that it took the team until the second half of the season to get into a good rhythm on the PK.
"Last year we were kind of out synch for, I'd say, the first half of the year. We were just half a hair off every time and we went through a spell where it felt like every time we were on the penalty kill, they would score. Later on in the season, we just finally clicked and figured out what was going on. We kind of fixed our systems a little bit," Read said on Monday, as veterans prepared for the start of their first training camp under new head coach Dave Hakstol.
The numbers bear out Read's point. The team's special team index hovered around 95 (combined home and road) at the nadir of the season but was pulled five points by the end. Most of the improvement came on the penalty killing side — at least on home ice.
Read said he never understood why the team had such a significant home-road record and special teams discrepancy last season.
"Nothing really changes on the road, except maybe the sixth man (the crowd) factor, so I have no idea," Read said. "We were a pretty good road team before that, so it's just one of those things that is hard to explain. But I have no idea why that happened last season."
For his part, veteran Flyers defenseman Mark Streit is not interested in slicing and dicing road vs. home numbers or subdividing goal differentials into different manpower situations.
"You can look at all 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.
In 2014-15, the Flyers scored a total of 215 goals while yielding 234 across all manpower situations. In 2013-14, the team scored 236 goals while giving up 235. Since every goal and every goal against counts the same on the scoreboard and there is no reward for being a good home team when the club has a terrible road record, the 2014-15 Flyers in the end were exactly what their record suggested.
The same will be true in 2015-16. Entering training camp, the club is still on the Eastern Conference playoff bubble.
Bottom line: If Hakstol and company can build on some of the positive trends that the team established under Berube last year and coax significant improvement in its the road record and penalty killing compared to last year, the Flyers have a legitimate chance at getting at least a wildcard spot. If not, they will almost certainly be a lottery team again.
