Popular Scapegoats Not the Root of Flyers Woes

(Kate Frese/Sports Talk Philly)

By Dan Heaning, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 

The first half of the Philadelphia Flyers season has been a roller coaster. There have been ups like the 10-game win streak and downs like the state the team is in now.

With those peaks and valleys come those who take the good very well and the bad extremely poor. Throughout it all, the Flyers Interwebs presence have managed to blame nearly every single ounce of frustration on only a handful of players.

Those names are quite known by now: Andrew MacDonald, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde are somehow the most prominent scapegoats. In the minds of some, one blueliner and two fourth-line forwards are single-handedly sinking the Flyers season. Any assertion to this is ignoring the real issues that plague the team.

It’s very easy to blame these role players. MacDonald’s advanced stats are usually terrible. Bellemare and VandeVelde are defense-first fourth line caliber forwards. They’re not designed to pack any sort of offensive punch and stat watchers love to use Corsi as an end-all, be-all measure of a player’s worth.

Guys like MacDonald, VandeVelde and Bellemare will never have strong advanced stats due to their roles as defense-first players coupled with their limited offensive capabilities. With traditional and advanced stats lacking, the path of least resistance is to punch down to the team’s lower echelon players.

Is that to say the Flyers couldn’t stand to upgrade these positions? A fourth line of Taylor Leier, Scott Laughton or Nick Cousins and Roman Lyubimov would almost assuredly be a massive offensive improvement. However, that line would likely get hammered in the defensive zone due to a lack of experience and defensive prowess.

Travis Sanheim or Sam Morin would be an upgrade from Andrew MacDonald, but they’d also be an upgrade from Mark Streit, Michael Del Zotto and Brandon Manning.

Therein lies the flaw with scapegoating these select players. As badly as they’ve struggled at times, so have others. And those players are much more significant and have greater impact on the outcome of hockey games.

To blame MacDonald for the woes on the blue line is to either blissfully ignore or just flat out look the other way on how badly the other defensemen have played. Del Zotto has gone from easily the Flyers best defenseman last season back to what New York Rangers fans have nicknamed "Delzaster." Radko Gudas, Shayne Gostisbehere and Manning have all been healthy scratches due to poor defensive coverage. And with age, Streit’s skill has been on the decline for a few seasons now.

The Flyers back end has longed for consistency. Any form of it would be great and, as bad as this sounds, MacDonald brings a consistent skill set to the blueline, which is why he is in the lineup more often than not. He can block shots, kill penalties and make the first pass out of the Flyers end. Not many on the Flyers current back line can say that.

MacDonald gets most of the blame, though, because of his contract. The erroneous deal he was given by former GM Paul Holmgren has put him under a microscope. When MacDonald makes a mistake, it’s a catastrophe. When partners like Ivan Provorov or Gostisbehere make a mistake, it’s still MacDonald’s fault. When Gudas or Manning make a mistake, it’s usually ignored.

For being an overpaid, below-average defenseman, MacDonald gets a lot of attention. But as someone playing with Provorov on the top pairing, that’s understandable. What isn’t is how much flak Bellemare and VandeVelde receive.

First of all, blaming Bellemare and VandeVelde makes it seem like there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Flyers top nine. There is a lot wrong with the Flyers top nine.

Their biggest issue? The Flyers can’t score at even strength. This isn’t a new problem. It’s been like this for the last few seasons. Right now, Philadelphia is 27th in even-strength goal percentage. This is despite being tied for sixth in the league in goal scoring.

Listening to Flyers podcasts and following on Twitter, one would think this would be all Brayden Schenn’s fault. After all, Schenn has a measly four tallies when both teams ice equal players. He also has 11 power play goals which leads the league. In contrast, the New York Islanders have 16 power play goals as a team.

However, only going after Schenn for his lack of even strength production neglects that Matt Read and Travis Konecny also only have four goals in that situation. Meanwhile, scapegoat Chris VandeVelde has five even strength goals. Claude Giroux only has one more than the fourth-line winger.

In fact, Giroux is 124th in even strength points this season, according to sportingcharts.com. All-Star Wayne Simmonds is 120th. The only player on the Flyers in the Top 100 is Jake Voracek, who sits at 28th with 24 even strength points.

Further to the point, while those point totals are low, no one else is picking up the slack. The Flyers top six even-strength point producers are (in order): Voracek, Provorov, Konecny, Simmonds, Giroux and MacDonald.

The defenseman everyone hates has the sixth most points at even strength on the Flyers. That’s including Schenn, Read, Sean Couturier, Michael Raffl and Dale Weise who round out the Flyers top nine forwards.

So, to put it mildly, any problems the Flyers have are not being caused by one blueliner and two fourth line players. Even making that argument is a damning indication of how the top players on the team are faring.

Good teams don’t have seasons sunk by three role players. Great teams overcome their weakest links. If you think Bellemare, VandeVelde and MacDonald are holding the Flyers back, maybe it’s time to come clean and confess that you don’t think this team was good enough to begin with.

And if it isn’t good enough, that falls on the core players, the guys this team is built around, the ones not receiving criticism. It most assuredly isn’t the popular scapegoats.