The 2014-15 Philadelphia Flyers
stand in start contrast to the team assembled just a year ago. Gone are 20+ goal scorer Scott Harnell and fourth line stalwarts Adam
Hall and Jay Rosehill.
Added into the lineup are Pierre-Edouard
Bellemare and Jason Akeson, whose playoff call-up added some jump to the
roster.
Enforcer Jay Rosehill has been sent
down to the Phantoms as of the time this article was penned and posted, but may
be recalled after some LTIR issues are dealt with.
The biggest change to the roster
will be the promotion of Matt Read and Sean Couturier to the second line from
last year’s third line, a move that will make many fans happy. Already in preseason games they appear to
have clicked with Wayne Simmonds making for a potentially strong second line to
supplement the Schenn-Giroux-Voracek top line.
The third line will comprise Vinny Lecavalier, Michael Raffl, and R.J. Umberger back for a second tour with the
Flyers.
The Flyers will stand in stark
contrast to last year's team in a number of areas and it is in these areas
where Ron Hextall has already put his stamp on the roster.
In the offseason, Hextall spoke a
bit about roster construction and the difficulties in finding a perfect three
man line. He talked about finding two
player combinations and then inserting a third player to complement the first
two.
That said, Brayden Schenn will be called upon
to complement Flyers Captain Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek on the left wing.
Fans have been expecting more from
Brayden and the promotion to top line left wing should do the trick. Last season’s 20 goals were only 3 goals
behind Voracek and 8 goals behind Giroux, not that much of a drop-off
considering he centered the second line.
His six game winning goals was second on the team to Giroux’s
seven.
Fans need to keep in mind that this
will be Brayden’s second full 82 game season with the team and only 23 years
old. He is still growing into his role
and maturing as a player, but another 20+ goal season is not out of the
question.
The second line will now be manned
by Sean Couturier and Matt Read, a strong combination that has clicked since
they were paired together. The
complementary piece, if you can call him that, is Wayne Simmonds the Flyers
leading goal scorer with 29.
Simmonds will have an interesting
role as Couturier and Read are well known around the league for their strong
defensive play, but not as well known for their offensive prowess.
Read was able to tally 22 goals and Sean
Couturier just 13 but do not let Couturier’s numbers mislead you. Couturier logged 3:25 seconds of shorthanded
ice time per game, leading not just the Flyers but the NHL for forwards as
well. Word around the NHL was that a
number of teams held Couturier in high regard and were surprised when the
Flyers did not push for him to be included in the candidates for the Selke
trophy.
At 21 years of age Sean Couturier
has shown a level of play on par with the top ranked players in his draft
class. More will be expected of him
offensively centering the second line, but as fans we have to remember how far
Couturier has come in a short period of time and his age.
The third line appears to be a work
in progress as RJ Umberger replaces Scott Hartnell and Michael Raffl returns
for his sophomore season with Vinny Lecavalier centering the third line.
Time will tell how they work together,
but for now the third line appears to have a nice mix of skills that may work
out best in the end.
Finishing out the forward corps is a
fourth line of Zac Rinaldo, Pierre-Edouard
Bellemere, and Jason Akeson. The three
will be asked to provide a bit of grit along with some push to give the top
lines a bit of rest. One key here that
is a huge difference from previous years is the plus skating ability of all
three players.
It should be noted that in not
having Scott Hartnell, Jay Rosehill, and Steve Downie not on the roster the
Flyers lose 263 penalty minutes, not a trivial amount when one considers the
Flyers led the NHL in penalty minutes last season with 1180 minutes of penalty
time.
Broken down further the Flyers
accumulated 14 minutes and 23 seconds of penalty time per game and 357 minor
penalties. The loss of Scott Hartnell,
Jay Rosehill, and Steve Downie amounted to 68 minor penalties or almost 20% of
the total.
If Zac Rinaldo can play more
restrained hockey and bring down his total from 150 penalty minutes and 29
minor penalties then the team will be much more disciplined allowing for more
opportunities for the top line players.
Why do I mention more restrained
play?
One of the complaints about the
Flyers has been about their poor puck possession statistics. Part of the may be due to a number of poor
skating players who moved on in the offseason along with the high number of
penalty minutes.
The high number of penalty minutes
led to some problems last season where an ineffective fourth line would be
trotted out on the ice to rest the top three lines which were constantly
juggling time between the power play and penalty kill.
A more effective fourth line
combined with fewer penalty minutes should provide additional shifts for Sean
Couturier and Matt Read to capture more power play and even strength ice time
leading to better puck possession statistics overall.
A point that Hextall has made with
his draft picks is their ability to be plus skaters. In the past the Flyers fourth line consisted
of many slow afoot forwards whose sole goal was to provide the muscle. The addition of a plus skating fourth line
will mean more effective play from the top to the bottom as the fourth line
could be trusted with more responsibility.
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