You Need Five Top-Six-Caliber Wingers In Today's NHL

It's almost hockey season, which means it's almost the time of year where I see a random tweet and spiral downward into a place where I try to convince myself that the Flyers are actually good.

Today's entry comes from the newest member of The Athletic Philly (I think), Englishman (I think) Alexander Appleyard:

Fun stat of day, here are cup winners since '10's median P/82+sv%:

64-76-57
52-49-44
40-28-29
22-23-17

47-34
28-23
17-14

.924
.922#NHL

— Alexander Appleyard (@avappleyard) September 7, 2017

Yep. And cup finalist losers have a #5 winger who averages 38pts/82.

Having 5x top 6 level wingers is pretty key.

— Alexander Appleyard (@avappleyard) September 7, 2017

So, let's jump right the fuck in and see how close the Flyers are to this level.

Top Six Centers

I think the majority of Flyers Twitter is in agreement about the guys who are going to be anchoring our lines for the next few years. In order from oldest to youngest, it's Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Scott Laughton, and Nolan Patrick.

Perhaps someone might make a case for German Rubtsov, Morgan Frost, or Pascal Laberge stealing one of those spots in 2-3 years, but for now I think we should just focus on Giroux, Couturier, Laughton, and Patrick.

We need one center to score 70+ points and another to score around 50. Giroux hasn't scored more than 70 since 2014-15, and he finished last season with just 58 points in a full 82-game season. In Giroux's defense (I'll keep it short, there are plenty of deep dives elsewhere), his career-low shooting percentage last season cost him about 7 goals and the team's poor shooting percentage probably cost him at least that many points.

Hot take: Claude Giroux is our best bet to score 76 points next season.

Here's another take, in case you're really looking to get hot: Sean Couturier is the guy who's going to score 49 points next year. He scored 34 in 66 games last season (a pace of 42-ish over a full season), and he's going to almost certainly get an upgrade in wingers and defensemen this season. Yes, Couturier spent quite a bit of time between Travis Konecny and Jake Voracek last year, but he also spent quite a bit with Matt Read, Nick Cousins, and Dale Weise on his flanks.

Bottom Six Centers

With decent (or even just better-than-replacement-level) wingers, I have no doubt that Patrick and Laughton can get us to the 28- and 23-point thresholds in Alexander's tweet. Moving on!

Wingers

We know the names here - Voracek, Wayne Simmonds, Konecny, Oskar Lindblom, Valtteri Filppula, Jordan Weal, Jori Lehtera, Michael Raffl, Matt Read, Dale Weise.

I think it's easiest to start by trying to box some guys in as fourth-liners in the 17-23 point range. That would include two of these:

• Weise (topped out at 29 and 27 points two and three seasons ago)
• Read (steadily declining with 40-30-26-19 points over the last four years)
• Lehtera (44-34-22 over the past three years despite his being stapled to Vladimir Tarasenko's hip)
• Raffl (great complimentary piece but probably maxed out at 31 points in 2015-16)

Let's just move our way up the lineup card to the third line. These two are probably the hardest to project out of the whole roster, but this is a wide enough window that I think we can get away with it. These would be players who are 40-point wingers in a good season and 29-point wingers in a bad season:

• Lindblom (47 points in 52 games plus 14 points in 20 playoff games last year in the SHL, which is the third- or fourth-best league in the world - I think this level offers a reasonable window for him to try to reach)
• Weal (I believe his point-per-game pace will reflect less of his 12-points-in-23-games last season and more of his 12-points-in-37-games for his career, but you never know)

And the second line-caliber guys, aiming for 52 and 44 points:

• Filppula (sneakily scores more points that I would have thought, totaling 58-48-31-42 in his seasons since he joined Tampa Bay)
• Konecny (28 points in his rookie season, should improve and eventually get some power play production)

And, finally, the first liners. The guys at the top of the depth chart are shooting for 64 and 57 points:

• Voracek (scored 354 points in 445 games as a Flyer, an average of 65 points per 82 games)
• Simmonds (his full seasons in Philly have totals of 49-60-50-60-54 points)

How Good Are We?

Well, it hard to say. 

I think we have five 40-point wingers this year - Voracek, Simmonds, Filppula, Konecny, and one of Lindblom/Weal. If the other of Lindblom/Weal can't step up to replace Filppula in that group after he leaves, then it becomes a little more hairy. There are plenty of prospects in the pipeline, but it's difficult to say with any certainty that one of them is going to be ready to score 40 points in the NHL one year from now. 

But, for now, let's just enjoy the fact that the current Flyers forward group seems like it might just meet the criteria for this one small part of being a legitimate contender.