Let Me Defend Claude Giroux For A Minute (Plus Flyers Lineup Volume 9)

First of all, before we even talk about anything on the ice, thoughts and prayers to Scott Laughton. I would hope that we get a positive update from the Flyers about his overnight stay at Jefferson, and that the only prescription he needs is a lot of rest this summer.

The team went out and won for Scott (and Mr. Snider) last night, and avoided the embarrassment of having Wristband Night be part of a first-round sweep. Shayne Gostisbehere scored his first career playoff goal, and Andrew MacDonald scored a playoff game-winning goal on a laser from the point.

Captain Claude Giroux assisted on Ghost's goal, as he has so often this season. But he's getting a lot of shit, most notably from Sons Of Penn's Bill Matz (who I usually like).

New podcast alert. They're not dead yet, folks. https://t.co/bwwoCFwa68

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) April 21, 2016

Bill ranted - for quite a while - about how Giroux is being outplayed and how he just simply isn't good enough. It was the usual argument you hear from dumb Flyers fans, and it normally ends with "we should make [someone else] the captain." The core of the argument is Claude only has one assist, and the Washington trio of Backstrom-Ovechkin-Oshie has been lighting up the box score.

I have two problems with that idea. First, and most important, he's been largely holding his own at even strength in terms of shot generation. Second, which will follow this lengthy game-by-game breakdown, is the line combinations which Dave Hakstol used at the start of the series.

Game 1: Thursday 4/14

Giroux played 10.8 of his 21.7 total minutes at 5-on-5 (5.5 more on the power play, 2.9 shorthanded, 1.0 at 4-on-4). At 5-on-5, the Flyers generated 11 shot attempts - but 6 of them were blocked. You'd hope for more offense generated from the top line, especially this game when it was made up of Giroux, Simmonds, and Voracek.

But this was a low-scoring game at even strength, and it was never going to be a barnburner. The Flyers finished with an xG of 0.72 at even strength, and the Caps finished at 1.04. The Flyers happened to  get shut out by Braden Holtby. Jay Beagle happened to score a goal off of a turnover on an aggressive, trailing-late-in-the-third-period move by Jake Voracek and an inexcusable misjudgment by Shayne Gostisbehere in his first NHL Playoff game.

So yes, Washington outplayed Philadelphia here, but no they did not dominate even strength play in any sense of the word.

On the power play, the Flyers generated 9 shot attempts (6 unblocked) with Giroux quarterbacking, and nearly matched their even strength xG for the whole rest of the game with 0.65. Holtby had one of the best games any goaltender has had against the Flyers all year, but the pressure was there from G's unit.

The problem for the Flyers was the penalty kill, which pressured the Caps into using John Carlson as their number one option, and did not effectively mitigate Carlson's ability to score from the point. The on-ice unit at the time of the goal was Bellemare-Vandevelde-Streit-Schultz. Fore more on this, check out Charlie O'Connor's deep dive into the PK struggles early in the series.

But Carlson scored, Voracek took a risk, Gostisbehere was too focused on getting directly off the ice, and that was all she wrote for the Flyers. And for the people blaming Giroux for not picking up Beagle on his nail-in-the-coffin goal, shut the fuck up. That's on Voracek and Ghost, and he needed to trust his instincts more than he needed to remember his coach's instructions. He'll be fine.

Game 2: Saturday 4/16

Giroux played 14.8 of his 20.7 minutes at 5-on-5 (plus 1.6 on the power play, 1.2 on a 5-on-3, 0.2 on the penalty kill, and 1.4 at 4-on-4). At 5-on-5, the Flyers created 18 shot attempts with Giroux on the ice and allowed just 8.

However, the shots were of a much poorer quality than in game one, and the Flyers' xG with Giroux on the ice at even strength was just 0.41. By comparison, the Cousins-Laughton-Read-Gudas-Manning unit was all in the 0.9-1.0 xG range.

For what it's worth, for the second game in a row the Flyers were held off the scoreboard at 5-on-5 play. The Capitals scored twice at 5-on-5 (one each for Nick Backstrom and Jason Chimera), and both goals came against the Flyers' bottom six forwards.

Again, the penalty kill ruined any chance of the Flyers stealing a win in Washington. The Caps had 1.3 minutes of power play time, generated just 2 unblocked shot attempts, and had a xG of only 0.1. But they scored twice, and Holtby again denied the Flyers at 5-on-5 (their xG was 2.5 but they scored just once) and on the power play (first unit was 1.0, second unit was 0.2, neither scored).

But it's tough to blame the power play woes on Giroux here either, as they generated 9 shot attempts (7 unblocked) and statistically expected a goal with his unit on the ice.

If we're keeping track, that's two games that we're blaming on Holtby and the penalty kill, and zero that we're blaming on Giroux.

Game 3: Monday 4/18

Extracurricular activities aside, this was a bad game to watch. 6-1 final score, more than two dozen minutes played on special teams because of all the penalties, fans throwing debris onto the playing surface, the PA announcer getting fed up with everything, and the home team's alternate captain calling the whole situation "fucking embarrassing" on the bench.

But guess fucking what: at 5-on-5, this was a 1-1 game. Michael Raffl scored early, Alex Ovechkin scored halfway through, and the rest of the Caps' damage was done on the power play.

Going into the third period, it was 2-1 Capitals and the game was within reach if the Flyers could continue their decent 5-on-5 play and maybe draw a penalty and finally kick their power play into gear. I think it's been buried from the history book because of what happened in the third, but after forty minutes the game was a very good one.

I was at the Wells Fargo Center for that fateful final twenty and there's no excuse for what that group of fans did. Booing was fine, and I would say it was certainly deserved for the penalties that were called. By the time Pierre-Edouard Bellemare boarded Dmitri Orlov, the game was out of reach for the Flyers and the fans (and Radko Gudas and Brandon Manning) knew it. Do these look like two athletes who are planning on mounting a comeback?

Absolutely diabolical hit from behind pic.twitter.com/47esQV9bJW

— Barstool Sports (@barstooltweets) April 19, 2016

Looking back on it, the bracelet thing was terrible. But in the moment, it just kind of happened. The referees continued to call (huge homer bias coming here, sue me) questionable penalties on the Flyers, and the toothless penalty kill was picked apart by Kuznetsov, Carlson, Ovechkin, and Beagle.

By the time the minor penalty for delay of game was within reach, the game was over and the players had seemingly given up. So down came more bracelets, and the penalty announcement was met with the largest cheer of the second half of the game.

Throw the whole fucking toothless, dickless, heartless penalty kill out the window. At 5-on-5 play, though he received less than 10 minutes of it, Giroux was an even possession player and just barely lost his xG battle (0.4 to the Caps' 0.5). On a team level, Philly generated an xG of 1.5 to Washington's 0.9 at 5-on-5.

It was an ugly night on Broad Street, but it was not the fault of the team's even strength play and it certainly was not the fault of the captain who was only able to play 9.5 minutes of full-strength hockey.

Game 4: Wednesday 4/20

I had to think long and hard about whether I wanted to see this game in person. After the poor showing from the fans on Monday, I wouldn't have blamed the players for packing it in and sending a "fuck you" message to fans by not really trying.

And then my man Joe from Phans Of Philly decided to give me a great deal on his tickets and I went. My logic was simple: the leaders of the team weren't going to let the boys quit, and the fans in attendance were going to go out of their way to support the boys, win or lose. I was so confident in the crowd on my way to the stadium that I would have been okay with a second wristband light show (in retrospect, definitely a good move to not do that again).

The script totally flipped in game four. The Flyers, who had been out-generating the Caps in terms of Expected Goals, fell in that battle 2.9 to 1.5 at 5-on-5 play (in all situations, it was 3.1 to 1.5).

But the Flyers scored a power play goal early (courtesy of Shayne Gostisbehere, set up by a nice head fake from Giroux) and added a second goal that felt like a power play (courtesy of Andrew MacDonald with help from the Giroux-Schenn-Simmonds trio). Then they basically held on for dear life, got the puck deep when they could, and rode Michal Neuvirth to the finish line.

In addition to actually scoring a point, Giroux's line generated nearly twice the full-strength shot attempts as the Caps when they were on the ice. He was trapped in no-mans land on TJ Oshie's goal, I can't deny that, but part of aggressively attacking the puck carrier is taking yourself farther away from potential rebounds. The aggressiveness stifled the Caps' power play, and that unit was finally held off the scoreboard.

The Flyers 3-1 hole in the series can simply not be blamed on Claude Giroux. He's been one of the most effective forwards at even strength, and that's even considering he has played about 19 of his 50 full-strength minutes against the Backstrom-Ovechkin-Oshie line and about 30 minutes against the Niskanen-Alzner pairing. That leads me into my second problem with people like Bill blaming Giroux for this deficit.

Dave Hakstol's Line Combinations

During the crazy run that allowed the Flyers to sneak into the playoffs, the top six was split into a Giroux line and a Voracek line. G was flanked by Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds, and Voracek played with just about everyone when he returned from injury (via HockeyViz):

In particular, you see he was playing with Raffl and Couturier to close out the run to the playoffs.

And then, for some reason, Coach Hak decided to get away from that and load up the top line with Giroux-Simmonds-Voracek. As they discussed in the SOP podcast, for some reason Jake seems to play better when he is "the guy" on his line. I can't understand why, after two months of success with his two superstars separated, Hakstol would mess with the rhythm of the team. With Sean Couturier out, it appears he's going to leave them split, and I believe that's the right move.

Flyers Lineup Volume 9

Schenn - Giroux - Simmonds

As the saying goes, dance with you brought you.

Voracek - Raffl - Gagner

I really like how Voracek and Gagner compliment each other in the neutral and attacking zones. They are both creative players with good hands and they work well together via the eye test and the possession/generation numbers. Raffl, though he's been a winger for most of his time in Philadelphia, has the size and the responsibility to play center, and his positioning will eventually pay off if he plays with these two playmakers.

The top six is easy - keep the same guys in the same spots because we just won. The bottom six gets a little tricky, because Laughton is likely out and Bellemare is returning.

White - Cousins - Read

Promotion for Whitey! This might seem like another one of those times where I am stupid because of how much I like the grinders, but White's shown quite a bit of offensive skill this year for the kind of player he's perceived to be. He and Cousins complement each other well in the "pest" category, and this trio also has the ability to move through the neutral zone, crash the net, and generate shots.

Vandevelde - Bellemare - McDonald

I was very impressed with Colin McDonald last night, and I imagine Jordan Weal looked a lot like Brucie from The Longest Yard:

McDonald fills in well on the fourth line, and bingo bango we have our lineup for Game Five in Washington. I'll see you guys all out there on the ice.

Flyers-Red Wings Preview: Things To Watch

If you are any sort of Flyers or Red Wings (or Bruins) fan, you know the implications of tonight's game in Detroit. Whichever team wins will increase their playoff odds by nearly 20%, and whichever team loses will be in a big hole for the rest of the season. If you're looking for different numbers/scenarios, there are better places to go (I'd recommend BSH).

Tonight will be the third and final matchup between Detroit and Philadelphia this season.

Game One: January 17th (Flyers won 2-1 in a shootout) (via War On Ice)

Notable Flyers who played: Gostisbehere, Del Zotto, Umberger, Medvedev, Laughton, Neuvirth

Notable Flyers who did not: Cousins, MacDonald, Mason

Notable Red Wings roster notes: nothing jumps out at me, other than Mrazek in goal

Voracek/Simmonds/Giroux led Flyers forwards in 5-on-5 ice time, with RJ Umberger just behind them. Ryan White got kicked out after like 30 seconds of ice time. Laughton, Read, Bellemare, Schenn, and Vandevelde were definitively behind the top two lines.

Both teams scored their regulation goals at even strength, but the Wings out-shot and out-Corsi'd the Flyers pretty handily (18-14 and 41-25). One reason is the disparity in offensive zone faceoffs - 18 to 4 in favor of Detroit. That can't happen for the Flyers, who have a premier offensive zone draw winner and have some crafty plays to run after those faceoffs.

Both teams had a lot of powerplay time, and they used it to generate 19 (Philly) and 20 (Detroit) shot attempts (4 and 2 of those, respectively, were considered High Danger). But Neuvirth and Mrazek dueled, and the game ended with a rare Flyers shootout win.

Game Two: March 15 (Flyers won 4-3) (via Corsica)

Notable Flyers who played: Laughton, Gagner, Cousins, Mason

Notable Flyers who did not: Voracek, Umberger, Del Zotto, Medvedev

Notable Red Wings roster notes: I remember that this was Andreas Athanasiou's first NHL game, and Mrazek played again

In Jake's absence, the Flyers' 5-on-5 time was split pretty evenly among the following forwards (in order, ranging from 12.5 to 13.5 minutes) Couturier/Simmonds/Schenn/Raffl/Giroux/Vandevelde. Did I miss something in this game? Was Giroux-Vandevelde at even strength done on purpose?

Behind those top six forwards in ice time were Gagner, Bellemare, White, Laughton, Read, Cousins. Now I think I remember - Gagner should be ahead of CVV in the depth chart because he was filling in for Voracek, but Vandy must have gotten stuck out after a penalty kill for an extra shift. Got it.

This was a three phase game. The Flyers caved the Wings in early, scoring two first-period goals and out-shooting Detroit 23-3 in the first twenty minutes. The middle of the game was back-and-forth, with each team scoring a pair of goals in the second period. The final 15 minutes or so was a barrage of Detroit shots - including a Tomas Tatar goal - but the Flyers were able to deny a late equalizer.

Mark Streit and Nick Schultz led the Flyers in ice time. If that happens again tonight - even if it's just because Hakstol likes to be conservative when he gets a lead - I will light myself on fire.

What Are We Looking For In Game 3?

1. The Flyers will, for the second matchup in a row, be without their entire healthy lineup. This time it will be just Del Zotto who sits, as Voracek is back to (basically) 100%. How much of a difference does Jake make, both in the top six and (via the trickle-down effect) the bottom six?

2. The Cousins-Read-Gagner line was together last month, but they've been playing really impressive hockey since then. How much does it matter that we have a legit third line now?

3. Why is Andrew MacDonald playing?

4. Can we please win so we don't have to beat Pittsburgh this weekend?

Let's Expand the NHL Playoffs

Expanding the NHL playoffs is all the rage on Hockey Twitter, and that's in large part to TSN's Bob McKenzie's column from yesterday.

Because Bob is the biggest media insider in the world of hockey, he was able to pose the question to the league's general managers: should the playoffs be expanded?

Here's what they suggested:

Play-In Game For The Last Wild Card Spot

Oh you mean like baseball? Lame.

Play-In Series For The Last Wild Card Spots

Yes! Let's showcase the crappiest teams possible to get everyone in the mood for playoff hockey! No, that's a terrible idea.

So try again, guys. We'll work this out eventually. The important takeaway is that 21 of the 28 general managers that McKenzie surveyed would be in favor of some time of playoff expansion. It's more games, which means more money. It means more teams have a chance to make a run at the Cup, which means more money. And it leans in favor of expansion, which, again, means more money.

The minor forms of expansion they suggested are fine, and that's probably what's going to end up happening. But let's pretend, just for one minute, that the NHL decided to completely overhaul the playoffs.

Who Makes The Playoffs

When the league had 21 teams, 16 of them made the postseason. Now, with 30 teams, the same 16 make it past the regular season. Proportionally (and accounting for expansion), there should be 24 teams in the playoffs each year.

That nicely works out to six teams per conference - Metropolitan, Atlantic, Central, and Pacific (we're going to put the Las Vegas team in the Pacific, the Quebec City team in the Atlantic, and move the Red Wings back to the Central).

If you don't finish in the top six in your division, you're fucking out. That's as simple as it gets.

Playoff Format

The most important thing to keep in mind when planning for an expansion like this is we don't want to diminish the value of the regular season. The 8 teams at the bottom of the league probably aren't going to be competitive all year, but the rest of the league still needs a reason to battle before the playoffs start.

So, let's adjust how home-ice advantage works for the first two rounds:

• #1 seeds - 6/7 games per series at home
• #2 seeds - 5/7 games per series at home
• #3 seeds - 4/7 games per series at home

The #3 seeds will have the current standard four home games per series (2-2-1-1-1 format). The #2 seeds will play in a 2-1-2-1-1, with five games at home. And the reward for finishing first in the division is the 3-1-3 series format, with six games at home. 

Two important notes here: first, if a #1 or #2 seed is eliminated, home ice advantage will return to the current standard 2-2-1-1-1 format, with the higher-seeded team hosting four home games. And second, the Semifinals, Conference Finals, and Stanley Cup Final will be played as traditional 2-2-1-1-1 series. 

Divisional Round (24 --> 12)

The top seeds play the bottom seeds, so the matchups are 1-6, 2-5, and 3-4 in each of the four divisions. This is where is gets tricky, because it's almost impossible to start a bracket with six teams. But bear with me, and we'll see where this goes. 

The three teams that win their series advance to the next round. Duh. 

Conference Quarterfinals (12 --> 6)

The first round went by division. This round, we expand to the entire conference and re-seed based on the regular season. 

And then we do the whole thing over again and eliminate three teams from each conference. The new home ice advantage rules apply, which should allow the most successful teams from the regular season to reap the benefits. 

That gets us down to three teams on each side, but it'd be really nice if we could add one more to make it an even four. 

Wild Card Round (6 --> 8)

Bam! Let's bring two teams back to life. 

This is a one-day event, either a Saturday or a Sunday, with a matinee game and a night game. We'll bring back four teams that were eliminated up to this point - the team from each division who won the most games will be invited (the tiebreaker is goal differential). The Eastern Conference teams will play early, the Western Conference teams will play late, and the winners will re-join the playoffs. 

Teams that have already advanced will have a long weekend to rest, and the fans will have another Hockey Event Weekend. The host city of the Wild Card round, like the All-Star Game and the Winter Classic, will rotate annually. 

Conference Semifinals (8 --> 4)

Conference Finals (4 --> 2)

I shouldn't really have to spell this out too much, because it's pretty straightforward. Everything after the Wild Card Weekend is played as the traditional 2-2-1-1-1 series format. High seeds play low seeds, and we narrow the field down to one representative from each conference. 

Stanley Cup Finals 

And then they battle it out, and someone gets to raise the best trophy in sports. 

The Flyers Are Going Into The All-Star Break

As the Flyers ride off into the sunset/All-Star break fresh off a thrilling win over the NHL-leading Capitals, it's a good time to look back at the first 47 games of the season and take inventory.

Division Standings

The Flyers are in 7th place in the 8-team Metropolitan Division with 50 points. They're chasing Carolina (54 points), New Jersey/Pittsburgh (55), the New York teams (56/59), and Washington (74).

There are, of course, a lot of teams to climb in the division. Carolina and New Jersey are generally thought to be in "rebuilding" mode, so maybe they could tank down out of our way. Nobody is going to catch Washington. The Rangers and Penguins are too old and overpaid to not give everything they can to compete for a Cup this year. And the Islanders have established themselves as one of the top teams in the East.

So, finishing high enough in the division to make the playoffs is almost certainly out of the question. How else can we maybe sneak in?

Wild Card Standings

As it stands now, Boston (57 points) and Pittsburgh hold the Wild Card bids to the postseason. New Jersey, Carolina, Montreal (52), Ottawa (52), and Philadelphia are all reasonable contenders for those spots, and it will be interesting to see who's buying and who's selling at the trade deadline.

Wild Card Part II: Buyers & Sellers

Carolina and New Jersey are both projected to have more than $8 million in cap room at the end of the season, and that's before we factor in what the 'Canes might do with the Staal brothers and Jeff Skinner. If you're a fan of those two, are you rooting for them to bottom out and target Matthews/Tkachuk/Chychrun/Nylander/Puljujarvi/Laine? If you get a ready-for-the-NHL rookie and throw some money at a couple free agents, you could maybe compete next year.

One major note I want to make here: I am so glad that I am a Flyers fan and not a Hurricanes or Devils fan. Those rosters... woof.

Boston and Philly are in situations similar to Jersey and Carolina, though with much less cap room and much more demanding fans. Both teams have their core group of forwards locked down with minor exceptions (Marchand/Eriksson for the Bruins, Schenn/Raffl for the Flyers) and they have some work to do on figuring out their defense. Time will tell if these two are buying or selling.

Pittsburgh, Montreal, and Ottawa all planned on competing this year and that doesn't figure to change as the year goes on. I think you can mark each of these three as probably buyers in February.

The Sabres, Maple Leafs, and Blue Jackets are not going to compete this year and will likely also be selling off current assets for future assets.

Out West, the Jets and Flames will probably look to move some older pieces to build around younger cores. The Canucks probably have to go down with their ship with the Sedin twins. And I have absolutely no idea what's going on in Edmonton. Rough time to be a hockey fan from Western Canada.

Rough time to be a hockey fan from Canada in general, I guess.

Why The Yankees Will Continue Their World Series Drought

Despite their recent additions, the Yankees will not win the World Series.