The Flyers Lost To The Blackhawks, And The Sky Is Falling (Plus Flyers Lineup Volume 2)

Last night, the Flyers traveled to Chicago for their third game of the season (and the Blackhawks' fourth). It was a very entertaining game, and it's largely what the NHL seems to be targeting in terms of goal generation.

But for Flyers fans - and specifically Flyers Twitter - everything went wrong. Goaltending, defending, lineup decisions, coaching, everything just totally came off the rails. Or so said the various people who say things on Twitter.

I wanted to take a closer look at the game (courtesy of Sons Of Penn's GIF Rewind and Corsica's Game Recap) to see how much the Flyers' season is really crumbling after just three games.

The Kane-Panarin-Anisimov Line Combined For Five Goals

Granted, one was a powerplay goal and another was an into an empty net, but there are a lot of hockey games where both teams don't combine for five goals. It's tough to overcome one trio lighting the lamp five times.

But this was the best line in hockey last year, and it's going to be the best line in hockey again this year. Let's look at the goals.

Kane's First
On-ice for the Flyers: Couturier, Konecny, Voracek, Streit, Provorov



This may look like a penalty kill for the Flyers, but it was just a case of everyone forgetting about the most talented player on the Blackhawks and leaving him all alone facing an empty half of the net. Then everyone overreacted and left him the other side of the net open, and Patrick Kane does not miss those wraparound goals. Largely, this goal was caused by poor positioning by the Streit-Provorov pair, and by a lack of defensive help from the forwards. (Yes, I understand that I basically just blamed everyone on the ice.)

Panarin's First
On-ice for the Flyers: Bellemare, Gordon, MacDonald, Schultz



This one actually was a penalty kill, and it showed how flawed that unit can be. Seabrook put his slap-pass on the money to Panarin, and (as we'll see later) that's a shot that he usually pots.

Anisimov's First
On-ice for the Flyers: Giroux, Simmonds, Read, Streit, Provorov



Bad turnover from Provorov. Bad backcheck by all of the forwards. Great passing from that goddamn Hawks line.

Panarin's Second
On-ice for the Flyers: Couturier, Voracek, Konecny, Provorov, Streit



That's on Provorov. I had to mansplain why that play was so bad from him, and it's a pretty simple explanation: it's a high-risk move to carry the puck in between four defenders, and it's even higher-risk to do that as a defenseman when you're potentially giving up a 2-on-1. And then, when that 2-on-1 is the Art Ross Trophy and Calder Trophy winners from last year, you're toast.

Anisimov's Second
On-ice for the Flyers: That 6-on-5 unit that plays without a goalie



Nothing you can do here. Chicago throws out one of the most well-coached and well-led units, and it's tough to beat them.

So, overall, we saw a lot of the Kane-Panarin-Anisimov line against Nineteen-Year-Old Rookie Ivan Provorov. Is he now no longer NHL-ready because he and Mark Streit got torched? He'll stop doing that fucking carry-in move through traffic. He'll certainly work on his positioning in the defensive end. This will hopefully get better:



And, most importantly, he won't have to play against that fucking trio again.

Skies Falling: 2/4


One Reason That Maybe We're Not All Going To Die: He's 19. When I was 19 I got blackout drunk for nine nights in a row to celebrate Labor Day. We can all improve.

Steve Mason And Michal Neuvirth Kind Of Might Stink Now

Neuvirth played the first half of the game, and he allowed 4 goals on 16 shots. His 0.750 save percentage is.. sub-optimal.

Mason came in as a reliever after the fourth goal, and allowed 2 goals of his own on 11 shots. His 0.818 save percentage, though it was a touch better than Neuvirth's, is still well below where it needed to be.

But, as hockey is a team sport, how many of these seven goals can realistically be blamed on the goaltender?

1. Kane - Hey defense, maybe guard this fucking guy
2. Rasmussen - Hey Ivan, bad play dude
3. Panarin - Hey defense, get in the fucking passing lane
4. Hossa- That one was on Neuvirth (see below)
5. Anisimov - Nothing any goalie could have done
6. Panarin - Uhhh maybe try to prevent Kane-Panarin 2-on-1's
7. Anisimov - Empty netter

You can't blame either goalie too much for getting fucked by their defense five times. This one from Neuvirth (Hossa's 500th career goal) was the only one that I have an issue with:

We aren't banking on this goalie tandem to be able to stop unchallenged cross-ice one-timers. The defense has to shore up, and it will once we get our two best defensemen back from suspension/injury.

Skies Falling: 1/4


One Reason That Maybe We're Not All Going To Die: Last year, the Flyers allowed seven goals to the Florida Panthers and only managed to score one. That was worse than this, and the team rebounded over the course of the season.

Dave Hakstol Benched Nick Cousins

It's not just that Coach Hak left Cousins out of the lineup. It's that he replaced him with players who are (significantly) worse.

The bottom six last night was Read-Bellemare-Weise and Vandevelde-Gordon-Lyubimov. Other than Read, who was promoted to first-line duty following Michael Raffl's injury, I can't recall a single play that any of them made that was good.

Bellemare excelled in the World Cup. Dale Weise signed a four-year contract this summer. Gordon and Lyubimov were also offseason acquisitions. Chris Vandevelde went to North Dakota, I guess.

But NONE OF THEM have looked as aggressive or as talented as Cousins, and to sit him in favor of all five of them is absolutely fucking mind blowing.

At 5-on-5 play, here were their stat lines (5v5 time on ice, Fenwick for/against, Goals for/against):

• Weise: 12.8 minutes, 5 FF, 2 FA, 0 GF, 0 GA
• Bellemare: 11.1 minutes, 4 FF, 6 FA, 0 GF, 0 GA
• Lyubimov: 10.5 minutes, 5 FF, 5 FA, 0 GF, 1 GA
• Vandevelde: 8.5 minutes, 3 FF, 8 FA, 0 GF, 1 GA
• Gordon: 6.0 minutes, 2 FF, 3 FA, 0 GF, 1 GA

Weise actually didn't have a bad night, but he played the same amount of time at even strength as Jake Fucking Voracek. Come on. 

If they don't re-insert Cousins (along with the returning-from-suspension Brayden Schenn) into the lineup and drop two of these guys into the press box, I am going to be mad online. That'll bump this up by at least one Chicken Little, and probably two Chicken Littles. 

3/4 Skies Are Falling



One Reason That Maybe We're Not All Going To Die: Maybe Hakstol saw what he needed to see last night. Maybe he knows that the squad looked pretty fucking pathetic last night, and they need a boost of energy. Maybe he reads this and sees my next section...

Flyers Lineup Volume 2

Read-Giroux-Simmonds
Konecny-Couturier-Voracek
Schenn-Cousins-Weise
Raffl-Gordon-Bellemare

Am I maybe overreacting to how good Matt Read looked last night? I mean, maybe. If this balance doesn't work, or if the Giroux line struggles, then we flip Read and Schenn and get a little more top-heavy.

We still have our penalty kill and power play units, only now we roll three lines that can legitimately generate offense and a fourth that is extremely sound defensively. What am I missing here? Why is that not the lineup?

On The Potential For Injuries At The World Cup Of Hockey

Just about every hockey fan seems excited for the upcoming World Cup. Preliminary games start next week, and the tournament will take up the second half of this month. (It's September, by the way, however the fuck that happened.)

The best hockey players in the world are split into eight fairly-evenly-balanced teams and there is National Pride on the line, so they should all care more than they do in the All-Star Game.

The big news this morning, though, is not the games that will be played in the upcoming tournament - it's one player who will not be playing in those games. Sweden's captain, Henrik Zetterberg, is going to miss the whole thing with an undisclosed injury.

It's impossible to know, at least for me because I have no sources, how Zetterberg was injured. It could have been related to training for the tournament, or it could have been something completely unrelated. Perhaps he was out partying with Claude Giroux the night before the Flyers released their alternate jerseys for the upcoming season.

50th Anniversary Jersey pic.twitter.com/5pYGBnIHUK

— Claude Giroux (@fauxGiroux) August 31, 2016

Woof, Claude. Dead eyes like you read about.

Regardless of how Zetterberg actually hurt himself, though, his injury has brought up a Topic That Must Not Be Named. What if someone gets injured in this largely meaningless tournament and misses games for their actual club?

As we generally do in this space, I'm going to focus specifically on the Flyers. Let's start with the aforementioned hungover captain:

Claude Giroux, Team Canada

If G gets injured we are fucked. They brought this topic up on Sons Of Penn's SOP Radio podcast night, and the conclusion was that if Giroux misses a month we might as well just pack it up for the season and go home. It's tough to argue with that.

New @SOP_Radio. Thoughts on the 50th anniversary jersey, Flyers in the World Cup, finding more scoring and much more https://t.co/pNt2Jfpm0i

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) September 1, 2016

 (Editor's note: You should be following SOP and listening to their Flyers podcast every week. They're great.)


Jake Voracek, Team Czech Republic

He'll be the second most important player for the Flyers this season, but he's unquestionably the most important player for the Czechs. I think it'll be good for him to have to shoulder the load, and God knows he's going to have to if this team is going to make any noise.

But if he gets injured and is forced to miss a significant amount of time, could that create a hole for a certain top-line-winger prospect that we aren't expecting to see this season? I mean, Shayne Gostisbehere was able to make the jump to the NHL because Mark Streit broke his penis.

I'm not saying Jake should sacrifice his own penis for Travis Konecny, but hey, just saying.

Shayne Gostisbehere

Speaking of Ghost, the international format should suit his game well. Nobody in the tournament is really known as a bruiser (except Radko Gudas, who probably is not going to be targeting his own teammates). (Ghost emoji)(Bear emoji) might end up being the star of this whole goddamn tourney.

But if he gets seriously injured I'll overdose on whatever drugs they let me buy at CVS right in the middle of PBR Bar. That's the potential injury that would hurt more than the rest. Even if G goes down and the team is no longer competitive, they'll still be fun to watch because that's who Ghost is as a player. If Ghost goes down then we have no chance but it'll also be a boring on-ice product.

Sean Couturier

The captain of Team North America is obviously going to be logging some very heavy minutes during this tournament. He's going to have to occupy the biggest names in hockey to create opportunities for Gaudreau and McDavid and Drouin. Essentially, it'll be just like always for Coots. He's going to get the tough minutes, he's going to succeed in those tough minutes, and his teammates will be able to thrive around him.

The downside of playing tough minutes is the potential for injury. Couturier is a player than cannot be replaced by anyone in the Flyers organization except Giroux, and we'd obviously rather have Giroux playing with an offensive mindset than a defensive one. We saw it in the playoffs last Spring - if Coots goes down, we're toast. And then we're just trying to tread water until he returns.

Radko Gudas

Let's breeze right through this one. Gudey isn't getting hurt.

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare

This might end up being the pinnacle of PEB's hockey career. He's going to get ice time with players of a higher caliber than ever before (except that one time he was on a line with Voracek and Valdevelde, remember that?).

It's sad to say, but he might end up being the engine on this European team because he's one of the few guys on the roster than can really lay it all on the line for this tournament. If he pushes himself too hard or plays too risky, it's really not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that'll clear a spot for Taylor Leier to finally stick on the Flyers.

Michal Neuvirth

This one would be bad. If someone runs Neuvy or he tweaks something, it puts a TON of pressure on Steve Mason early. I think I can safely speak for all Flyers fans when I say that, even though the goalie tandem is a strength of this team, one of those goalies on his own is decidedly less appetizing.

The saving grace, in this situation, is Neuvirth should be splitting time pretty evenly with Petr Mrazek and Ondrej Pavelec.

Mark Streit

This is one that I don't want to write. I've always attempted to take up a pro-Streit attitude when I write because I think too many people just want to dump him for nothing. He has value, even though he's noticeably aging, because he's a talented veteran with more experience than anyone else on the Flyers.

Yes, he's getting old and slowing down. But hockey, even moreso than other sports, requires leadership off the ice as much as talent on the ice. Look at the Edmonton Oilers. That's not what a franchise wants to look like.

In looking at Team Europe's defense, Streit's probably going to have to log no less than half of the penalty minutes and about a third of the even-strength minutes. They'll probably turn Roman Josi and Luca Sbisa into their "horses", but it falls off from there. Maybe Streit ends up being a 20-minutes-per-night guy.

I can feel myself delaying. The point of this post is to talk about what happens if they get injured.

What happens if Streit gets injured?

Then, our presumed defense corps of MDZ-Gudas-Ghost-Streit-Schultz-MacD-Manning either plays without any subs in Streit's absence or someone else replaces him.

I mentioned above what happened the last time Streit got injured. The scenario this time could be replacing him with Ivan Provorov in the opening day roster. Could. Possibly. Maybe. Potentially.

Hear me out.

If Provy can't hang, we can send him back to Brandon in the WHL after half a dozen games and just tough it would with 6 defensemen until Streit returns.

If Provy kills it and becomes a top-four-caliber blueliner, then he stays and we send MacDonald to the Phantoms when Streit returns. We won't worry about having to send A-Mac through waivers, because he's owed almost $22 million between now and 2020.

There you go. I said it out loud, and now it's in the universe. Mark Streit breaking his other penis in the World Cup of Hockey wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.