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.

Flyers Offseason Wish List: Three Balanced Lines (Plus Flyers Lineup Volume 1)

To recap the points I've made in the past several posts (that are going to be relevant to this post), I want to see Ron Hextall:

• Re-sign Brayden Schenn, Radko Gudas, Brandon Manning, Nick Cousins, and Ryan White
• Not give up any major prospects to move up in the draft

That's pretty simple, and it's nothing outlandish based on what we've seen from Hexy over the past two years. Today I have less of a roster-based wish, and really more of a Hakstol wish than a Hextall wish. I'd like to see the Flyers balance their top nine forwards. 

For a long time, the decision was always "should we keep Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek together or split them up?" Most of the "split them up" camp wanted to put Voracek on the wing of Sean Couturier. 

But after seeing what we saw out of all three of those players, I think it's fair for me to expect the team to play well with a Giroux line, a Voracek line, and a Couturier line. 

The Giroux Line

Capable of generating offense, naturally, because it's centered by the man who has more points than anyone else in the NHL in the last five years. It's also capable of strong defensive play at even strength, as we saw in the Washington series (and I sort of talked about here). 

I'm a big fan of "if it's not broken, don't fix it" and I'd leave this line as Schenn-Giroux-Simmonds. Those two complement Giroux as his wingers, and they all possess enough skill to finish the chances that they have (and will continue to) create. 

The Couturier Line

Coots, Raffl, Read. Defensively responsible, offensively capable. There isn't too much more to say, other than that is a very solid "third" line. 

The Voracek Line

Jake doesn't necessarily need to be "sheltered", but I'd love him to be the linchpin of the primarily offensive-minded line. The issue is, if we're leaving the Giroux line in tact and splitting Coots out to his own line for next year, there isn't a ton of elite-level skill available to play alongside him. 

I want to table this for just a second, because I'm going to combine Jake's linemate options with the last of the forward trios...

The Fourth Line

Bellemare, at less than $800k, is a bargain fourth line center. Vandevelde, at the same cap hit, seems to have carved out a spot as a fourth liner and penalty killer. Those two will probably play the same amount as they did this season, as it seems Dave Hakstol really appreciates the game that they play. 

Now, back to the holes on Voracek's line. There is a center spot and a winger spot available there, plus the open wing on the fourth line. Those three spots will be up for grabs to Scott Laughton, Nick Cousins, Ryan White (probably), Jordan Weal (probably not), Taylor Leier (maybe), Travis Konecny (probably not), another prospect (probably not), or a fee agent signing (more on that in the coming weeks). 

Laughton and Konecny are both first-round picks, and it would really make a lot of people in Philly salivate if a pre-season line combination of Konecny-Laughton-Voracek happened. But Konecny will likely spend the season back in Sarnia in the OHL. 

Cousins and Leier, though they don't have the same pedigree as TK, certainly could contribute as the third piece of Jake's line. White, as much as I love him, is probably best suited as a fourth liner. Gagner would fit in nicely with Voracek again, but he's probably heading somewhere else for more money. It's asinine to talk about other free agents at this point, because there are just too many variables. 

2016-17 Flyers Lineup Volume 1

Schenn-Giroux-Simmonds

Konecny-Laughton-Voracek

Raffl-Couturier-Read

White-Bellemare-Vandevelde

And, because I'm on a roll, here's my Off The Cuff/Haven't Really Thought About It Much defense pairings:

Del Zotto - Schultz

Gudas - Manning

Gostisbehere - Streit

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.