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How good can the Flyers be with that back end?
How good can the Flyers be with that back end?
The scariest thing about the Flyers these days is, obviously, their new mascot Gritty .
But the second-scariest thing about them is the number of question marks they have in their defensive group and crease. This is a good team at least insofar as you can probably count on them to score a bunch of goals this season — especially after adding James van Riemsdyk over the summer — but the question is how many they can keep out.
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Let's not forget that while this team finished third in their division last season, they did so by a single point, nudging in just ahead of Columbus (a better 1-20 team) and New Jersey (a lucky team). And in fact, getting to 98 points, which you'll note isn't a great total or anything, required their top line be absolutely incredible across all 200 feet of the ice for the full 82. That's not to say it couldn't happen again, but the idea that you can count on Claude Giroux to hit the century mark again is a bit rich.
Put another way, despite absolutely heroic efforts from Giroux and Sean Couturier in particular, this is a team that only scored the 13th-most goals in the league last year, and allowed the 16th-most. That basically means this was a team that looked pretty good for a big chunk of the season but only finished plus-8 in the goals column and, with a little bit less luck, could have very easily missed the playoffs entirely.
So with the improved offense, maybe you say that fills in the gaps a little bit and ensures a bit more goalscoring. Especially because you might now be able to count on Nolan Patrick to play the full 82 and chip in a bit more offensively as well. One really shouldn't worry about the Philly offense too much; it should be above-average once again.
That defense, though, yeesh. There are some obvious bright spots in Shayne Gostisbehere and Ivan Provorov, both of whom are just great, and Radko Gudas when he's not suspended for trying to decapitate someone.
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And maybe you expect steps forward from young guys like Travis Sanheim and Robert Hagg as well. Sanheim, for example, looked good in spots when he was with the big club but spent a few months in the AHL for a reason. Meanwhile Hagg was, shall we say, less impressive as the season wore on.
Doesn't help that Hagg was often paired with Andrew MacDonald — who is seen by everyone but Dave Hakstol as one of the worst defensemen in the league — but they're very much cut from the same cloth and not particularly suited to a game Flyers management seems to wish was still played in the NHL (see also: the acquisition of Christian Folin to be the team's seventh defenseman and Sam Morin being seen as anything close to an NHLer).
But yeah, even if you like three or four of those defenders, you have to acknowledge there are negatives to one of them, which muddies things. Gudas, again, is a bright spot on the blue line… when he's actually on the ice. But, okay, you have to count on him putting you on the PK for majors at least a few times a year, plus a bunch of minors, and getting suspended a few times, which necessitates a replacement and depletes his value. In many games, it might neutralize it completely.
MacDonald, though, is just about a replacement-level defender for me and will still get about 20 minutes a night when he's healthy. Which he isn't right now, meaning Folin or someone else (Philippe Myers?) might have to play more than one might want. Then again, MacDonald is reportedly "ahead of schedule" so he might be there sooner than Flyers fans eager to see him shuffled off the roster sooner than later.
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So that's two unqualified borderline stars on defense, a good depth guy whose proclivity toward violence makes him an occasional liability, two question-mark young guys who may or may not take steps forward, and two replaceable veteran right-side defenders who you would normally never play if you had other options. Not great.
The problems on defense, though, only exacerbate the problems in net.
Take your pick: Brian Elliott, coming off a two straight seasons under the league average, or Michal Neuvirth, whose time in Philly has been a mixed bag at best despite only being in a backup role all three seasons. Both are injury risks any time they play, and despite the concerns about both their health and quality, the Flyers didn't add an actual NHL goaltender of any kind this summer.
Which is a problem because, wouldn't you know it, Neuvirth got hurt late last week and has no timetable for a return because, ah jeez, it's a groin injury and you know how those go. So what do you do now?
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There are a few possible solutions here, none of them particularly appealing. The club has Alex Lyon, who has a great pedigree from college and has generally been pretty good but not great in the AHL over the last two seasons. It also has Anthony Stolarz, who spent time in the ECHL last season in case you're wondering where he's at (to be fair, he also hasn't allowed a goal at 5-on-5 in this preseason so far, so you can see where the Flyers make the argument to themselves).
The question for the Flyers, then, is whether they give youth a chance. Carter Hart, who absolutely demolished junior hockey last season (.947 in the WHL regular season, .921 in the playoffs, .930 at World Junior) and has been great in the preseason as well (.947 overall, .944 at full strength), only turned 20 in mid-August and might already be the best goalie on the roster.
The team has a decision to make on sending him to the AHL or keeping him with the big club at least as long Neuvirth is out. There are already plenty of people making noise about "Is he too young?" and while teams obviously give goaltenders all due caution on bringing them to the NHL (especially with no pro experience at all), you rarely see goalies post these kinds of numbers across the board in their DY+2, and he was basically never even average in the WHL, even before he went all the way off in his last year of eligibility.
Like, if the kid comes into the league and isn't phenomenal, you aren't going to break him, and you always have the option to swap him out for Lyon or Stolarz at a moment's notice. If you're trying to make a personnel decision to make the best out of a very bad goaltending situation, you can do a lot worse than a guy who just had one of the best goaltending seasons in WHL history.
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While there isn't much you can do to fix that defense besides hope young guys keep improving, as they tend to do, there's one potential fix in net, and that's to see what you have with Hart. Based on his pedigree and those of his potential competitors for the temporary backup job, he basically can't be a worse option than any of the others.
So that's a potential fix that, if you're brave enough to trot out, could pay serious dividends. And if it doesn't, well, your goaltending was probably gonna suck anyway. It costs you nothing to try.
Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.
All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.
