After a 10-game win streak that brought their record to a respectable 19-11-4, and pushed them into the first wild-card spot, there’s a question surrounding the Philadelphia Flyers: Is this team for real?
Early in the season, the Flyers were playing fantastic hockey that was spoiled by bad goaltending, and overall they’re a positive even-strength possession team with a 50.64 per cent score-adjusted Corsi, but that’s only good for 14th in the NHL.
However, Philadelphia is very strong on special teams, with the fifth-best power play at 22.8 per cent, and the 10th-best penalty kill at 82.8 per cent. It’s to be expected that the surface-level numbers would look strong given that the team is coming off a such a hot streak, so let’s dig a little deeper.
Last season, the Flyers were particularly adept at cutting down shot attempts from the inner slot at even strength, which is part of the reason why a lot of analytics writers believe Steve Mason is a top-end goaltender. Mason is good, but he’s not elite, and this season the Flyers started out very porous defensively despite strong shot attempt differentials. The result was both their goaltenders, who were strong last season, imploding in terms of save percentage.
Overall, though the Flyers haven’t completely dug themselves out of that early hole at even strength, they’ve been far better at stopping cross-seam passes and inner-slot shots of late, and Mason has been rebounding. Michal Neuvirth hasn’t had an opportunity to do so, but chances are when he gets back in the net, we’ll see improved numbers from him as well.
Outside of that, you can see that Philadelphia’s overall scoring chance numbers are a bit stronger than its Corsi, while its inner-slot shots are a bit weaker in all situations. The trend for most teams is for the scoring chances to pull towards the shot attempt numbers, but currently the Flyers’ shot attempt differentials are cratering significantly while their scoring chance differentials are improving.
I think part of this is by design. It’s not that the Flyers want to get outshot, but David Hakstol is focusing heavily on getting his team’s defensive scheme working, and that focus might have a short-term negative impact on shot attempt numbers.
Specifically, Hakstol has the Flyers allowing the third-fewest dangerous passes against; passes to the slot, passes off the rush, and east-west passes below the tops of the circles, in the NHL over the last month. Only the Nashville Predators and Los Angeles Kings have been better, historically two of the strongest defensive teams in the NHL.
Because of Philadelphia’s forward depth, and the makeup of its defence corps skewing to the offensive-minded player, I don’t think Hakstol is too worried about offensive play.
If we take the Flyers as they have been overall this season, they are about where they should be in the standings. However if they’re able to maintain their current defensive play and have their shot differentials rebound, they jump from “good team that should make the playoffs”, to a team that could do some real damage.
At this point they have to prove that they’re capable of that level of performance, but it adds another wrinkle to the incredible story that is the strength of the Metropolitan Division this season.
