Since my last post, the Flyers have notched two confident wins, beating the Devils and Hurricanes 4-1 and 5-1 respectively. I take a few things from those wins.
-Secondary scoring. It was a very Ed Snider thing to do what he did 2 weeks ago; calling out individuals for not performing in the middle of a season. As the godfather of the Flyers, he does what he wants, even if other owners would never dare.
Most of the credit towards the Flyers improved recent play comes down to contributions from secondary lines, and specifically Simmonds, Couturier and Read. Is it a coincidence that those were the three guys Snider named? Since those comments; Simmonds has 5 goals in 5 games (after a stretch of 3 goals in 20 games), Couturier is on 6 game points streak, and Read got his first goal and points in a few weeks.
I do not think comments from the owner were major catalysts for these guys, and furthermore today Berube revealed that Read has been playing through a foot injury this season. Let's just chalk it up to Snider stating the obvious, and talented players eventually coming around. Whatever it was, the Flyers really need the secondary scoring to continue.
-Better than the Bottom-Dwellers. Both of the Flyers' big wins came against bottom teams in the Eastern Conference. As I remarked in my last post, say what you will about this team, but they are better than a basement team. The Flyers will have to start beating good teams to make the playoffs too, but I expect to see the Flyers lift themselves up and away in the standings from the truly bad NHL teams.
-Penalty Kill Still Sucks. The good news is that the Flyers haven't allowed a 5v5 goal in 3 games. The bad news is that the penalty kill continues to limp along, allowing 4 goals in the last 3 games. This must change. In my opinion, the awful PK is really the only significant difference between this year's lousy team and last year's playoff quality team, but more on that in my next post.
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