Flyers Add Mobile Russian Dman

For the second time this week, I’ve had to do some serious googling to figure out who the Flyers just added.   While the Flyers were previously rumored to be interested in a young Russian defensemen (Nikita Zaitsev), they went ahead and signed a veteran to 1 year, $3 million deal.

Yevgeni Medvedev is 32 year old, 6’3” defensemen.  Eliteprospects.com says: "[he's] a large, yet very mobile and smooth skating defensemen...he sees the ice well and has good hockey sense...he can pass really well but also possesses a good shot...could play a more physical and aggressive game given his size."  Maybe the Flyers could use him a shootout too!

A large, yet very mobile and smooth skating defenseman. Medvedev sees the ice well and has good hockey sense. He can pass really well, but also possesses a hard shot.

Could play a more physical and aggressive game given his size. - See more at: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=16728#sthash.doOY8WLJ.dpuf

He's been a regular at AK Bars Kazan the last 8 years.  He’s won two championships there, and has been a KHL all-star selection the last 3 years.  He’s also been a regular on the Russian national team, winning medals on their last few World Championship teams, as well as playing in Sochi.  On the Sochi squad, Medvedev was their #3 defensemen in terms of ice time, behind Andrei Markov and just barely behind Slava Voynov, but ahead of NHL regulars Fedor Tyutin and Nikita Nikitin.

It appears that he is a well-regarded, mobile defensemen.  The big question for him will be adjusting to the smaller NHL rink and the more physical game, as he spent his whole career in Russia.  If he can do that, he will likely be a top-4 defensemen next season.

This leaves the Flyers with more defensemen than they need.  Presuming they re-sign Del Zotto, they’ll have 9 defensemen.
-Del Zotto
-Streit
-MacDonald
-Schenn
-Schultz
-Grossmann
-Manning
-Medvedev
-Gudas

This list doesn’t even include all their young defensemen such as Gostisbehere, Morin, Hagg or Sanheim.  For the moment, I’d have to presume that Ghost, Morin and Hagg will all be in the AHL next season as they all have something to gain by more time there, and the Flyers have no room for them.  Sanheim had a fantastic season last year, so I’m not sure he has much to gain from another year in junior (and by rule he can’t play in the AHL), but Hextall doesn’t seem inclined to rush any 19-year-olds.

So what to do with all these defensemen?  The Flyers will almost certainly trade at least one.  That should be either Schenn or Grossmann.  The Flyers have no need for two big, slow, stay at home defensemen.  I’m just not sure which one.  Schenn is younger but less reliable, and both players will be free agents after this season.  Schenn is also one of the only right hand shots on defense.

If the Flyers send Manning back down and ship out Schenn/Grossmann, they're left with a 7-deep corps with which they can enter the season.  If however, they still are interested in Zaitsev, or want Manning to stick, they’ll be back up to an unwieldy 8.  In such case, there is no obvious answer as to what the right move would be to ship someone else out.

The New Face of the Flyers

Having had a little time for it to sink, as well as hear a few more impressions from others, Hakstol appears to be a very serious man.  Yesterday "Puck Daddy" Wyshynski commented on his podcast that when he interviewed Hakstol a few years ago, it was almost like talking to a military man.  A serious bearing, and direct answers.

All sources agree he is not a verbose guy.  He's not even a yeller.  But there is no doubt that he is intense.  How does that intensity get across?  It's the Hakstol Death Stare, that one former player said "will penetrate the back of your helmet."

Get used to the new face of the Flyers.

Or in animated gif form;

Flyers Have a Coach

The Flyers went completely off the board this morning with their new coach, hiring Dave Hakstol from North Dakota.  There had been some reports that the Flyers would be a top contender for Babcock, with local beat writers implying the Flyers scarcely had a Plan B.  Now it looks like Plan A was never Babcock, and the press simply didn't have a bead on it.

When Paul Holmgren replaced Laviolette with Berube in 2013, the Flyers took grief from some quarters about being too insular.  While Hextall is a member of that insider's club, he continues to lead the organization down a new path.  This certainly qualifies as an outside-the-box move.

I certainly will not pretend to have any special insight into Hakstol as a coach.  Here are some facts and comments others have made about him this morning:

-He played college hockey at UND and played a few years of minor league hockey.

-After retiring from playing, he became an assistant with his minor league team, and then an assistant at UND in 2000.

-He was promoted to head coach at UND in 2004.  As head coach there, he had 289-141-43 record.  He was named conference coach of the year in 2009 and 2015.  UND made it to the Frozen Four seven times, although never won a championship.

-He is the NHL coach hired directly from a college job since Herb Brooks in 1987, and only the third guy ever to get his first NHL job as a head coach from only college experience (Bob Johnson 1982, Ned Harkness 1970).  The Flyers did hire Mike Keenan when he was serving as head coach of the University of Toronto in 1984, although he had already been around the block in different jobs.

Ryan Bright ‏@philabright  2 hours ago

Per @GFHerald, Hakstol is "stoic, straight-forward personality." Known for "intense presence." He also doesn't sleep, apparently.

Ryan Bright ‏@philabright  2 hours ago

Quote on Hakstol from @GFHerald: “That stare,” one former player said, “will penetrate the back of your helmet.”

-Bob McKenzie ‏@TSNBobMcKenzie  2 hours ago

Hakstol is extremely well regarded. Coached Ron Hextall's son Brett at NoDak. NHL people I've talked to say Hakstol's assistants will be key

-Dan Hammer, UND play-by-play guy, appeared on CSN this morning and said the big word regarding Hakstol is "intensity." He also said that his "system" is defensively-oriented and "very much into molding players into two-way players [citing Toews]."

-He has seen several NHL guys pass through UND, such as TJ Oshie, Jonathan Toews, and Zach Parise.  Current Flyers Chris VandeVelde also played for him.



Given that he is a college coach, there is a natural presumption that he will be good with young players.  I think this something of a statement hire, and Hextall is willing to be patient and go back square one in many respects.  Hakstol will be given the chance to stamp his identity on the team, as this hire is not an attempt to get back into the playoffs as fast as possible.

Based on his comments at the press conference today, it seems Hextall likes that he pushes players, has personal familiarity with him from his son playing there, and that ultimately the lack of NHL experience simply wasn't a dealbreaker.  Personally, I have no complaints.  It will be intriguing to watch things going forward the next few seasons with Hakstol molding the team while a bunch of young players coming into the lineup.

I Suck at Picking the West

It may just be the sting of picking the Jets, and then watching them get swept, but I really suck at picking the West.  As with last year, I got all 4 Eastern Conference series correct, but only shot 50% in the West again.

I had hoped my increased statistical focus would lessen the gap from East to West, as I see the teams in the East play a whole lot more.  It didn't really work, even though the Kings didn't make the playoffs this year for me to incorrectly pick them to lose, as I did in 2013 and 2014.  Here are my pick results for the last three years.

 

As a reminder, here's how my mathematical rankings laid out this year's teams. 

 

Overall, they worked pretty well.  If you combine the rankings with a little bit of subjective analysis, I feel very good that I correctly identified the real contenders; Chicago, Tampa Bay, New York and Minnesota.

Where things didn't work out so well for me was at the other end of the spectrum.  I went with the numbers picking against Calgary and Anaheim, and got burned.

For the Calgary series, I think the numbers were wrong in identifying Vancouver as a much stronger team than Calgary.  Vancouver has had lousy showings in their recent playoff history, so I should've been a little skeptical of that.  Oh well.

Regarding Anaheim, I may be willing to chalk them up as a statistical anomaly.  I still don't feel entirely bad about picking Winnipeg.  You look at Anaheim you see a top heavy offense overly relying on Perry and Getzlaf. You see an inexperienced goal tandem. You see a head coach with a terrible playoff record. You see a team that was 19th in shot differential in close situations (only Ottawa and Calgary was worse among playoff teams). You see a team that was only +10 in goal differential, worst among all playoff teams.

All they really had going for them was a preposterous record of 33-1-7 in 1 goal games (nhl.com has stats on this category going back to 1998, and this is by far the best record any team has ever had).  Was that an anomaly, or does Anaheim have a truly unique trait to win close games.  I feel okay with presuming it to be the former.

I'll tweak my mathematical rankings going forward, but it was a pretty good tool.  From it, I picked the Hawks over the Rangers in the finals, although the Rangers have some serious work to do with the Caps right now to get that far!