Goals - 3.48/game (1st, +1 spot from last month)Watching the Flyers, one wouldn't think they've tightened up defensively, but there's the numbers for goals against. Even with the improvement, they are still in the bottom half of the league. That's something that needs to be addressed, as they are still prone to look awful in their own end--it happened in the first period against the Islanders and Jets, two of the worst teams in the league.
Goals against - 2.91/g (19th, +9)
Faceoffs - 46.9% (29th, even)
Power play - 17.6% (12th, -6)
Penalty kill - 83.5% (14th, +4)
Shots For - 31.5/g (8th, -2)
Shots Against - 28.7 (7th, -5)
The real story of late is Pronger's newest surgery. Putting aside the ridiculousness of the Flyers injuries reports and treatments, and that after missing a week with "a virus" he will have knee surgery, this is getting into scary territory with Pronger's health. Last year, he missed most of January, March, and the playoffs. This year, he missed training camp, and now is out again. I believe he is up to 5 surgeries since summer 2010.
Before the season I wrote that the Flyers should be concerned about relying on three, injury prone veterans; Pronger, Timonen and Jagr. Well here we are, with Pronger out for a month and Jagr with a groin issue. Timonen also will be forced to increase his minutes, raising his risk of injury. There's not really anything the Flyers can do about this now, but this should make all Flyers fans very nervous. Is Pronger's body breaking down? Repeated knee and back issues certainly suggest as much. Personally, I don't think the Flyers can make a playoff run with Pronger in and out of the lineup, so let's hope that's not the case.
The Flyers need Meszaros and Carle to step up. Actually, they need Meszaros just to return to his form last year. This year he has made a lot of coverage errors down low, though Meszaros has the combination of size and skill of a top pair defensemen if he can steady his play. Timonen is a wily player, but a 36 year old, 5'10" defensemen can only take so much abuse.
Other Notes
-Nodl was waived, then claimed by Carolina. I shed no tears, as I have pretty much run out of patience with Nodl. When he came up I was pretty impressed with his skating and defensive responsibility, which are often two big question marks with young scorers. Time, however, has shown that he can't score at the pro level. Aside from a good start last year, he has been a total offensive black hole. He was nothing more than an extra body for the Flyers forward corps, and with the emergence of Read, Couturier, Rinaldo, and Harry Z, he was spare parts.
-With the Ducks off to a terrible start, a change was coming. The only question was if the change would be a trade (likely Bobby Ryan) or a coaching change. We now know it was the coach. The Flyers' name always came up for Ryan, a player they've always liked. Former number 2 pick, from South Jersey with ties to the organization, power forward, 3 straight 30 goal season, still only 24...there's a lot to like there. It made little sense from an organizational standpoint though. Simply put, the Flyers are up against the cap--why would they add a big scorer salary (which would require other salary dumps to accommodate) when they have no problem scoring? They need defensemen.
I saw a rumor today on the internet (which may be completely false) that the Flyers had agreed to trade Schenn and 2 picks for Ryan, but Boudreau would only sign as a coach if Ryan was still there. I have my doubts about this whole scenario, but stranger things have happened. Presumably, the Ryan trade talk will cool down for everyone for a while, and I just want to see Schenn play for the Flyers. Fortunately that will start tonight.
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