Penguins Game 1 Review

The Flyers main goal this series was winning a game in Pittsburgh, and that mission is already accomplished.  Now, there is no reason they can't take two.

As mentioned yesterday, the Flyers are terrible in the first 10 minutes of games--I almost expect them to give up the first goal, and just hope they don't give up a second.  Yesterday, it was made even worse with that goal in the last minute of the first, which looked to be a real backbreaker.  The Flyers have shown an amazing ability to come back, and the Pens aren't too adept at shutting it down with a lead, but 3-0 is 3-0.

Hopefully the Flyers now have a mental edge.  The Pens dominated the first, and seemed to regain control late in the 2nd after the Flyers got one, but the Pens really wilted down the stretch.  They were frankly a mess in overtime, and I was thinking to myself they were getting very sloppy around their net and one of these loose pucks around there is going to end up in the net.  That outcome didn't take long to materialize.

Going forward, the Flyers should focus on getting the puck deep.  The Pens defense is not strong down low, and chipping it in will also limit the Pens chance to counter, which is their strength.


Other items:
-Bryzgalov played okay.  I was about ready to declare that Fleury outplayed him in game 1, then Fleury gave up a bad goal to Briere.  Either way, Bryzgalov has pretty much seen the worst possible thing happen (down 3 goals early, including an unlucky one), but finished pretty strong, moving confidently.

-Bourdon and Lilja definitely looked like a weak link out there.  Lilja is slow but battled, and Bourdon seemed a little overwhelmed at times.  Then Bourdon picked up an injury.  Maybe Kubina will go back in, though it's believed he is struggling because he is not 100% anyway.  A Kubina-Lilja pairing is kind of scary, because they will be SLOW.

-The legend of Briere rises.  A little bit of luck on each goal, though clearly Briere was piling up the bad luck all year to get some breaks in the playoffs....

-Of course the first Briere goal was offsides.  Tipping the scales on the whole, I don't think the Pens can complain about the officiating.  All 3 of their power plays were completely embellished, and they were running Flyers and got only one penalty for all their late hits.  Also, their third goal came directly after an icing call was waved off for no apparent reason.

-The Pens are definitely targeting Giroux and Timonen with late hits.  Honestly though, if I were the Pens, I would tone down the physical game.  Their physical aggressiveness didn't hurt them directly, but it feels like the Flyers are in their heads and Pens are trying to compensate by pushing them around. 

-A pretty quiet night for the "stars."  Crosby had a nice goal to get things going, but neither he nor Malkin were terribly threatening.  Giroux was even more invisible. 

-Big game from Schenn tonight though, which is great to see.  The kid is stronger on his skates than he looks.

-And I will leave you with a tweet fom Dejan Kovacevic, Penguins beat writer: "If you're looking for reaction from #Pens, forget about it. They bailed like the place was on fire or something."

Defensemen Statistical Performance

Hockey is hard sport to capture in numbers, and defensemen is probably the position that is the most difficult.  People tend to caught up in points, which makes sense, but there are other numbers out there that may be informative.  Below is a table of Flyers defensemen performance this season.

I visually separated Kubina and Grossman because those stat lines largely reflect their time on another team, so it's not apples to apples comparisons.  I also focus on the rates these players accrue stats per minute played.

Some things are obvious--Meszaros shoots a lot, Timonen limits turnovers, Grossman never shoots...etc  There are some interesting tidbits in there though.

-Coburn excels at the giveaway/takeaway balance, but he blocks very few shots and misses the net constantly on his shots.

-Of the Flyers' regulars, Carle has the highest percentage of shots on net, and blocks the most shots.  That is unexpected.

-Kubina and Grossman block more shots than any Flyers defensemen.  That may be inflated by their time away from the Flyers, but it is noteworthy.

-Meszaros and Coburn have the most takeaways, but those two also are the worst shot blockers.  This makes sense with Meszaros' active game, but is surprising with Coburn who plays more passively and does not produce offense.

Still Trading

The Flyers completed another trade yesterday, acquiring Pavel Kubina for the 2nd round pick acquired from Florida for Kris Versteeg (which is a 2012 or 2013 at Florida's discretion), a 2013 4th round pick and Jon Kalinski.  Kalinski is pretty much a throw-in--he performed adequately for the Flyers in the past, but has been surpassed by other players on the Flyers call-up depth chart.

Together the Flyers acquired Pavel Kubina and Niklas Grossman, and traded away FLA's 2012/2013 2nd round pick, LA's 2nd round pick in 2012 (acquired in Richards trade), Minnesota's 3rd round pick in 2013 (acquired in the Powe trade), and a 4th round pick in 2013.

I have previously wrote how Grossman fits the Flyers needs for a defensive defensemen with size that has been needed since Pronger went down, and also how Kubina's skill set matches the Flyers needs.  In many ways, this goes back to what I said in December--that Pronger's absence created defensive and power play holes that would likely need to be filled by multiple new defensemen.

Focusing specifically on Kubina, I like his skill set, but there is an open question if his skills are declining.  I guess we'll find out.

More broadly, the wisdom of trading a handful of draft picks for players that may only be 2 month rentals has to be questioned.  These trades definitely make the Flyers a marginally better team, but not necessarily a contender.  Too often Flyers games this season turn into anarchy on ice.  It makes them a lot of fun to watch, but defensive calamity and backbreaking goals never feel far away.  These trades cannot address deeper issues that have persisted into last season.  Holmgren, it seems, is incapable of holding onto draft picks.

More to Come?
The Flyers name is still being kicked around in rumors for Nash and Nabokov.  I'm not sure how much sense it makes to acquire either player, particularly with the Bryzgalov situation and Nabokov being another rental player for a team that may be staring at a very short playoff run. 

Also, Nash is super expensive, and may not be worth the assets and cap space.  It was widely reported yesterday that the Columbus GM was at the Flyers game yesterday and met with Holmgren for 45 minutes, but I will take Darren Dreger's word for his summary of the situation: "Price too high for Flyers(at moment) for Nash. May re-engage later. JVR,Bobrovski, Schenn or Couturier believed to be part of asking price."

A JVR+Bobrovsky deal basis isn't too bad, as I do think JVR will never be the player Nash is.  Consider this chart as evidence of that;

This consideration, however has to be weighed against the fact that it's been 3 years since Nash hit the 40 goal mark, and Nash has only hit 70 points once in his career.  I have also previously written that goal scorers tend to be their most productive in their early 20s.  Now I know the obvious counter to this line of thinking is that Nash has been playing with crap players in Columbus and his production will immediately jump elsewhere, but it is very dangerous to expect significantly different production merely by new teammates.  I'm not sure I could bring myself to part with Schenn or Cooter for Nash.