VOORHEES, N.J. — In hindsight, it’s a quote that perhaps should have gotten a bit more attention. Speaking just four days before the Flyers’ season opener, general manager Daniel Briere opined that while he thought everyone in training camp showed up in top physical shape, prepared to endure the rigors of a John Tortorella-led training camp, he wasn’t all that pleased with what he saw from the established NHL veterans throughout the seven-game preseason slate.
“I get it,” Briere said on Oct. 7. “It’s games that don’t really matter. You don’t want to get hurt. You’re trying to get prepared and get ready for Game 1. But it’s also tough to turn that switch on. I told the players, ‘There’s too many of you that were a little too casual in the games.’ And I don’t want them to be surprised when Game 1 starts and they’re still trying to navigate through training camp.”
So did that happen? Results suggest that, yeah, maybe it did. The Flyers started 1-5-1, as issues that hurt them the final few weeks of last season were still present. They didn’t earn their first regulation win until their eighth game. There was a myriad of problems.
“I think that’s pretty fair,” Scott Laughton said. “We weren’t good enough in preseason and I think it bled into the start.”
Lately, though, the Flyers have more resembled the team they were through mid-March of last season, when they were the surprise of the league. They’re 4-2-1 in their last seven headed into Thursday night’s meeting at the Ottawa Senators, and have a three-game point streak (2-0-1) for the first time after Monday’s 4-3 shootout win over San Jose, in which they were plainly the better team despite surrendering an early three-goal lead.
There have been incremental but noticeable improvements in different aspects of their team performance. It began, as these things often do, in the defensive zone. Through October 28, the Flyers were allowing a league-worst 4.44 goals-per game. In their last seven, though, they’ve cut that down by two full goals to 2.43 per game, fifth in the NHL over that span.
“Last year, we had our identity and we did that consistently pretty much every single game and we knew how we had to play,” Nick Seeler said. “I think the start of the season, we kind of lost that. This past week or so, I think we’ve found that, and been getting back to it.”
One reason for the sudden stinginess is the penalty kill, a perfect 17-for-17 over the last seven games. In fact, if there’s one positive aspect of the Flyers’ game that has been steady for some time now, it’s that. They finished fourth in the NHL last season with an 83.4 penalty-kill percentage, and are second now (90.4 percent) behind Nashville.
It earned them that extra point in the standings on Monday against the Sharks, when, to start overtime, they were forced to kill off a Matvei Michkov roughing minor at the 20-minute mark of the third period.
A big part of that, of course, is the goaltending of Samuel Ersson. In fact, of the 29 NHL goalies who have played at least 40 minutes this season on the penalty kill, Ersson’s .977 save percentage leads the league. Ersson will likely make his third straight start on Thursday.
But the Flyers’ penalty-killers are supremely confident in front of Ersson, too, deploying mostly the same players and combinations this season that they used last season.
“We don’t even really talk about it as a group. Everyone knows their job out there,” said Laughton, who’s most often killing with Travis Konecny. “We’re comfortable. Our (defensemen) have been really good and your goalie needs to be really good on the PK. It’s fun to go out there. It feels like you have an opportunity every time to make an impact on the game.”
Offensively, there is still some work to be done. Finishing remains an issue, which is something else that also dates to last season. Even against the Sharks, the Flyers could have put them away much earlier had they capitalized on a few more of their many chances.
But there has been much more shot volume over their last three games, in particular, as they managed 31 in their 2-1 shootout win over the Lightning on Nov. 7; 37 in their 4-3 shootout loss to the Panthers on Nov. 9; and a season-high 42 on Monday against the Sharks.
Compare that with the previous four games, in which they didn’t eclipse more than 21 shots, and it suggests that the Flyers have been able to build on that defensive structure with what is now a more dangerous offensive attack. It’s a small sample size, but in their last three games, the Flyers have a healthy 2.7 expected-goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five. That’s up from 2.15 through Nov. 6, which placed them third from the bottom in the league.
“The past two or three games in our chances, I think we’re up in the double digits on rush chances,” coach John Tortorella said. “I know we’re playing the right way when we’re getting some rush chances. We’re playing faster, we’re causing turnovers in the neutral zone, not spending as much time in our end zone.”
Something that Tortorella has mentioned a few times lately is the third-man-high concept, in which, essentially, the forwards have to work together as a group to both support the offense while maintaining a good defensive position. When that part of their game breaks down, it adversely affects the defensemen, too, because they can get caught too deep when trying to pinch — something that Tortorella wants them to do as aggressively as possible.
Put more simply, it’s playing together as a five-man unit, something that Seeler believes is trending in the right direction.
“The structure has been a lot better,” he said. “On that road trip (last week), we started having our structure come back. We’ve been a little more aggressive. The D is pinching, and our (third man) has been protecting the D so we’re able to pinch, so we can trust them. It’s all connected.
“We’ve done a good job here as of late,” Seeler continued, “and just need to continue to build on it.”
(Photo of Emil Andrae, Travis Konecny and Sean Couturier: Eric Hartline / Imagn Images)
