The Flyers’ Penalty Kill: Definitely Improved, Potentially Good
There were a few reasons why the Philadelphia Flyers didn’t make the postseason last year. Despite being a top-ten team in terms of possession and owning a fine power play, the Orange and Black struggled to score goals at even strength and were hampered by horrendous goaltending from both their netminders. General manager Ron Hextall addressed these concerns with several rosters moves, many of which will also solve a problem that has hurt the Flyers for three seasons now, which is the penalty kill. Bringing in a goaltender who is capable of making more saves while killing penalties and an uptick towards normalcy for last year’s backup, while also removing a heavily-used forward pairing that seemed to struggle on special teams’ during their time in Philadelphia, Hextall has made significant upgrades to the Flyers’ shorthanded unit. If assistant coach Ian Laperriere keeps the same penalty-killing approach intact, both he and head coach Dave Hakstol will need to pick out the right personnel to make one of the Flyers’ weaknesses over the last few years a strength.
Shift in goaltending
The biggest difference next season for the Flyers from a penalty killing perspective is their goaltending. Steve Mason’s 5-on-5 save percentage may have been a tad underrated during his stay in Philadelphia, but his shorthanded save percentage is what hurt his reputation. Despite playing behind penalty kill units that yielded the lowest high-danger corsi against per 60 in the league with a rate of 17.09 while down a man or two, Mason managed to finish 35th out of 41 goalies who played at least 30 games last season with a .845 save percentage shorthanded. With the exception of the 2013–2014 season where he finished 10th with an .849 save percentage, Mason finished in the bottom five goaltenders across the league when it came to shorthanded save percentage for each full season he was in Philly.
Michal Neuvirth did worse than Mason last season, as he posted a .824 shorthanded save percentage in his 28 games of work. In his first season with the Flyers back in 2015–2016, Neuvirth finished eighth among 42 goalies who played at least 30 games with a shorthanded save percentage of .898. Mason, on the other hand, finished dead last with a .829 shorthanded save percentage. Considering 2015–2016 was Neuvirth’s highest save percentage for a single season over his career and 2016–2017 was his worst, it’s a fair assumption that Neuvirth should end up somewhere closer to .900 shorthanded rather than .800, which is passable for a backup netminder.
Brian Elliott spent last year behind a Calgary Flames’ penalty kill that produced similar numbers in terms of shots against and shot attempts against per 60 while shorthanded, but he saw a higher volume of threatening chances, as the Flames ranked 10th with a 19.47 high-danger corsi-against-per-60 rate. Despite this disadvantage compared to Mason’s situation, the former St. Louis Blue found a way to finish 21st in the league with a .873 shorthanded save percentage. Elliott posted this save percentage during his first and only year with the Flames, which also happened to be a down year for the 291st overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft.
During his time with the Blues, Elliott finished first in the category with a .921 in 31 games during the 2013–2014 campaign and fifth with .906 in 2015–2016. His one down year came in 2014–2015, where he finished 21st with an .881 shorthanded save percentage. Overall, from the 2013–2014 season through last year Elliott finished tied for third among 29 goalies who played at least 150 games with a .892 shorthanded save percentage while Mason finished tied for last with a .856 shorthanded save percentage, sharing the infamous distinction with Antti Niemi. If these trends continue, Elliot’s presence alone should be very beneficial to the Flyers’ penalty kill.
Bellemare and VandeVelde Out, Simmonds and Couturier In
Along with Mason, the pairing of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde was another factor that weighed down the effectiveness of the Orange and Black’s penalty kill. Hakstol may have loved to turn to the pair of fourth-line forwards, as they were one of two forward pairings along with Daniel Winnik and Jay Beagle of the Washington Capitals to play 180 minutes shorthanded together or more last season, but their results didn’t necessarily explain their usage. Although they had the second-highest total for shorthanded time on ice together last season, Bellemare and VandeVelde were tied for 11th with a 6.7 goals against per 60 and 13th with a score-adjusted corsi-against-per-60 rate of 99.2 out of the 17 forward pairings who played at least 100 minutes together in shorthanded situations.
One aspect of killing penalties the pair of Bellemare and VandeVelde did alright with was limiting high-danger changes against. Out of 104 forwards who spent 100 minutes or more killing penalties last season, Bellemare finished 25th with an 18.73 high-danger chances against per 60 and VandeVelde finished 30th with a rate of 19.02. Fortunately for Hakstol and the Flyers, his other highly-used duo of penalty-killing forwards in Wayne Simmonds and Sean Couturier finished even better in this category, as Simmonds finished first with a rate of 13.05 and Couturier finished fourth with 15.01.
That’s not where the duo of Simmonds and Couturier stopped topping the Bellemare and VandeVelde pair in shorthanded numbers. Simmonds and Couturier, as well as Bellemare and VandeVelde, were two of the 28 forward pairings that played 80 shorthanded minutes together or more in 2016–2017. The former finished with the lowest score-adjusted corsi against per 60 rate of 69 out of those forward pairings, while the latter finished 18th with 99.2. Simmonds and Couturier dropped to 10th in terms of goals against per 60 with a rate of 6.0, but it was still much better than Bellemare and VandeVelde’s rate of 6.7, which placed them 20th out of the 28 pairings.
Simmonds and Couturier also finished in a three-way tie with the Michael Grabner-Jesper Fast tandem of the New York Rangers and Scottie Upshall-Kyle Brodziak tandem of the St. Louis Blues for the best goal differential of those 28 forward pairings at minus-6. The big reason for this was Simmonds’ ability to counter down a man and create chances himself. In a season where he seemingly improved his acceleration and getaway speed on breakaways and transition chances, Simmonds thrived during his first year on the penalty kill. The reach of Simmonds (6’2”) and Couturier (6’3”), as well as their anticipation in the defensive zone, led to the tandem gaining control of the puck with the opposing power play usually in a prone position, which led to several scoring chances the other way.
These chances resulted in Simmonds being one of only five players across the league last year to have two shorthanded goals or more as well as at least 15 shorthanded shots on goal. With the departure of Bellemare and VandeVelde, Hakstol and Laperriere are looking for another couple of forwards who can limit the opposition’s chances while also providing a few offensive chances of their own. The question is, who can fill that role?
The Second Set of Forwards
Working under the assumption that Simmonds and Couturier will see a large amount of time killing penalties this upcoming season, there are a few forwards who can fill in as part of the second tandem of penalty-killing forwards. Based on shorthanded time on ice over the last few seasons and some interesting roster decisions, two of those forwards could come from the trio of Matt Read, Scott Laughton, and Valtteri Filppula.
Read was a penalty-kill regular for the Flyers from the 2012–2013 shortened season to 2015–2016. Even with those obvious first two forward tandems of Simmonds-Couturier and Bellemare-VandeVelde, Read finished sixth among forwards in terms of shorthanded ice time this past season with 55:52. The Bemidji State University product has also shown flashes of offensive productivity while killing penalties, as he was one of four forwards with four shorthanded goals or more during the 2013–2014 campaign. Read and Couturier formed a powerful penalty killing pair that season, as Couturier had four shorthanded points and led the league in shorthanded ice time among forwards with 279:32 to help Philadelphia finish with the league’s seventh-best penalty kill.
After Hextall protected him in the recent NHL Expansion Draft and handed him a two-year extension, it looks like Laughton is working his way back into the Flyers’ lineup. One reason he may be doing that is his defensive responsibility and work on the penalty kill. Laughton was never a regular on the Flyers’ penalty kill, but he did see ice time with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms down a man or two during the 2016–2017 season. Unfortunately, the American Hockey League doesn’t post individual time-on-ice statistics, but based on the fact Laughton was one of seven AHL players with four shorthanded goals last season and that he talked about his improvement on the penalty kill late in the season, it’s safe to assume the 2012 first-round pick had an impact for the Phantoms. If more proof was needed that Laughton has a good chance of making the roster, think of Hextall’s quotes about the forward in that Sam Carchidi article and the fact a few other Flyers’ forwards are waiver-exempt on top of the Orange and Black’s need for another effective penalty killer this upcoming season.
The acquisition of Filppula at this past season’s trade deadline was surprising to many of those who follow the team, but one reason why Hextall could have targeted the Finnish forward was his ability to kill penalties. After he finished 50th among forwards over the last two seasons with 262:34 of shorthanded time on ice, Filppula finished with a respectable 100.46 corsi against per 60 to finish 52nd and a slightly better 5.47 goals against per 60 to finish 24th among 98 forwards with 200 or more minutes killing penalties over the last two seasons. This past season, Filppula spent most of his time killing penalties with Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat, as each tandem featuring the current Flyer finished tied for 38th out of all 93 forward pairs with at least 30 minutes shorthanded together with a 94.9 score-adjusted corsi-against-per-60 rate. The concern with placing Filppula on the penalty kill is that, although he posts fine shot-attempt metrics his shot metrics killing penalties aren’t great, as he finished with a 57.17 shots against per 60 rate to finish 79th among the aforementioned 98-forward group.
A few other options are Claude Giroux, Michael Raffl, and Nolan Patrick. Giroux hasn’t finished in the top four among Flyers’ forwards in terms of shorthanded time on ice since the 2011–2012 season, but in his two seasons as a key penalty killer in 2010–2011 and 2011–2012 Giroux was tied for first with nine shorthanded points and had the 11th-best corsi against per 60 with 80.56 out of 208 forwards who played at least 100 shorthanded minutes over those two seasons. Also, if concerns about Giroux’s overall productivity grow due to his 5-on-5 struggles, perhaps letting an amazing special teams’ player lead the league in overall special teams’ time on ice isn’t the worst idea. As for Raffl, the Austrian forward has a fair amount of shorthanded ice time for the Flyers since his first season back in 2013–2014. His first season in the NHL was his only season where he had over 100 minutes of time on ice shorthanded and led all forwards in the NHL with a 74 corsi against per 60. Last but not least, Patrick has been considered a complete player who can play in all situations. If Hakstol and Laperriere are looking to add some skill that opposing teams haven’t had the chance to scout yet, Patrick would be the best option to add in a limited role on the penalty kill.
Defense
As for the defensive pairings on the penalty kill for the Flyers in 2017–2018, there probably isn’t going to be that much change. With the four players who comprised the three defensive pairs that saw the most shorthanded ice time last season, the only chance for a change will likely come with which rookies make the team from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. There could be ways to improve the defense’s impact down a skater or two, but we’ll have to see what Laperriere’s feeling is about the situation once the season starts.
Unfortunately, the most relied upon pairing last season was Andrew MacDonald, a player who seems to struggle in all facets of the game, and Ivan Provorov, who was a rookie asked to cover up a lot of mistakes for his defensive partner. The pair were the Flyers’ defensive tandem with the most shorthanded ice time at 168 minutes lastseason, as the two were one of just 12 defensive pairs that played at least 150 minutes or more together killing penalties. Of those 12 pairings, MacDonald-Provorov had the second-highest goals-against-per-60 rate of 8.2 and their 100.6 score-adjusted corsi against per 60 was the third highest.
MacDonald didn’t play enough with another d-man on the penalty kill to gauge how effective he is, but based on all of his 5-on-5 metrics it would seem he is most likely the problem. Provorov also played 49 minutes shorthanded with Radko Gudas, as the pair allowed a high volume of shot attempts but prevented the opposition from scoring. Out of 68 defensive pairs to kill 45 PIMs or more last season, Gudas-Provorov finished with the seventh-best goals-against-per-60 rate of 3.7, but also had the 40th-ranked score-adjusted corsi against per 60 with 102.7. With Hakstol’s seeming inability to willingly ice a pair of very young players at the same position at the same time, it doesn’t seem likely that Provorov will be separated from MacDonald. Even if they did part, MacDonald would most likely be paired with whichever rookie makes the team to provide ‘veteran presence’ for the youngster.
Gudas-Manning Pairing?
There’s a decent chance Manning will be the team’s seventh d-man this year, but if he isn’t Hakstol and company should utilize him more on the penalty kill. Manning was a mediocre 5-on-5 player last season, but he surprisingly provided reasonable penalty-killing numbers in his limited time with both Gudas and current Vancouver Canuck Michael Del Zotto. The Gudas-Manning tandem played 39 minutes together last season when Philly was killing a penalty and finished with a 67.6 score-adjusted corsi against per 60 to finish with the third-lowest rate out of 90 defensive pairs to play 35 minutes or more in 2016–2017. The pair’s 7.7 goals-against-per-60 rate came in at 63rd out of those 90 d-men pairs, but since each player finished in the top two for defensemen in terms of shots against per 60 on the Flyers last season perhaps adding a new goaltender to the mix will help Gudas and Manning.
New Kids On The Block
Although it seems unlikely Hakstol would replace MacDonald with one of the incoming rookies, there is always a chance one of Sam Morin, Travis Sanheim, or Robert Hagg take a spot away from MacDonald or another blue liner. Each of the prospects has logged a lot of time in the AHL and has been noticed for their penalty killing abilities, but it will come down to how comfortable the coaching staff feels with each one’s game. Will Morin, Sanheim, or Hagg be able to overcome MacDonald’s inabilities, Gudas’ lack of speed in a puck race, or Provorov’s adjustment to leading the back end on a penalty kill if they are paired with one of the veterans.
At the end of the day, the departures of Mason, VandeVelde, and Bellemare may be enough to significantly improve Philadelphia’s numbers while down a player or two. However, with the right tweaking from Hakstol and Laperriere, as well as making the right decisions in terms of which kids to keep on the roster from Hextall, the Flyers’ penalty kill could go from being a facet of the game that cost Philly several games throughout the year, to being an above-average unit that helps hold on to leads and secure several crucial points throughout the season.
