73.1% of statistics are made up on the spot
I'm not going to take the bait.. very definition of low hanging fruitFlyers have a good coach but the players can't play the system for more than a period.
Flyers have a good coach but the players can't play the system for more than a period.
Experienced veterans were limited to Couts, Ghost, Voracek, Simmonds and Raffl and of course everyone's favorites, Filppula, Lehtera, Read and MacDonald,
People disregard Pittsburgh's depth AND experience, they had 3 solid lines coming off two SC campaigns.
And their "young" players were 23 years old (Maata, Guentzel, Murray), Rust (25), Oleksiak (25), Sheary (25), Dumoulin (26), Sheahan (26).
It was a similar story when we faced Washington two years before, a team that went to the playoffs every year with little youth:
Only Kuznetsov (23), Orlov (24) played major minutes, while Burakovsky (20) and Wilson (21) played 12 minutes a night.
Meanwhile Flyers rolled out Ghost (24), Provorov (21), Patrick (19), TK (20), Laughton (23), Sanheim (21), Lindblom (21)
Provorov, Patrick, TK, Sanheim and Lindblom had no NHL playoff experience, the others had 6 games.
Experience matters, both NHL and playoff experience. Toronto has struggled two straight years in the playoffs despite elite talent.
Combine inexperience and lack of depth with putrid goaltending, and the question is how did we take the Pens to 6 games.
Doesn't mean we can't catch lightning in a bottle, who knows, maybe Neuvirth's new trainer can keep him healthy through 20 playoff games!
But plan for the worst and hope for the best.
A good young player is always better than a bad old one though.
Statistically, from an underlying perspective, the worst Flyers in the series were:
Lehtera
Weise
Manning
Read
Lindblom
Gudas
Filppula
MacDonald
All at 41% ExGF and under... only one is a "young" player.
And ofc the goalies who were abysmal.
Apart from Lindblom the rest were also poor in the regular season (well, Gudas good 1st half, bad 2nd). It was no great surprise they were not good in the playoffs either.
Now the kids were not good either. But they were not the main problem. A lot of the sub-par vets were.
Flyers have a good coach but the players can't play the system for more than a period.
I think Couturier coming off a knee injury, may force Giroux to start the year as a center
I also think JVR and G. would work well together. I know i post a lot if lines, but tell me that isn't 4 strong lines.
JVR -- Giroux -- Voracek
Laughton -- Couturier -- Simmonds
Lindblom -- Patrick -- Konecny
Raffl -- Vorobyev -- Weise