The goalies are too big, too athletic, too positional sound, etc. across that board now a days that you’re not seeing many sniping. You’re not overpowering them anymore as they did back in the day. Perimeter goal scoring is becoming less & less of a thing. Look at any top goal scorer in the league at shot & goal locations it’s closer to the net in what they call the danger area.
For the Flyers the last time they were consistently a good team outside of one elite goal scoring season by Carter they did it by scoring depth.
Which is the reason for the "low high" game that a lot of teams use.
If you don't have exceptional shooters (which we don't, Konecny isn't in the same class as Boeser, for example) then you need to get traffic in front of the net, fire the puck on net and either get it through a screen or put in a rebound. I'd bet we're in the bottom half of scoring on open shots in the league.
As far as Lehtera on the PK, well, he sucks, but so does everyone else, I mean in a SSS 64% or 75% - bring back VdV! (just kidding, I think).
I think Lehtera and Manning playing has nothing to do with favorites, and everything to do with Hextall wanting to keep his prospects in the AHL as long as possible before he has to commit to them. He's seen Weal and Laughton struggle, Sanheim look lost - there is just a huge gap between Provorov's ice awareness and Sanheim. And that tells you how he values player development v this season (which the Schenn trade proclaimed loud and clear) - he's rather lose this year and have his young players better prepared to start next year.
I've been saying for two years that next year is when we clear out most of the scrubs, and the job will be finished in 2019-20.
Nothing has happened to cause me to modify that opinion.
