BernieParent
In misery of redwings of suckage for a long time
I honestly enjoy how melodramatic people get when the PP gets cold for a few games. Over the last six years, they've consistently been top five year-to-year with essentially the same personnel and set up, and they rank in the top three with Pittsburgh and Washington over that span. They're keeping pace with the better PPs this year as usual, even despite Gostisbehere's struggles.
People just don't understand how probabilities work, so when the unit gets cold for a few games, they demand "CHANGES!!" even though it's quite likely they will regress back to their mean over enough time.
Over the course of a full season where a team averages ~260 powerplays, the difference between the Flyers' PP and the Caps' PP (league best) would be ~4 goals. Rather marginal. On the other hand, the difference between the Flyers and the Red Wings (league worst) would be ~21 goals. So, yeah, complaints about the PP are generally pretty overblown.
Of course, eventually the unit will have to be changed, so it's worth considering fresh ideas, but the demand for changes as though the current unit isn't acceptable is laughable at best.
Why?
But how many of the Flyers' recent PPs have looked utterly impotent? Poor puck movement, not even close to a scoring opportunity, struggling to just gain the zone? I am frustrated if the Flyers don't score, but infinitely more frustrated when they are fumbling the puck around with no purpose, leading to easy clears from the PKers.