Post-Game Talk: #66: Flyers at Lightning, Friday, March 11, 2016

[Winston Wolf]

I thought Gagner would have to wait until August or even training camp to get a serious offer, but if he keeps playing like this, he'll definitely get a contract in the opening days of July.

 

[Patrick Division]

Maybe Ghost was a little nervous to be back in Florida because he looked bad tonight.

 

[Van Buren Boy]

I remember when we first hired Hakstol that the scouting report was his teams generally came out slow to start the season and would really start to turn it on in the second half of the season. Here we are.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

They looked very good tonight. Like they very much belong in the playoffs. They keep this up we're looking at playoffs.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Stamkos = $10M bum.

 

[Curufinwe]

Gagner just said "playing with Coots you're gonna get the tough match ups against the other team's top players" which sounds exactly like something written on this forum hundreds of times in the past few years.

I never thought he'd be used in that role but he's doing a decent job of it.

 

[GhostIsBae]

Raffl had an awesome game. Ghost almost had a goal/a couple shaky plays. Overall he played well.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Stamkos = $10M bum.

Haha I was just thinking of this too. $11M AAV? You're having a laugh.
He's no Chris Vandevelde


We really shut him and everyone else down. It's always difficult in a one-sided game to definitively say whether we were that good or they were that bad - we made them look that bad, but they were also pretty poor. Either way, we have to give Hakstol a lot of credit I think. We'll have to see how he does with better players at his disposal and the decisions he makes then, but for this team to be dominating Tampa in back-to-back games is pretty impressive.

 

[MiamiScreamingEagles]

Andrew MacDonald had 10 of the Flyers' 20 blocked shots. Tampa Bay had a total of eight blocks.

Couturier won eight of 10 faceoffs (80%).

 

[TheKingPin]

That was a smothering team defense. Tampa Bay utilizing five forwards on the powerplay reeked of desperation as well, something practiced earlier in the week. Curious, too, in that they originally had seven defensemen dressed but apparently changed it in time; otherwise, an erroneous lineup would have been accompanied by a minor penalty to start the game. That could have been nothing more than an administrative oversight or perhaps some confusion among the brass as to who to play and/or scratch.

They had multiple layers to get through on us.

We are in good shape with Hak. Most of our mistakes and the goal against were caused by our D. Replace that and it's about a perfect game.

The last few games have been near compete and with high effort. Good to see. I was thinking this game was going to be a 6-0 blowout. Cannot believe we won.

 

[GhostIsBae]

Coots should have had a goal, ghost also had a good chance, plus an EN at the end. we could have easily had 3 more goals on top of this.


Schultz had a good game. Cousins and Raffl were puck possession monsters.

 

[Tripod]

It's crazy how faster we look under Hakstol system

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Voracek must have gotten talked to about cursing on Twitter. He now sensors his curse words in his tweets.

 

[AaronTrieu]

It's crazy how faster we look under Hakstol system

The players were definitely still learning where to support and how to move up the ice as a unit. Sometimes they were thinking too much. Now you can see they are just reacting and playing much faster as a result.

 

[Hiesenberg]

I think they actually have faster players too.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Going from a conservative system to an up tempo will help but there were some moments where you can see this team needs an injection of speed into the lineup. When it opened up to 4v4 tonight I was holding my breath with Tampa's speed out there.

Laughton being a full timer this year & Read being healthy also helps as they're probably our top three skaters upfront with Voracek.

 

[flyersfan02]

Attended the game tonight. Wow. I must say, Team Defense and forecheck smother the Lightning. The Lightning had no room to operate. We really clogged up the Neutral zone. It's almost the same as the other game on Monday except the 2nd PP is clicking tonight. Should have been a shutout.

 

[1865]

FOUR GAMES ATTENDED AND FOUR WINS!

Who wants to pay for me to stay in Florida for one more day? Sadly, I'm flying home tomorrow. This winning run might be over.

**** we were good tonight. Shot blocking like demons and managed to survive despite MacDonald being a clown.

 

[Larry44]

FOUR GAMES ATTENDED AND FOUR WINS!

Who wants to pay for me to stay in Florida for one more day? Sadly, I'm flying home tomorrow. This winning run might be over.

**** we were good tonight. Shot blocking like demons and managed to survive despite MacDonald being a clown.

Have a good flight. I missed the game. Sounds like fun.

 

[flyersfan018]

FOUR GAMES ATTENDED AND FOUR WINS!

Who wants to pay for me to stay in Florida for one more day? Sadly, I'm flying home tomorrow. This winning run might be over.

**** we were good tonight. Shot blocking like demons and managed to survive despite MacDonald being a clown.

You lucky *******. Hope you enjoyed your stay.

 

[Hurricane28]

Mason for Florida redemption tomorrow or Neuvirth?

 

[1865]

You lucky *******. Hope you enjoyed your stay.

It's been the best trip ever. Seven games in total, three Flyers wins and some of the best steak a man can eat.

 

[CodyTheHuman]

Mason for Florida redemption tomorrow or Neuvirth?

Neuvirth. If I remember correctly, the stats from last year show that Mason doesn't do well playing both games in back-to-backs.

 

[Random Forest]

We really seem to have a team that is greater than the sum of its parts for once. Our D is still trash on paper, and our forward group isn't all that deep, but the team is playing so much better than what the paper lineup would make you expect.

Major credit to Hakstol here. Under Berube, and even Laviolette, the team relied far more on the talent of the roster than on the system. When the talent dropped, the team didn't have a chance. That's no longer the case, and it seems to have everything to do with the tempo, discipline, and structure the team plays with.

I'll take the Vdv-Bellemarre-White line getting overplayed to have this kind of structure any day.

It's really encouraging to think what can happen when Provorov, Sanheim, Morin, and the other prospects are finally added to the lineup.

Ultimately Hextall deserves most of the credit. I don't want to get too high on Hakstol too soon, but it really looks like it could have been a brilliant move by Hextall again.

 

[VanFlyer]

Ultimately Hextall deserves most of the credit. I don't want to get too high on Hakstol too soon, but it really looks like it could have been a brilliant move by Hextall again.

If the Flyers miraculously (and does not even look like it needs to be a miracle, v. winning down the stretch), you have to wonder if Hakstol would not be a finalist for the Jack Adams- and even Hextall for GM of the year.