What's up with him? I know the Flyers have a coach issue but is that it or is he just not producing?
Odd case.
Think of Sean Couturier when he first came into the league. Touted for his 2-way, Couts was used as a defensive C. Patrick isn’t great defensively, but Hak uses him as the shutdown C. There are only 3 F on the total of 17 skaters used this season that have a worse OZS% and one being Raffl who has played in ~33% of the games.
The line of X - Patrick - Voracek was used as a defensive minded line where Patrick and Voracek as a tandem is a mismatch defensively. That’s horrible coaching. Not only that, Hakstol uses their line as a Perimiter line (his system)... meaning, he wants them to puck along the boards and shoot from the point or for a rebound. Problem with that is Patrick is best utilized in the slot and not the boards.
I put 80% of it on coaching. He’s not being used correctly. They didn’t use Couturier correctly and they didn’t use Schenn correctly. The same thing is going down with Patrick. Also, Patrick was in the top 3 OZS% from March - end of the season last year and had 21 or whatever points in 30 games (whatever that stat line was).
In the early western road trip this year, our defensive C were Lehtera and Vorobyev. That let Patrick and Couts take most of their faceoffs in the Ozone and Patrick averaged a PPG for a little bit.
The other 20% is on him and his inability to finish. Most of his opportunities that he has comes from inside the HDO box rather than shooting outside. You can also see that he lost his confidence. He won’t bring the puck into those A opp. zones anymore. He will pass right back to the D or send it to the outside of the net.
Regardless, the offers on here are horrible. Philly shouldn’t trade him.
They’re running lines of:
JVR - Giroux - TK
Raffl - Couts - Voracek
Laughton - Patrick - Simmonds
Lindblom - Varone - Weise
Simmer and Patrick have horrid chemistry and again are mismatched denfensively as a tandem. Laughton isn’t skilled enough to be a good playmaker. That line is literally a “get the puck deep and check line”. They’re only good along the boards.
I think, to best utilize Patrick it should be:
Giroux - Patrick - TK
JVR - Couturier - Voracek
Lindblom - Laughton - Simmonds
Raffl - Varone - Weise
Giroux can get his confidence back up and Patrick will then be getting the time in the Ozone he needs.