Predict the Opening Night Roster

[deadhead]

Any way you slice it, Knight isn't better on the PK than Couturier, Raffl, Simmonds, Lindblom, Laughton, Giroux, Vorobyev, even Patrick it surprises me hasn't gotten a look. Knight isn't needed on the PK; using him as one of their top 4 PKers perhaps is more likely counterproductive, even if he does "OK." That the Flyers need to choose the right PKers, who have been here all along, and not search for plugs to PK is nothing new.

Except you don't want Couts and Giroux on the PK, they're not that much better on the PK and they're much better at ES and PP - so you should consider the oppportunity cost of using them as regular PK guys.

You want your top 4 PK guys from your bottom six, and preserve the legs of your best offensive players for offense.
So Laughton, Raffl, Knight and Simmonds is probably optimal, with Lindblom and Vorobyev as your 3rd pair, learning the ropes.
If Weal is your 4C, then Vorobyev moves up to 2nd pair PK, and Giroux, Couts or TK to 3rd pair PK.

 

[Magua]

Except you don't want Couts and Giroux on the PK, they're not that much better on the PK and they're much better at ES and PP - so you should consider the oppportunity cost of using them as regular PK guys.

The opportunity cost of a couple more ES minutes, where a goal is less likely to occur, is having one of the worst PKs in the league and hurting your team to greater degree than helping it. Special teams is THE highest leverage situation in games. Giroux, fine. Use him as a 5th/6th PKer ace in the hole. Couturier needs to be a top unit PKer, health permitted. Knight is one of the worst PKers on the team because he's one of the worst players on the team. It's not rocket science. You could field 4 units better than him.

The bottom 6/PK role mentality is backwards. Our top 9 likely gets interchangeable minutes. It's no different than Folin or MacDonald or Hagg being your mainstay PKers over Sanheim or Ghost. Dress it up however; it's putting pigeonholed roles, making players feel warm and fuzzy inside, above success. Ideally, maybe. But we are so far off from ideally it's laughable to entertain the concept.

 

[deadhead]

Couts is a good but not a great PK guy, I think he's better in a passive system but with more open ice his lack of speed gets exposed to some extent, same with Giroux who is more quick and agile than fast. If they go to a more aggressive scheme, TK might be ideal but he'll have to play under control (less room for error).

Laughton looked good, Raffl has been solid in the past but I think he's getting to the point where you have to watch his skating.
Lindblom and Vorobyev will have the same issues as Couts, smart, physical players who aren't the greatest skaters, so not as well suited to an aggressive PK. Same with Knight.

Everybody wants this aggressive PK, but it requires good skaters with a lot of stamina to chase the puck for an extended period, I'm not sure we have that personnel yet - adding guys like NAK, Sushko, Frost, Rubtsov and O'Brien the next couple years might change that equation.

 

[CapnZin]

Couts is a good but not a great PK guy, I think he's better in a passive system but with more open ice his lack of speed gets exposed to some extent, same with Giroux who is more quick and agile than fast. If they go to a more aggressive scheme, TK might be ideal but he'll have to play under control (less room for error).

Laughton looked good, Raffl has been solid in the past but I think he's getting to the point where you have to watch his skating.
Lindblom and Vorobyev will have the same issues as Couts, smart, physical players who aren't the greatest skaters, so not as well suited to an aggressive PK. Same with Knight.

Everybody wants this aggressive PK, but it requires good skaters with a lot of stamina to chase the puck for an extended period, I'm not sure we have that personnel yet - adding guys like NAK, Sushko, Frost, Rubtsov and O'Brien the next couple years might change that equation.

I’m not trying to attack everything you say or explicitly disagree with you... we jus trend to have different thoughts regarding some things .

Couts is arguably one of he best PKers on this team. He’s arguably a top 5 defending forward in the game. He’s good on faceoffs, good a slot D, good perimeter D, and so on. You don’t need speed to be a good PKer or a strong work ethic. I think that’s where you’re confusing Maguas sentiment. You need IQ and hockey sense. Typically hard working players like Knight can get the puck quicker on boards, but most of the time the puck is on open ice. Couturier has the smarts to close gaps without creating open space. Hakstol, like you said and I somewhat agree with, thinks the opportunity cost of putting Couts on the PK is too large.

An agressive PK doesn’t mean... Laughton going to check a defender when he has the puck at the blue line. An agressive PK is making the shooting lane smaller and closing the gap of a passing lane. The flyers PKers tend to stand still. That’s a shot blockers dream right there, but the NHL has advanced from blue point bombs to tic-tac-toe goals.

Passive PK is shot blocking, slot closing, and making a net front wall. We just don’t have the defensively skilled players to play that way and we have had that for a while. Lappy would be a better PK coach with Winnepeg.

Again, there are 5 “lanes” or options against 4. Those 5 players have the leverage, but the 4 players can easily take that away, but passive tries to take away those lanes... 4 players cannot take up 5 lanes.

 

[GKJ]

Tyrell Goulbourne was called up to a fully healthy club. Knight wasn't close last year.

They very clearly don’t play the same kind of game.

 

[FLYguy3911]

They very clearly don’t play the same kind of game.

So what has suddenly changed? They added JVR. Vorobyev is stepping in for Filppula.

Did Knight have a career offseason at 28 or is this a case of the team once again overvaluing snot and balls?

 

[deadhead]

Knight had a very good season last year for the Phantoms:
ES scoring:

Varone 74 g 15-32 .64 ppg
NAK 72g 16-27 43 .60
Martel 59g 18-15 33 .56
Knight 58g 12-20 32 .55
Carey 72g 22-10 32 .44
MV 65g 12-15 27 .42

He also was reportedly their top PK guy as well.
Knight had a bad injury a couple years ago that derailed his career, so it looks like he's worked his way back.

 

[GKJ]

So what has suddenly changed? They added JVR. Vorobyev is stepping in for Filppula.

Did Knight have a career offseason at 28 or is this a case of the team once again overvaluing snot and balls?

The need for a stronger penalty killer is what changed, because it's something they didn't address in the off-season. It is overvaluing snot and balls, the guy did go to North Dakota like Vandevelde did. He was under consideration last year, as was Cole Bardreau, they just didn't make it up. The success they felt they had with Bellemare and Vandevelde probably makes them more comfortable to go with a 28-year old AHL vet. I'm fine with it because it's going to keep Dale Weise out of the lineup, and as a low-cost 13F/emergency player, he's actually the kind of guy you want because he's not taking someone's spot on the Phantoms and isn't a guy you're concerned with developing. The bigger issue is keeping Lehtera over Leier

 

[FLYguy3911]

The need for a stronger penalty killer is what changed, because it's something they didn't address in the off-season. It is overvaluing snot and balls, the guy did go to North Dakota like Vandevelde did. He was under consideration last year, as was Cole Bardreau, they just didn't make it up. The success they felt they had with Bellemare and Vandevelde probably makes them more comfortable to go with a 28-year old AHL vet. I'm fine with it because it's going to keep Dale Weise out of the lineup, and as a low-cost 13F/emergency player, he's actually the kind of guy you want because he's not taking someone's spot on the Phantoms and isn't a guy you're concerned with developing. The bigger issue is keeping Lehtera over Leier

The PK has been bad every year under Hakstol though. If they really thought he could fix it, you would think he would have been up some time during the last two seasons. Remember people thought Goulbourne was coming up to kill penalties?

It just makes no sense to me.

 

[GKJ]

The PK has been bad every year under Hakstol though. If they really thought he could fix it, you would think he would have been up some time during the last two seasons. Remember people thought Goulbourne was coming up to kill penalties?

It just makes no sense to me.

They brought Matt Read back instead, because experience or something. They brought up Goulbourne for other, specific, and dumb reasons, but it's clear the mentality of the organization is not that they bring up a player just to try him out.

 

[deadhead]

They brought Matt Read back instead, because experience or something. They brought up Goulbourne for other, specific, and dumb reasons, but it's clear the mentality of the organization is not that they bring up a player just to try him out.

Hextall has always been clear about that, the real prospects come up to play, they develop in the AHL.
The guys who get called up are the "replacement players", Alt and Goul, etc.

That's because the end of the roster guys alternate between sitting in the pressbox or playing 10 minutes a night, Hextall wants his "real" prospects playing 15-18 minutes (forwards) and 20-24 minutes (defensemen).

That's why Friedman and NAK are more likely to get a short-term call up than Myers or Rubtsov, both have 2 AHL seasons under their belt and have less to gain from playing there, as well as a lower ceiling.

 

[magnumpi]

So, I assume Sanheim will be scratched game 1.

And Lehtera will be on the ice constantly during the 3rd period if its a tie or a lead.

 

[Rebels57]

So, I assume Sanheim will be scratched game 1.

And Lehtera will be on the ice constantly during the 3rd period if its a tie or a lead.

If Sanheim is scratched, I am skipping Game 1.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Makes way too much sense to actually happen.

 

[Hiesenberg]

Couts is a good but not a great PK guy, I think he's better in a passive system but with more open ice his lack of speed gets exposed to some extent, same with Giroux who is more quick and agile than fast. If they go to a more aggressive scheme, TK might be ideal but he'll have to play under control (less room for error).

Laughton looked good, Raffl has been solid in the past but I think he's getting to the point where you have to watch his skating.
Lindblom and Vorobyev will have the same issues as Couts, smart, physical players who aren't the greatest skaters, so not as well suited to an aggressive PK. Same with Knight.

Everybody wants this aggressive PK, but it requires good skaters with a lot of stamina to chase the puck for an extended period, I'm not sure we have that personnel yet - adding guys like NAK, Sushko, Frost, Rubtsov and O'Brien the next couple years might change that equation.

Then find the 4 fastest forwards and put them on.

What do you got?

TK
Weal
Laughton
Raffl?

 

[tictactoe]

With exception of Provorov Flyers do not have anyone else that can kill penalties when it comes to d.. that plus our PK coach is shit for brains... Why do people dicuss pk forwards.. lol

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

With exception of Provorov Flyers do not have anyone else that can kill penalties when it comes to d.. that plus our PK coach is **** for brains... Why do people dicuss pk forwards.. lol

Hopefully when Morin is healthy he fills that role. Even if he isn't the most defensively skilled defender, his size and skating ability should still put him on the PK (assuming he comes back healthy and not missing a beat).

 

[FLYguy3911]

The Flyers have a couple guys that might be good on the PK, but they are soft so we will never know...

 

[Rebels57]

View attachment 143367

Makes way too much sense to actually happen.

Flip-flop Laughts and Pimp and its perfect.

 

[hatcher]

Couts is a good but not a great PK guy, I think he's better in a passive system but with more open ice his lack of speed gets exposed to some extent, same with Giroux who is more quick and agile than fast. If they go to a more aggressive scheme, TK might be ideal but he'll have to play under control (less room for error).

Laughton looked good, Raffl has been solid in the past but I think he's getting to the point where you have to watch his skating.
Lindblom and Vorobyev will have the same issues as Couts, smart, physical players who aren't the greatest skaters, so not as well suited to an aggressive PK. Same with Knight.

Everybody wants this aggressive PK, but it requires good skaters with a lot of stamina to chase the puck for an extended period, I'm not sure we have that personnel yet - adding guys like NAK, Sushko, Frost, Rubtsov and O'Brien the next couple years might change that equation.

Great skaters. Carter,Richards,Gagne,Betts,Younger G, all can skate way better then the shit they put out now.

 

[Ruck Over]

Flip-flop Laughts and Pimp and its perfect.

I'd also flip JVR and Lindblom.