The Western Conference road trip that begins at the end of December and finishes in the new calendar year is a favorite for the NHL schedule-makers when it comes to organizing the Philadelphia Flyers’ season.
This trip has not been made regularly over the last few years, though, between the shortened lockout season and the 2010 and 2012 NHL Winter Classics. If the Flyers are the opponent for the Washington Capitals’ 2015 NHL Winter Classic (as rumored), the same scheduling anomaly would hold true.
In recent seasons that included the swing, the Flyers have finished with split records. You have to look back to the 2008-09 season for the last season in which they finished with more losses than wins (2-2-1).
A 4-1 victory on New Year’s Eve in Calgary guaranteed that they won’t finish the current road trip with a losing record, a victory in itself for a team struggling to gain some ground in the division.
The Flyers have now gone 7-2-1 in their last ten games (including a four game win streak) and appear to have finally turned the corner from the team that stumbled out of training camp like it was last call.
The top line, with rookie Michael Raffl having earned a spot for the foreseeable future, have contributed 12 goals and 38 points in the last ten games. Raffl doesn’t necessary have the scoring prowess to produce as much as his linemates, but he is performing so well in other areas of the game (passing, forechecking, backchecking) that it’s complementing Claude Giroux’s and Jake Voracek’s games very well.
No team can rely on one line to produce and be successful, and the second line has finally been contributing too. Brayden Schenn, held scoreless in his last sixteen games before scoring the game-tying goal in Vancouver on Monday night, scored two goals and earned two assists in the win in Calgary (to be fair, one was waved off due to a questionable goaltender interference call from Scott Hartnell).
Wayne Simmonds has 7 goals and 11 points in his last ten games, including three consecutive multi-goal games in that stretch. Simmonds was a player whose name had been brought up in trade rumors earlier in the season, but his play has helped quiet his detractors (myself included).
The third line hasn’t been contributing as much offensively, but they’ve also seen Steve Downie shift to the fourth line while Vinny Lecavalier skates on the wing. It’s been a treat to have that kind of depth with everyone healthy, but an errant elbow against Matt Read last night that pulled him out of the game could see Downie return to the third line soon.
Zac Rinaldo, while less effective of a player since his “talking to” in Dallas weeks ago, has been taking far less penalties and begun drawing more as well. He could stand to be less of a defensive liability, but his addition to the penalty kill could help mitigate those mistakes over time.
On defense, the mental lapses are still there. Braydon Coburn had two point-blank giveaways in back-to-back games to start this road trip, with one hitting the back of the net and the other stopped by a sprawling Steve Mason stick save.
They are becoming much more supportive offensively, however. The transition game that was nonexistent in October has become much crisper, with Mark Streit turning a noticeable corner on this road trip with two goals. Streit has score 4 goals and 8 points in the last 10 games.
G (Garry, not Giroux) wrote recently about how Chip Kelly took one day each week to review mistakes made in previous games with his players in order to correct them and move on. There are many less days off between games in hockey, especially with the schedule truncated to fit in the Olympics, but more time reviewing where and how turnovers occurred would be an ideal method for dealing with them as the season progresses.
Steve Mason had a bit of a rough December, but won his last two starts of the year. The shootout win in Vancouver was stolen away from the Canucks by Mason from a game the Flyers had no business of winning.
Mason currently ranks 8th in the NHL in save percentage among goalies with at least 20 starts. Considering how the year started, Mason will be one of two or three players to be considered the team’s MVP if they do, in fact, make the playoffs.
The Western Conference road trip continues Thursday night in Denver and “ends” in Phoenix on Saturday. They do not return home until Wednesday, though, as they play one more road game the evening before to officially end the road trip- a visit to the Prudential Center to face the New Jersey Devils.
