And we're back. Work and other things have kept me from writing a bit, but now I want to get back and at least put some thoughts to the virtual paper while hockey is still on.
The Flyers season ended a couple of weeks ago, and while I would have liked to do a full analysis of the season, I think other sources have done so better than I could and now it's a bit too late to do that anyway. However, yeah, it sucked ass, but the future is looking not all that bad. The Flyers are an up and coming team with a lot of young talent that will develop given enough time.
However, just as every time a season ends for any team, the discussion turns to what will change, and what will have to change. Besides the biggest and most obvious desire/need for a true #1 defenseman, shared with about half the league, a lot of discussion on the Flyers end was about the 4th line. Fans in general are sick of having fighters like Riley Cote, Jody Shelley, or Jay Rosehill, and agitators like Dan Carcillo or Zac Rinaldo taking up space and contributing very little to a team.
I can't help but agree here. Don't get me wrong, fights are fun, and I don't really think badly of these players as people. Some are even quite entertaining. But their contributions aren't really all that helpful in winning hockey games. Penalty minutes are detrimental, and as much as I like a big hit, a hit always means that your team does not have the puck. To be helpful to a team, some these players have to bring something else to the team as well.
To illustrate this, let's take a look at my favorite 4th line in the history of the Flyers consisting of Darroll Powe, Blair Betts and Ian Laperrière. Now Lappy is a notorious fighter with more broken noses than I want to count, but he was also a great contributor by being a great presence on the penalty kill, plus a genuine heart and soul kind of player every team should want as a leader by example. Darroll Powe also was a tough customer, a pure energy guy putting pressure and bruises on players through his quick skating, but not all that bad defensively (and he has a fantastic hockey name). Blair Betts was also a great PK player and a fantastic face-off man.
All of these players brought something to the table and helped the Flyers go to the Final in 2010. They contributed in multiple ways and added depth to the Flyers while filling roles other players were not cut out for. I just find it unfortunate that Lappy's career got cut short by this season through post-concussion syndrome, and Blair Betts' injury riddle career also ended a season later.
What's good for the Flyers is that while they should get rid of players like Rosehill who can only punch people in the face, they have players that can contribute in a similar manner like the 2009-10 season. The biggest example here is Adam Hall.
Hall is a genuine journeyman who is now on his 7th NHL team, and that illustrates where so many teams go wrong, because any team should love to have Hall on their roster. Hall is the quintessential 4th line center. He is an absolute fiend in the face-off circle, winning 59.6% of the 527 faceoffs he took this season. There are only four players in the league with similar numbers and a better winning percentage: Joe Vitale, Vladimir Sobotka, Zenon Konopka, and Rich Peverley. Manny Malhotra with a 59.4% win rate on a ridiculous 952 faceoffs also deserves a special mention.
Hall is also a great penalty killer, helping the Flyers to become one of the best PK teams in the league, though I guess we can't understate the impact of Sean Couturier and Matt Read on that front.
Adam Hall is not a scoring threat, and he doesn't need to be. He adds value to the team in other ways. He carved out his niche and fills it out entirely in a role that every team needs and every team should look to have. And he basically only costs you a league minimum wage.
The bad thing is that it looks like the Flyers might not bring him back. Now they have a decent excuse with the glut of centers they have. Claude Giroux, Luke Schenn, Sean Couturier, Vincent Lecavalier, plus Scott Laughton on the horizon is stiff competition for Hall. Personally the first guy I would get rid off from these six players is Lecavalier as elaborated on previously and the playoffs did little to change that opinion. However, Hall's expiring contract would be the easiest and the front office of an NHL team rarely passes on an easy out. However, while Hall is not a priority player I think it would be good for the team if they retained him.
A team needs players like Hall which bring different things to the table and fill roles in this kind of manner. Just look at the Pittsburgh Penguins as they were just eliminated by the Rangers exposing one of the biggest flaws in their team: An awfully weak bottom six forward group. They have very little forward depth and while they have a similar player like Hall in Joe Vitale, the rest of their bottom six is a burning wreck.
I like to compare them to a spinning top. They can move fast and overcome obstacles through velocity, but if they are upset enough they lack the solid foundation to remain upright. They topple over for that reason.
Compare that to recent cup-winning teams like Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles to find a good mixture between star-quality forwards in the top two lines, and solid role players in the bottom six. Even look at the 2009 Penguins and their bottom six compared to today (though I would also like to mention another thing that squad had that's missing from the Penguins today: veteran leadership).
For the Flyers this should be a guiding line. A team can't just be a number of scoring players. They need some solid backup and have multiple dimensions filled, rather than stacking up in one direction and neglecting another. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, min-maxing doesn't really work in hockey. Sometimes that means that players like Adam Hall are more valuable to a team than Vincent Lecavalier. Let's just hope that the Flyers manage to see the same thing, rather than have to find out the hard way.
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