So why are we playing better?
 

Now that the team is playing better, and we're winning some games. I'm curious what everyone believes is the reasoning behind it. Give me your top 3 reasons.

Mine:
1) Time. They had the perfect storm of things going wrong all at the same time. Injuries to Gagne, Betts, and Powe (and we all know how important Betts and Powe are :handclap: ). Prolonged scoring issues for a team of young guys who have never really had trouble scoring before. A coach that was well liked was fired. And the fact that it was a bit of a goalie caroussel due to injuries and performance.

Time fixed all of that. Players came back. The goal scoring fixed itself and players seem to have confience again. The shock of a new coach is gone. I was one that believed this team would be fine. Many others said we were too talented to be this bad, and I agreed.

2) Adjusting to Laviolette. I like the way he has us play. I think he has the ability to get more out of our players and everyone seems to be getting use to him and buying into it. It's encouraging.

3) Special Teams. For some unknown reason both our PP and our PK went in the ******* for a few weeks and it hurt us big time. I'd lump it in ith my aforemented "perfect storm" of things going wrong. Having our 2 special teams units performing again is huge.

Toss in much better effort levels. They actually come prepared to work hard most nights now, whereas before they would go through the motions, or quit working after 40 minutes.

Perhaps the veteran leaders decided to step up their presence levels and take charge to a degree. Whatever it is, they need to keep it up, take full advantage of games in hand and tighten up the defense.

Blair Betts.

Lavi. He's got them in better shape and you can see them beating other teams to the puck. They got by on their talent with Stevens but now they're getting by on hard work AND talent.

Carter stopped banging hartnells wife... Oh wait :sarcasm: seriously, I think they ha to unlearn Stevens hockey and learn Lavi hockey. I think there getting Lavi hockey finnally.
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Not getting screwed over by bad luck also helps, obviously we're not going to score 4-5 goals per game, but goalies were ridiculous against us the first 10-15 games of Lavi's tenure.

1. Coaching, even little things like taking a time out when we sucked.
2. Hard work.
2a. Discipline
3. Goaltending has been solid (most of the time).


Would like to see improvement on d-sive parings especially Coburn and Bart and watch for turnovers from pretty much everyone.

Other then that excellent. Love this team.

1. Health -- Getting Gagne, Betts and Powe back, allow us to once again roll 4 lines. Not just 4 lines, but 4 EFFECTIVE lines. Timonen also looks healthy and once again is playing like a top 20 defenseman.

2. Special teams/Discipline - We're not having to kill 8 penalties a game anymore, which when you combine that in with 3 more healthy penalty killers (Gagne/Betts/Powe) knocks nearly a goal per game off our GAA. The power play, is once again smoking hot.

Hmmmm good points. Neither Betts nor Powe (nor Gagne at this point) look like players of massive importance but it is a long long way down from them to the AHL.

Good point on the discipline, I forgot about that. It really has been evident under Laviolette.

I've stopped watching games . . . the flyers are 7-1 since i stopped watching.

(i watched the Winter Classic, then was smited for it with the Ottawa game)

Absolutely. Because most of the top forwards also play on the PK, they didn't have the time/energy/chance to create offensively if they had to kill off a ton of penalties.

Outside of getting healthy, I think a lot of it hinges on Laviolette. They're playing up tempo hockey and working hard, and they're not taking the stupid lazy penalties we saw so much earlier on. They're back to getting some bounces that typically come from working hard.

The forwards are told to be creative in the offensive zone, which has allowed guys like Briere and Giroux to do the things they're best at.

I might be wrong, as I dont feel like looking at the stats, but I think having the 3 d-pairings get more and more TOI is really helping. i.e- not having Pronger/Carle out for 35 mins a game and Bartulis/Syrvet out for 3 minutes.

I think it was time getting used to the system that was the bigger thing. Like we have been saying or awhile we are a good team just off talent, but when things go bad you need that system to pull you though and avoid massive losing streaks.

I big thing is keeping our lines intact. That the real reason why our record is different without Betts. With certain guys out we have to shuffle things, but when we keep the lines the same as earlier in the year we play a lot better. And we get production out of everyone. Even if its in the form of drawing a penalty...

We have a real coach and Betts and Powe. That's all you really need.

1) Special teams. John Stevens is still coaching this team if the special teams units don't crater...he didn't deserve the credit for them previously, and didn't deserve the blame when they failed, but they did cost him his job.

Getting Betts and Powe back is part of it...but special teams units also go into their funks.

2) Over the last 10 games we're averaging 4 PKs a game. 8 of which game against FLA in our loss to them. Discipline has markedly improved. We'll see if that trend continues, but if it does then any debate about Stevens' inability to stem discipline problems should be rendered moot.

3) Effort. We're playing 60 minute games of late. Something that was a massive problem under Stevens, and needs to continue.

4) They finally got comfortable with the offensive scheme and forecheck under Laviolette. Even against Ottawa you could see it coming together. The forecheck is aggressive and using our speed to cause turnovers, and we have a cohesive scheme from defensive zone to offensive zone. Though, I think the reads still aren't fully together on the breakout, as we make some very high risk passes in our zone with regularity, and we've had more than a few botched breakouts where there seems to be a bit of confusion about who is going where.

5) Leighton has been playing rather well.

To me getting healthy has been this teams savior.

To me, Betts ILap, and carcillo are above average to dominate 4th liners. They outplay their line and are able to play shorthanded. Which allows richards and others to go easy on the PK.

Also this puts JVR, Powe and Asham stay at the 3rd line where JVRs talent and the effort by powe and asham make them above a normal 3rd line of other teams.
With 4 lines that all can play without fear of messing up forwards playing with more energy and playing much better on defense. Just ask Leighton how much it helps when Flyers forwards are backchecking and clearing the puck constantly. Flyers are becoming the team that no one wants to play due to hard work lately which to me has never happened before in this era richards and JC

Powe's awesomeness has spread to the rest of the team

While some of the statistics are just dumb luck for those guys, there is no doubt that Powe and Betts are direct evidence this year of the importance of role players in the bottom 6, and what solid bottom 6 lines can bring to the table for a team. We have a 4th line that--for a 4th line--dominates its time on the ice, and a 3rd line that is beginning to mesh and produce points while also doing its job.

That's what you want from your bottom 6...and that's before you get to their special teams role on the PK. Powe, Betts, and Laperierre all take away minutes that were previously played by Richards, Carter, and Gagne in larger blocks.

1. Betts

2. Our goal scorers learned to score again.

This.

Having a 4th line that can play 10 minutes rather than 5 is huge. Especially when that line will make most other team's bottom 6 guys look foolish. Carcillo gets 11 minutes a game and his linemates get 13 or so. Obviously Carcillo's PIMs drop his time a bit but a 4th line that plays 13 minutes is great. That allows the Flyers to have a team where only 9 players are on the ice for more than 16 minutes whereas many teams really need to lean on one or two lines and draw PP/PK units from a small selection of skilled players.

I would like Pronger, Richards, and Carter to have a little less ice time going forward. Richards in particular seems to hit a rough patch in February (yes, I know, it doesn't really show up on the score sheet) when he loses his legs a bit.

Steriods

Carcillo also doesn't kill penalties, which Laperierre and Betts do.

The team actually puts a mixture of the sweat of Lappy, Betts, and Powe in the Air Conditioning in the weight room and everyone gets their testosterone levels raised.

True. You'd think he'd try to work on that aspect of his game as PKers that can contribute a bit of offense from a bottom 6 line generally find themselves with a paycheck year after year. Not that it is an easy skill to develop.