Two areas of improvement the Flyers must make
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Travis PolitakisDecember 22, 2023 (12:31)
Photo credit: twitter.com/NHLFlyers
The 2023 regular season thus far has been impressive for the Flyers and one that the players and fans should be proud of. Sitting at second place in the Metro division and stacking wins against four of the NHL's top clubs is no accident. However, there are two areas of their play that they must improve upon if they want to be a legitimate playoff contender.
The powerplay and the forecheck. These two problems reared their ugly heads on the Flyers loss on Thursday night to the Predators. The Flyers inability to control the puck and limited offensive opportunities in the third period is ultimately what propelled the Predators ahead.
Head coach John Tortorella was not thrilled to say the least in his postgame press conference when talking about the Flyers struggle to forecheck.
"Stubbornness. Its stubborness. Nashville checked and quite frankly gave us a clinic on checking. All game long we kept talking about it...You have to get it in deep...If we think we're going to be this high flying team in transition, spreading, stretching and not checking, we're in for a rude awakening."
A second area the Flyers need to take advantage of is their powerplay. Defensively, the Flyers are elite at the penalty kill ranking fourth in the league. Offensively, the Flyers are 31st on the PP with just a 10% conversion rate. Last night the Flyers went 1-4 on the PP and that one goal by Sean Couturier snapped an 0-17 drought on the PP. Perhaps one of the turning points in last nights game was when the Flyers had a 5 minute powerplay after a big hit on Morgan Frost, and weren't able to capitalize on that opportunity.
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