Philadelphia Flyers

The Philadelphia Flyers have scored nine goals in the past two games, and each of their top three lines have been firing on all cylinders.

They dismantled the New Jersey Devils, winning 4-1, and then dominated the Carolina Hurricanes two days later to the tune of 5-1.

Coach Craig Berube has had some difficulties with re-shuffling the Flyers' top lines. Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek have been mainstays on the top two lines, but pretty much every other forward has been moved around and combined with different guys.

Most of those combinations had not worked, as the Flyers stumbled to a 9-11-5 record before pulling out back-to-back victories.

But after Berube decided to scratch Vincent Lecavalier, he solidified the following line combinations which have been extremely effective for the past six periods.

Giroux and Voracek have combined for seven points over the past two games, with Voracek tallying a goal in each contest.

Michael Raffl had a goal against Carolina for his only point in either victory, but he has still looked very comfortable in his role alongside two of the best forwards in the league.

Rookie Scott Laughton has been sensational on the second line, centering Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds.

The rookie scored his first NHL goal against Carolina. And although he has not lit up the stat sheet yet, he has been very effective in getting pressure on the forecheck and moving the puck quickly up the ice. He has phenomenal speed, and the points will begin to pile up as long as he stays between Schenn and Simmonds.

As a line, the three of them tallied six points against Carolina alone, and Simmonds scored a goal in each game. They seem to mesh well together, and they combine speed with strength and a gritty style that wears down defenses and creates chances around the goal.

But the Flyers' best line over the past two games has been their third, which Sean Couturier centers with Matt Read and R.J. Umberger flanking.

Couturier and Read, in particular, have looked sensational together, as they did for most of last season as well.

They assisted on each other's goals against New Jersey, each setting the other one up with a sweet pass and finish. Read (along with Umberger) assisted on Couturier's goal against Carolina.

While the pair is known more for its defensive game and penalty-killing prowess, it's clear that it has legitimate offensive potential as well.

Umberger may not be the most dynamic player these days, but he provides a steady veteran presence who does a lot of the little things and undoubtedly helps Couturier and Read.

The fourth line, consisting of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Chris VandeVelde and Zac Rinaldo, has not made a substantial impact but is certainly not hurting the team either. Bellemare and VandeVelde, in particular, have been impressing with their speed and ability to push the play at times.

Lecavalier's situation is a complete disaster right now, and it's clear that he is the odd man out. Even at his salary, Berube cannot justify pulling anyone from the lineup after these past two victories.

Something will be settled with Lecavalier in the relatively near future, although his presence is certainly not what's causing the Flyers to hover below .500. The Flyers' problems run deeper than one guy.

This season is not totally lost already, although it is clear that the Flyers are not going to challenge for a Stanley Cup next spring. But the current lines are firing on all cylinders, so Berube (and the fans) should take some solace in knowing that there's still hope for the future.

These top nine forwards look excellent in their current spots, and have more than enough firepower to lead the team on a run. But they aren't good enough to overcome poor depth behind them and an abysmal blue line.

So no, the answer to the headline is that these lines (while very good) are not enough to cause the team to completely reverse course. The defense is just that bad.

But that's for another day.

The Philadelphia Flyers have struggled to find consistency this season and have a mediocre 8-10-3 record through 21 games.

Now, the Flyers approach a critical juncture in their schedule. Seven of their next eight games are on the road. After that, the club has a four-game home stand and then another eight straight road contests. That means that the Flyers have started a string where 15-of-20 games will be played away from the friendly confines of the Wells Fargo Center.

Thus far, Philadelphia's road record is just 2-7-1. If they continue to play at that pace, their playoff chances could be all but over by the time this 20-game swing concludes January 3 in New Jersey.

The road trip is not off to a stellar start. The Flyers lost in a shootout Monday to the New York Islanders and the fell to the Detroit Red Wings 5-2 on Wednesday.

There are a number of things the Flyers need to do to turn their fortunes around before it's too late.

First, the team's overall defense needs to improve. As of Thanksgiving morning, the Flyers rank 26th in the NHL with an average of 32.7 shots allowed per game, and are only 23rd in the league in goals allowed per game with 3.00. That's just not going to get it done.

The team has known that defense has been a weakness even before the season started. According to Bruce Garrioch of The Ottawa Sun, Flyers' general manager Ron Hextall is looking to make a trade to improve his team. Garrioch wrote, "There is no question Hextall doesn’t want to sit still...Ideally, he would like to get a winger and a defenceman to help his struggling club."

The need for a winger is also a longstanding problem. The Flyers have a dearth of scoring depth this year. Although the Flyers are 11th in the league in goals scored per game, most of the offense has come from the top line, especially Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek. Outside of the top line, only winger Wayne Simmonds has really produced as expected and five of Simmonds' eight goals this year have come on the power play.

That means that the other three lines need to pick up the slack and contribute more offensively. Players like R.J. Umberger, Vincent Lecavalier, Matt Read, Sean Couturier and Jason Akeson all need to step up their production or some of them will have to face the fact that they may not be in the team's long-term plans.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Flyers' slow start and the one thing they can correct and must improve on this long string of road games is their overall effort.

After the loss to Detroit, Flyers' head coach Craig Berube was again critical of his players' overall effort. "We had some guys that aren't competing and it results in goals against," Berube said in his post-game press conference as reported by The Associated Press, via Yahoo Sports. "You need everybody on your team competing at the highest level all the time in this league; otherwise you will not win."

There may be excuses for a lack of talent, but a lack of effort is completely unacceptable at this level. Both Berube and Hextall have called out the team in the past few weeks but the results on the ice don't seem to be changing.

After the November 19 loss to the New York Rangers, Hextall was heard yelling at this players in the locker room and after the expletives were finished, the GM told Randy Miller of NJ.com, "We didn't come out hungry enough and we didn't play well. We've got to be a lot better than that."

The Flyers held a players-only meeting after the Detroit game but the players were evasive about what exactly was discussed. "We just talked about the things we need to get better at," Giroux told The Associated Press.

That change has to come soon and the players know it.

"It’s pretty easy to see things slipping away,” goalie Steve Mason told Scott Held of CSNPhilly.com after the Red Wings game. “Points are up for grabs but other teams are grabbing them and you’re not and you’re falling behind.”

If they don't make significant improvements very soon, the Flyers could be all but eliminated from playoff contention after this 20-game stretch is over. If the losing continues, don't expect Hextall to let things stay the same much longer.

The Philadelphia Flyers received some bad news Tuesday when the club announced that captain Claude Giroux would likely miss the next two games with an ankle injury.

Later on Tuesday, Tim Panaccio saw something no Flyers' fan wants to see.

Multiple sightings of Giroux confirm what we suspected with his ankle: crutches and a walking boot

— Tim Panaccio (@tpanotchCSN) November 19, 2014

In a conference call with reporters later on Tuesday, general manager Ron Hextall tried to reassure Philadelphia fans when he announced that Giroux would heal in "days as opposed to weeks" as reported by Randy Miller of NJ.com.

So what does Giroux's absence mean for the Flyers? Well, plenty.

First, it's clear that Giroux is the lynchpin that makes the Flyers go. He has more points than any player in the league since the start of the 2011-12 season and yes, that includes Sidney Crosby.

Claude Giroux (248) has more pts than anyone since start of '11-12: Kessel (236), Malkin (233), Crosby (222), Ovechkin (216), Stamkos (216).

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) November 18, 2014

Last season, Giroux was the key to the Philadelphia attack. The Flyers won only five games last season in which their captain did not manage at least a point. When Giroux scored a goal last season, the Flyers were 21-2-1.

This season, Giroux has scored in 13 of the Flyers' first 16 games. The team is 0-3 when he fails to register a point.

Giroux has also been a key component to the success of Jakub Voracek who presently leads the league in scoring. The two constitute what is arguably the most effective offensive duo in the league. Giroux has assisted on more than half of Voracek's seven goals. Will Voracek be as productive without Giroux in the lineup? It is unlikely as Giroux is one of the league's best setup men.

Voracek recently discussed Giroux's importance to his recent success with Katie Strang of ESPN.com. "Claude's been a top player for the past four years," Voracek said prior to Giroux's injury. "He's so good and so strong on the puck and so competitive. Obviously, he's smart with the puck and he draws attention with the puck so that opens up space for [me]."

In addition to weakening the top line and the overall offense, the loss of Giroux hurts the Philadelphia power play. Nine of the captain's 21 points have this season come when the Flyers have the extra attacker.

The Flyers recalled center Scott Laughton from the AHL to replace Giroux in the lineup. Will Laughton step up and take Giroux's spot on the top line, or will coach Craig Berube move Brayden Schenn back to his natural center position and have him skate on a line with Voracek and R.J. Umberger as he did in practice Tuesday, as reported by Frank Seravalli of The Philadelphia Daily News? 

Perhaps worse yet, the Flyers are a team that need to score a lot of goals to win games. Philadelphia was ranked 26th in the league in both shots allowed-per-game (33.2) and goals allowed-per-game (3.19). Losing their offensive catalyst makes it tougher for Berube's club to win a high-scoring contest.

The Flyers can certainly get by without their captain for a game or two. They will need some other player to step up and elevate their game, but over the short term, that's not unrealistic. But if Giroux should miss significant time, the affect on the Flyers could be significant and catastrophic.

Defense is the Philadelphia Flyers' weakness. Everyone knew it this offseason. They knew it after the first week of the regular season. And now it's starting to bite them hard.

The Flyers have played three consecutive uninspiring games against Colorado, Columbus and Montreal, and their defense has been a major issue.

They may have won the game against the Avalanche 4-3, but they completely unraveled in the third period, giving up three goals after establishing a seemingly safe 4-0 lead.

The defense was overmatched and couldn't match up against the speed of Colorado's forwards. That has been a recurring theme throughout the first few weeks of the season, and it will continue to ravage the team until general manager Ron Hextall makes some changes.

Philadelphia then got pushed around, at home, against an abysmal Columbus team that had no right coming into Wells Fargo Center and getting a 4-3 win.

The majority of the four goals the team allowed in that game were not the fault of goaltender Steve Mason, who has been hung out to dry many times already in 2014.

After those two letdown games, the Flyers then went and got pummeled, 6-3, by a clearly superior Canadiens team that exploited Philadelphia's weak blue line time and time again.

The Habs planted themselves in the offensive zone and skated circles around the likes of Nicklas Grossmann and Nick Schultz. The shots were actually almost even (29-28), but the Canadiens just got so many more quality chances than Philadelphia and scored on all three of their power plays.

Mark Streit and Michael Del Zotto are the Flyers' two best defensemen right now, and that should send shudders down the spine of every Flyers fan.

Neither player is even average defensively at this point, and although both bring some speed and offensive ability to the blue line, they are hardly guys who can carry a defense.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Grossmann, Schultz, and Luke Schenn, who have combined to contribute a mere nine points between them and look like they are skating in mud most of the time.

It doesn't help that Braydon Coburn and Andrew MacDonald have missed time with injuries, but that's exactly part of the issue: The Flyers defense has minimal talent, and their depth on the blue line is even worse.

That shortcoming is being exposed in a major way by good teams like Montreal, although it would be inappropriate to put all of the blame on the players.

Paul Holmgren had a terrible last few years as the team's general manager and is responsible for the blue line being in the pitiful state that it rests now.

Hextall needs to make major changes in the next 12 months, even if part of that is just cutting Grossmann and Schenn so he can bring up Samuel Morin and Robert Hagg.

There is also the possibility of moving one of the Flyers' many talented forwards, such as Brayden Schenn, for a top defenseman, although many (including myself) would be hesitant to say goodbye to another young forward with a lot of potential.

Take a look at this graph from Some Kind of Ninja, which gives some more insight into the woes of the Flyers' defense.

The big red bubbles indicate a negative relative Corsi rating, meaning that the Flyers are giving up more shots than they are taking when those players are on the ice relative to the Corsi rating of the team when that player is not on the ice.

Effectively, the graph shows that MacDonald, Luke Schenn, Grossmann and Schultz are all destroying the team's possession when they're on the ice and that Streit in particular is being sheltered with offensive faceoffs.

Those revelations, coupled with the Flyers giving up the fifth-most goals per game so far in the 2014-15 season, prove that things are pretty bad right now in Philadelphia.

The goaltending hasn't been great, but in many cases, Mason and Ray Emery have had no shot against breakaways, two-on-ones or point-blank shots from the slot.

The Flyers don't have a legitimate first-pairing defenseman on the roster right now, and only Coburn and maybe Streit would be a second-pairing defenseman on a top NHL team.

Hextall does not have many options for big fixes during this season, so Philadelphia will need to be patient for now.

All we can hope is that Morin, Hagg and Shayne Gostisbehere turn into great players sooner rather than later and that there is generally a lot of turnover on the blue line between now and the start of the 2015-16 season.

Until then, the Flyers have no real shot at making a run in the playoffs, let alone reaching another Stanley Cup Final. 

Philadelphia Flyers star Claude Giroux has been dealing with an ankle injury. He returned to the lineup on Thursday, Nov. 20th.

Continue for updates.

Thursday, Nov. 20 

Giroux Remains Out with Ankle Injury

Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly provides an update on Giroux's injury:

Wednesday, Nov. 19

Giroux Will Play vs. Rangers Despite Ankle Issue

The Flyers confirmed Claude Giroux's status for tonight's matchup against the Flyers:

Previously a report from CSN Philadelphia stated Giroux would not play:

Claude Giroux will miss Wednesday's Flyers game in New York against the Rangers and will probably miss Thursday's home game vs. Minnesota as well, but the Flyers do not expect him to miss significant time beyond that.

General manager Ron Hextall announced Tuesday that Giroux has a lower-body injury. Sources tell CSN Flyers insider Tim Panaccio that it's an ankle injury, and there were multiple sightings of Giroux in a walking boot and crutches after being examined by doctors.

Tuesday, Nov. 18

Giroux Out With Injury

Philadelphia Flyers captain Claude Giroux suffered a lower body injury and will miss Wednesday's game at the New York Rangers.   

Flyers general manager Ron Hextall made the announcement and spoke about the ailment, per Sam Carchidi of The Philadelphia Inquirer:

John Boruk of CSN provided more on the situation:

Giroux, 26, is an integral part of the Flyers' offense, contributing five goals and 16 assists this season. His 21 points are tied for sixth in the league entering Tuesday night, and he ranks third in assists.

Though he will be missed on the top line, players like Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn will be asked to step up in his absence.

Philly is currently 7-7-2 and looking to snap a two-game losing streak. Without Giroux on the ice, however, taking down the Rangers and potentially the Minnesota Wild on Thursday will be a much more difficult task.

Follow @RCorySmith on Twitter.

Jakub Voracek has been the biggest revelation of the Philadelphia Flyers' 2014-15 season thus far, and he's arguably the biggest reason that they haven't fallen toward the bottom of the Metropolitan Division yet.

Most people would expect Claude Giroux to be the Flyers player chasing the Art Ross Trophy, given to the player with the most points at the end of the season, but right now he's only tied for seventh in the scoring race.

As of Wednesday, November 12, Voracek is second in the league in points with 22, trailing Sidney Crosby by just two.

He's also second in the league in assists with 16, again trailing only Crosby, who has 17. Voracek has also added six goals on the season.

These are some pretty remarkable numbers through 14 games. If Voracek were to keep scoring at such a pace without missing a game, he would finish this season with 128 points. This would beat Mark Recchi's Flyers single-season record of 123.

Obviously, the chances of that happening are extremely slim, but it just gives some perspective on how good Voracek has been thus far.

To the casual fan, it may be shocking to see Voracek putting up totals like this, but it's actually closer to what some expected when the Flyers traded for him in 2011.

Just as an extra rant, by the way, anyone who still thinks the Flyers didn't get a better deal in the Jeff Carter and Mike Richards trades is crazy.

For the Columbus deal: Voracek has scored 179 points since the trade, Carter has 131. The Flyers also got Sean Couturier in that trade.

For the Los Angeles deal: Wayne Simmonds has scored 152 points since the trade, Mike Richards has 124. The Flyers also got Brayden Schenn in that trade.

But old trades aside, Voracek's ascension to stardom is something that people were hoping for since Columbus couldn't figure out how to rein in its seventh overall pick.

He was obviously talented but just couldn't seem to put it all together. According to CSNPhilly.com's Tim Panaccio, former Blue Jackets coach Scott Arniel was extreme critical of the Czech winger and felt he wasn't in good enough shape to be a star.

That frustration may have been warranted, but it seems like the Blue Jackets just couldn't figure out how Voracek worked. Arniel is now an associate coach with the New York Rangers.

Voracek has certainly come into his own on the Flyers' first line, and playing alongside Giroux certainly helps.

He showed flashes of brilliance in his first three seasons with the Flyers, and he was not a disappointment by any stretch. After averaging nearly a point per game in the lockout-shortened 2013 season, he had a solid 62-point campaign in 2013-14.

But this is the explosion that we have all been waiting for. His quickness and stick-handling abilities have always been there, but there are some minor improvements that are making all the difference.

He's pushing the pace of play like never before. Too often in the past, he would be the passive recipient of Giroux's skill, but now the winger is keeping the puck for longer and driving possession in the offensive zone.

Check out this chart from Some Kind of Ninja. It shows all of the right wingers in the league who have played at least 10 games so far.

Voracek's bubble is the enormous blue one toward the top right corner of the page. The fact that he is further up on the graph is due to him facing a very high quality of competition, and his large blue circle illustrates how good he has been at driving possession.

When Voracek is on the ice, the Flyers are holding the puck for longer and taking way more shots than they are allowing. He's got 49 shots on goal, putting him on pace for the most in his career.

Another important improvement has come at even strength, as Voracek leads the league in even-strength points with 16.

Voracek also simply looks more confident and has dominated a ton of shifts so far. For example, there was this one against Anaheim, when he scored the tying goal with only five minutes and 20 seconds left in the third period.

He also took over against Los Angeles and led the team to a big win. Check out this Broad Street Hockey breakdown of two exceptional plays from that game.

It's clear that he's playing the best hockey of his career, and it couldn't come at a better time for Philadelphia. If he keeps it up, who knows just how high a ceiling he can reach?