Philadelphia Flyers

The Philadelphia Flyers have struggled at times during this NHL preseason. With Monday's loss against the New York Rangers, the Flyers have fallen to a 2-3-2 record. The record is hardly cause for panic, but the way the team has performed this preseason does raise several reasons for concern as the team heads into the regular season.

The biggest concern for the Flyers has to be the absence of their best player, Claude Giroux. The Philadelphia captain suffered a lower-body injury early in training camp and has not played during the preseason.

Last season, Giroux injured his finger and played only one preseason game. The result was a slow start for Giroux and the entire Flyers offense. The captain did not score a goal in his first 15 games of the season, and the Flyers won only four of those contests.

This year's injury has prevented coach Craig Berube from finalizing his line combinations and prevented Giroux from getting into proper game shape for the start of the season.

Giroux recently told NHL.com he was "pretty frustrated right now" that he has not been able to return to the lineup. "Having this kind of injury, you just want to go out there and play your best but you can't because you can't really do the things you used to do."

Another big issue facing the Flyers is their lack of consistent effort during preseason play. Berube has expressed his frustration about the way his team is playing. During exhibition games, the won/lost results are secondary, but losing and looking indifferent or lethargic is not acceptable.

The game against the New Jersey Devils on September 28 was particularly troubling. The Flyers were outshot 35-7 through the first two periods. They lost the game 3-1, but the score would have been a lot worse had Philadelphia not received excellent goaltending by Rob Zepp, a 33-year-old veteran who has never appeared in an NHL regular-season game.

"I'm disappointed in the veterans tonight," Berube told Frank Seravalli of the Philadelphia Daily News after the game. "It's not acceptable. I don't care if it's exhibition or not, you still have to work and skate."

Although Berube called out his team after the Devils game, it didn't seem to respond the following night against the Rangers.

Just one year ago, the Flyers fired coach Peter Laviolette after just three regular-season games in part because of the lack of effort the Flyers showed during preseason and training camp.

At the time, chairman Ed Snider told CSNPhilly.com's Tim Panaccio that part of the reason for the firing was, "I thought our training camp, quite frankly, was one of the worst training camps I had ever seen...Not talking about wins or losses. There was nothing exciting. Nobody shined. Nobody looked good."

While nobody is saying Berube's in any kind of danger right now, his team's lethargic preseason performances have to be troubling.

In addition to inconsistent play, injures are another cause for concern. In addition to Giroux, the Flyers have suffered injuries to other players like forwards Sean Couturier (upper body) and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (lower body).

Backup goalie Ray Emery has also missed time during camp due to a lower-body injury.

Thus far, the official line from Berube is: "I'm not concerned right now. I think we're OK," according to CSNPhilly.com's Tim Panaccio.

Still, the October 8 season opener in Boston is getting closer and closer, and the team needs to show it is prepared. The nagging injuries should get better with time, but the coaching staff needs to see effort and heart from the players to prove the Flyers are ready for the start of the 2014-15 NHL season.

The Philadelphia Flyers lost their captain on the first day of training camp last week. Claude Giroux suffered a "lower-body injury" which would keep him on the shelf for at least two weeks. While that would get Giroux back in the lineup right about at the start of the regular season, it still has a definite effect on the Flyers both in the short run and over the long haul.

First, if Giroux is not skating in camp or playing in preseason games, the Flyers cannot audition players to fill the third and final spot on the top line alongside the captain and Jakub Voracek. Obviously, the best way to tell who is the best fit on the top line is to give each candidate ice time with Giroux and Voracek and see who has chemistry with the top duo. That plan is now on hold.

This makes it more likely that coach Craig Berube may continue to experiment with various combinations throughout the early part of the regular season. That may slow down the Flyers offense.

Giroux's absence from the lineup also opens up the issue of a potential slow start to the season for Philadelphia's captain. As a result of two or more weeks of inactivity, Giroux may not be in top game shape at the start of the season.

Last year, Giroux was only able to play in one preseason game after he suffered a finger injury. He struggled to score early in the regular season, and the result was a slow start for the Flyers offense. The captain didn't score his first goal until the 16th game of the season. The team won just four of its first 15 games in large part due to Giroux's slow start.

Meanwhile, in the short term, Berube has moved Brayden Schenn back to center to take Giroux's place on the top unit. 

"It’s good that Schenner gets reps in the middle, too, because there’s a good chance he’ll play center at some point,” Berube told Tim Panaccio of CSNPhilly.com.

In the modern NHL, fewer teams have set lines over the course of a complete season. Coaches tend to change their units based on injures, scoring slumps and streaks and matchups against various opponents. Giving Schenn extra playing time at center during the preseason could produce a long-term benefit and make sure he's more comfortable when he is called upon to fill in there.

Schenn insists he is comfortable playing either position.

"I’ve got to be ready for whatever is thrown at me," Schenn told Panaccio. "I’m a versatile guy who can play center or wing and I feel comfortable at both. I’ve had enough reps and games at left wing and I’ve played center my whole career."

This also allowed Berube to put together a line of Jason Akeson, Vincent Lecavalier and R.J. Umberger. Lecavalier is more comfortable at center, and Berube sees potential for a Akeson-Lecavalier combination.

"I got to look at Akeson with Lecavalier which is always of interest to me to see because [Akeson] passes the puck well and Vinny is a finisher,” Berube told Panaccio.

The injury to Giroux also gives Berube an opportunity to take an extended look at rookie center Scott Laughton, the club's top-rated prospect.

"Hopefully I get in a couple exhibition games," Laughton told Sarah Baicker of CSNPhilly.com. "I don’t know what’s going to happen yet, but hopefully I can show what I can do there and then we’ll see what happens.”

Laughton is still expected to start his first full professional season in the AHL, but getting extra ice time in camp and in preseason games can only give him more confidence when he does get the call to join the Flyers.

It also gives him more of a chance to make an impression on the coaching staff before this season starts.

In the final analysis, the short-term absence of Giroux will certainly be tough on the Flyers, especially if it extends into the regular season. But there could be some long-term benefits as well.

The Philadelphia Flyers could be a bottom-five NHL club in 2014-15.

It’s difficult to identify a collapsing team before the collapse actually happens, because typically such a team needs not only to have some obvious weak spots, but it generally also needs some unfortunate chance events in those areas to push it over the edge.

The Flyers do have some chinks in crucial places in their metaphorical armour, and for the most part those flaws went unaddressed in a summer during which the team was hampered by its salary-cap situation.

CapGeek.com indicates that the team is nearly $5 million over the ceiling.

As for unfortunate events, Philadelphia is already off to a poor start:

Giroux is the team’s offensive engine, a Hart Trophy candidate in 2013-14 who had a 24-point lead on regular linemate Jakub Voracek for the team’s scoring crown. More importantly, he’s a puck-possession monster, as a quick glance at the Flyers’ shot and goal totals last year conveys convincingly:

With Giroux on the ice, the Flyers outshoot and outscore their opponents by a wide margin. With him off the ice, they’re just a touch better than last season’s Edmonton Oilers.

That isn’t all Giroux, of course.

He plays with good players, including the aforementioned Voracek, but it is reflective of his importance to the team. Now he’s out for the preseason. In the best-case scenario, he enters the year with a minimum of warm-up opportunity. In the worst-case scenario, this becomes a nagging injury that plagues him all year.

The Giroux injury comes just one day after veteran defenceman Kimmo Timonen confirmed that a blood disorder has put his continued NHL career in extreme jeopardy:

The Timonen injury is particularly problematic because it hits the Flyers in a spot where the team was already weak.

Philadelphia’s desire to add a top-tier defenceman to its mix on the back end is well-known. It’s what prompted to the team to add Chris Pronger and later to offer-sheet restricted free agent Shea Weber once injury ended Pronger’s career.

Now the team will lean on Braydon Coburn, advanced-stats train wreck Andrew MacDonald and a collection of middling support players. As we noted in our complete breakdown of the team's defence, that simply isn’t good enough.

Those defensive woes could well exacerbate another potential problem—the one in net. Steve Mason had a great 2013-14, but it will be a few years before skeptics stop talking about what preceded it:

As an aside, that has to be the weirdest stat line I’ve ever seen a goalie post.

Maybe he’s a reversed big dipper and we’ll see years of play at the league-average level he managed last season. It’s entirely possible, however, that he does the same thing to the Flyers as he did to the Blue Jackets when Columbus entrusted him with the No. 1 job.

If Mason falls well below the NHL average again, Philadelphia will combine bad goaltending with a bad defensive corps. It’s not a combination many teams try for.

Those who point out that Mason’s been a different goalie since arriving in Philadelphia have a fair point, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that few No. 1 netminders in the league have proven they have the capacity to single-handedly kneecap a team as thoroughly as Mason.

The Flyers certainly aren’t a guaranteed disaster.

But with the team’s franchise player sidelined for training camp, the defence wobbly and the goaltending uncertain, few 2013-14 playoff teams have as combustible a mix on their roster. With the wrong spark, all of 2014-15 could go up in flames.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.

The Philadelphia Flyers have a number of burning questions heading into training camp which will greatly impact their 2014-15 season, and Brayden Schenn undeniably poses one of the biggest.

He is, at the present time, a very average second-line center. He scored at a 0.55 point-per-game pace in the lockout-shortened 2013 season and scored at exactly a 0.50 point-per-game pace in 2013-14. 

Forty-one points is not a poor season by any stretch, and it's encouraging that Schenn played in all 82 contests. But it isn't a particularly good year either and certainly can't be considered great.

When the Flyers traded away then-captain Mike Richards to the Los Angeles Kings in the summer of 2011, Schenn was the keystone in the deal as a recently anointed "best prospect in hockey."

Suffice to say, Philly fans were probably expecting better than what they have gotten thus far.

It's important to remember that Schenn's first year as a Flyer was marred by injuries, which probably made it harder to get acclimated to a new city and team. His 2013 and 2013-14 seasons showed bits and pieces of small improvements, but there were no drastic jumps forward. 

His 15 minutes and 45 seconds of ice time per game (his 2013-14 average) is pretty low for a second-line center, although another component of Schenn's inconsistency can be attributed to his bouncing around from wing to center and back.

His 178 shots on goal is also not nearly enough for a player with a scoring touch like Schenn's. Neither is nine power play points.

His advanced metrics? Mostly average as well, if not flat-out disappointing. According to SomeKindofNinja, he started 55.2 percent of shifts in the offensive zone, played against weak competition and yet still had a negative Corsi percentage.

Granted, he played on a less-than-stellar second line, and his time with Vincent Lecavalier hurt him (and everyone else) in terms of possession. But regardless, he needs to show a higher capability to drive possession, which is such a crucial element of being a second-line center.

To clarify: None of this is terrible. It just, well, isn't as good as people thought.

The saving grace here is of course the fact that Schenn just turned 23 years old last month and still has time to develop. And anyone who watches him play can see that he clearly has a ton of talent. He is a solid skater, hits hard, plays with energy and has ample offensive skill as well.

He just hasn't put all of this together for a long stretch yet and seems to disappear during games. Whether it's mental, physical, emotional or some mix of the three, that has to be fixed. 

Schenn's wingers will have a major impact on his breakout potential this season. One one side, there's a good chance he'll have Wayne Simmonds on his right, which is a great thing.

Simmonds is coming into his own as a near-elite power forward and should assume an even bigger leadership role this season while establishing himself as a consistent 30-goal scorer. His leadership, physical presence and ability to finish around the net provides a major boost to the second line. But the question mark is on the other side.

To be honest, I have no idea who is going to play there, or even who should. Matt Read probably won't be split from Sean Couturier on the third line, which is for the best. Everyone seems to be on the bandwagon right now, but Jason Akeson is not second-line material. Neither is Michael Raffl nor Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. Maybe R.J. Umberger can step in there as a temporary replacement, but that's not optimal.

That leaves...Scott Laughton? He would almost certainly be overmatched there. Notice how I haven't mentioned Lecavalier yet; that's because all Flyers fans should hope and pray that he stays on the fourth line where he belongs, high salary or not.

There is also the possibility that Simmonds moves up to the first line, which would be awful for Schenn.

But Paul Holmgren doesn't know how to properly construct a roster and realize that forwards play certain positions for a reason, so here we are.

If Simmonds stays with Schenn and one of those forwards steps up to the challenge, that will amplify Schenn's potential to break out.

Schenn has a lot of talent. His situation isn't optimal, but it's not all that bad either. He could certainly have an enormous year and live up to his potential. Just don't hold your breath. 

Philadelphia Flyers chairman Ed Snider used "the P word" in a recent interview, which had to shock a lot of the team's longtime fans. Snider said that management would be more patient in the future. But based on the organization's history over the past few decades, the idea that the team has suddenly learned to wait for prospects to develop has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Snider finally admitted that the Flyers organization has lacked patience since the team's glory days of the mid-1970s.

"I have probably been a little too anxious to win another Cup," Snider told Sam Carchidi of The Philadelphia Inquirer. "I was very patient when I was young, when we built the winners. We let the other five teams trade away their draft picks and some of their top kids, and we didn't do that."

Historically, the Flyers have traded away younger players in order to acquire or sign veterans. The goal has always been to win now, rather than to allow draft picks sufficient time to develop.

The signing of Ilya Bryzgalov to a nine-year, $51 million contract may have been the worst move economically. It also led Philadelphia to trade Sergei Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Bryzgalov was not worth the huge contract he was being paid, and the Flyers eventually used a compliance buyout to rid themselves of his contract. Meanwhile, Bobrovsky went on to win a Vezina Trophy and lead the Blue Jackets to the playoffs for only the second time in the franchise's history.

The Flyers also used a compliance buyout on Daniel Briere, another veteran who was productive but could not be as productive as his high salary dictated, especially later in his career.

But there is a catch to Snider's new-found praise for foregoing the quick fix. It comes after an offseason in which the Flyers had no choice but to be patient.

Because of the numerous bad contracts handed out by Snider and former general manager Paul Holmgren, the Flyers actually found themselves over the salary cap for most of the summer. That left them unable to sign any big-ticket free agents to improve the team's roster.

New general manager Ron Hextall tried to make some moves to upgrade the talent on the roster. He dealt Scott Hartnell to the Columbus Blue Jackets for R.J. Umberger. That failed to free up much cap room now, but Umberger's contract expires after the 2016-17 season, while Hartnell's expires two seasons later.

Hextall tried to trade Vincent Lecavalier during the offseason according to TSN's Darren Dreger, via theScore.com, but was unable to find a taker for the highly paid veteran forward.

The Flyers have some highly touted prospects in their system like forward Scott Laughton, defensemen Samuel Morin, Shayne Gostisbehere and Robert Hagg and goalie Anthony Stolarz. With the exception of Laughton, many of them are at least a year or two away from being ready to play in the NHL according to The Hockey News 2014-15 Yearbook.

Has Snider truly changed his philosophy and started to develop a long-term plan for turning the Flyers into a younger team that can grow together and contend for a number of years? It's one thing for him to make that claim during a summer when his team has no cap room to maneuver with and another to maintain that plan if his team gets off to a slow start or goes into a prolonged slump in the middle of the season.

Snider can make all of the claims he wants about a new path in Philadelphia, but based on the team's long-term track record, the proof will be in his future actions, not his present words.