This wasn’t one of those jaw-dropping summers for the Flyers, where the big-named free agent was reeled into Philadelphia, or a handful of exciting players decided to sign with the club. It was simply one that netted a few depth pieces: guys like Dale Weise, Roman Lyubimov and Boyd Gordon.
The latter may be the biggest unknown to Flyers fans, but he may prove to be the most important addition.
Let’s have Ron Hextall explain just exactly what they see in Gordon.
“If you look at Gordon, he’s a specialty player. He’s a faceoff guy, penalty killer, shot blocker. He’s a guy you want out in the last minute of a game.”
“Part of the thought process there is –- I told you at the time [of his signing] -– take a little bit of the load off of [Giroux] on the PK. G took a lot of faceoffs there in the right dot … We want to take a little bit of that, the minutes, the effort, and that side of the game… what does that do? Hopefully give G a couple minutes of 5-on-5 more, which hopefully should lead to more production.”
In other words, the arrival of Gordon should coincide with an increase in Giroux’s production. That’s something I imagine the fan base can get behind.
Giroux admits he wasn’t able to do what he wanted to last season. Much of that was a result of playing through injury, but some of that could have to do with him taking on a larger role on the penalty kill. What Gordon brings to this lineup is a more than capable, somewhat automatic, faceoff expert.
Just take a look at last year’s leaders in the circle. There’s Jonathan Toews, Ryan Kesler, then Gordon, who is ahead of guys like Matt Duchene, Patrice Bergeron and, oh yeah, Giroux. Now it’s not the biggest separation between the newest Flyer and the captain – 0.2 to be exact – but having two near-automatic pivots is almost unheard of (no team had two top 10 guys last season). In comparison, Sean Couturier was 71st in faceoff percentage.
Now the Flyers have two top five centerman in that regard. Specifically looking at playing shorthanded, Giroux was an impressive 60.2% in those situations. Gordon was 54.1%. They both were in the top 12 when looking at playing a man down. No team had two players in that bracket besides Arizona – Gordon’s old team.
Getting back to what Hextall said on Tuesday, with Gordon being able to take away some of Giroux’s penalty killing time, he will essentially be transferring anywhere from one to three minutes a night in which Giroux played defensively to now using those minutes at 5-on-5 in an offensive mindset.
Last season, Giroux averaged 20:32 for time on ice – best among Flyers forwards. He also led the team with 181 faceoffs taken on the penalty kill and played just a tick over 115 minutes in that situation.
The season before he played just 61 minutes on the PK.
“You don’t want to overplay anybody,” Hextall said. “Whether it’s [Anze] Kopitar out in LA, or Toews in Chicago, or G, there’s always an optimal time for a player and coaches typically get a sense of time when a player drops off. I think one of our focuses this season is to get G at 5-on-5 a little bit more for the offensive side of the game and try to limit his PK minutes. You don’t want to go too much over 20 minutes consistently.”
To wrap up Gordon’s impact:
- More faceoff wins = more puck possession
- More puck possession = less time in defensive zone
- Less minutes for Giroux on the PK = more time for him at 5-on-5/
Gordon may only put up no more than 15 points, but his impact should allow for other players to see an uptick in production. The Flyers are hoping the biggest beneficiary is Giroux.
