Philadelphia Flyers beat reporter Tim Panaccio has been on the shelf for over a month now. When the Flyers were in Montreal on Feb. 19 to take on the Canadiens, a pretty awful injury befell him:
Slipped on icy Montreal pavement – dual fractures and ligament tear of right ankle. Going on IR today, surgery folllows
— Tim Panaccio (@tpanotchCSN) February 19, 2016
Claude Giroux might very well be hoping he doesn’t get better any time soon, though. Quote G following his overtime heroics against the Jets:
“Since Tim Panaccio got a lower body injury, we started playing better.”
He does follow up to say he isn’t sure if correlation equals causation, but Panaccio himself seems to be in agreement:
Just asked @tpanotchCSN about @28CGiroux‘s comments last night. He said: “The sad irony is, the G-man is absolutely correct.”
— Sarah Baicker (@sbaickerTCN) March 29, 2016
Is Giroux correct, though? Is he really?
To follow up on @28CGiroux‘s comment: Flyers are now 12-4-3 since @tpanotchCSN suffered painful lower-body injury.
— Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) March 29, 2016
Let’s go one step further. Wins are great and all – seriously, they get you into the playoffs – but did the Flyers actually start playing better? And can they keep it up? Via Corsica.hockey:
That chart shows the Flyers’ rolling corsi average, which roughly correlates to their possession. It looks like the nadir of their season was about mid-February, just around the time Panaccio got hurt.
So maybe there’s some truth to this, after all. Maybe Giroux is on to something.
… So do you wish for Panaccio to get better soon here or what? Maybe we just thank him for taking one for the team. Keep that ankle up as long as you need to, sir.
