Today’s open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes…
- The Flyers sent Erik Gustafsson back to the Phantoms: [Philly Sports Daily]
- Clinching a playoff spot isn’t very impressive to the team: [Philly Sports Daily]
- Upset about blowing a two goal lead to the Stars? “The Stars are the best comeback team in the entire league, and they have now racked up a remarkable 22 points (9 wins, 4 OT/SO losses) when trailing after two periods. By way of comparison, the Flyers have just 5 points (1 win, 3 OT/SO losses) when they take a deficit into the third period.” [HockeyBuzz.com]
- Also from Saturday, a quote from Mike Richards: “I don’t think it’s a slump. We said in the beginning of the year that we wanted to continue to get better throughout the season. Tonight was another step forward. We played a good game.” [Frequent Flyers]
- Now that the Flyers have gotten points in 6 straight games, another voice calls for calm: [Flyers Goal Scored By…]
- The Flyers are relying on their trio of young defenders with Chris Pronger out, evidenced by Kimmo Timonen being 4th in ice time on Saturday: [Philly Sports Daily]
- Apparently the Flyers training staff have slushy machines. And the players say it really helps. Fascinating: [In the Room] [Daily News]
- Because arguments are fun: Saying Jeff Carter is plagued by Mike Schmidt syndrome. [Inquirer]
- More “Who will be the playoff goalie” talk. This one arguing for Sergei Bobrovsky: [Philly Sports Daily]
- Wrapping up the weekend in Glens Falls, which includes notes on Zolnierczyk, Pither, Riopel, and Stewart: [PostStar.com]
- Also, the case for why Joe Paterson should be retained as Phantoms head coach: [PostStar.com]
- A nice little piece on Ray Emery returning to the NHL: [Hockey Prospectus]
- Commenting on jerseys currently offered on NHL.com. Awful, acceptable, or enticing? [icethetics]
- Asking if there are certain teams more likely to get a scoring chance than others. A good read for anybody who has questions about shot quality: [Behind The Net]
- From a post titled Predicting Future Success comes this: “Corsi Tied is the best predictor of how a team will perform over the remainder of its schedule, regardless of the point in the schedule at which the calculation occurs.” [Objective NHL]
- Part two of that looks at the relationship between drawing penalties while trailing and Corsi: [Objective NHL]
- In case you missed it, Matt Cooke elbowed Ryan McDonagh yesterday: [SBNation.com]
