Scoring chance summaries have returned home to Broad Street Hockey. This project began as a FanPost last season and as grown into a regular feature thanks to your support.
If you haven’t been following this since last year, and you find yourself wanting explanations of what a scoring chance is and why we bother tracking them, check here.
This was a typical low event, neutral zone clogging snooze fest against the Bruins. Boston had a slight advantage at even strength through the first two periods and capitalized on their opportunities on the PP and PK to win the special teams battle.
Predictably, when the score became lopsided the Flyers began to carry the play in their favor.
Home/Away Chance Locations
The Bruins had a little too much real estate to work with in front of the net, while the Flyers were largely kept to the dots and the top of the circles.
Credit Boston for boxing out well in their own zone and limiting the Flyers second chance opportunities in front of the net.
Up front the Flyers didn’t establish a distinct advantage with any one line. Couturier’s group did the bulk of the offensive work with Matt Read having a particularly strong game. But this group was also exposed defensively.
Lecavalier appears to separate himself from the pack here, but that’s largely because of some advantageous line scrambling by Berube throughout the game. He saw shifts with both the Laughton and Giroux lines in offensive situations.
In the match-up game, Giroux’s line drew Patrice Bergeron and were largely shut-down offensively.
Couturier was almost exclusively used against the Bruins Top-6 and got skewered in the defensive zone. They did generate some offensive pressure with an extended shift against Boston’s Soderberg line.
Coburn and Nick Schultz continue to be a serviceable tough minutes pairing for the Flyers.
Mark Streit and Andrew MacDonald dominated in softer usage, pushing the pace offensively.
Unfortunately for the Flyers, their most sheltered pairing in Luke Schenn and Michael Del Zotto was shredded defensively.
- Set Up – The primary pass on a scoring chance, including rebounds.
- Chance – The primary shot on a scoring chance, including deflections.
- Involved – The sum of both set ups and chances
Matt Read had some really good looks offensively and was one of the few Flyers able to break the Bruins’ stifling checking.
Overall this wasn’t a flashy game for the Flyers, and some of their weaknesses were exposed by the Bruins throttling the play in the neutral zone.
With the first line stymied offensively, the team simply didn’t have enough punch to break through at even strength.
