Winnipeg is one of those sneaky good teams that usually dominates the possession battle but surprisingly the Flyers completely took over this game at even strength.
A lot was made of the Flyers 1/5 effort on the PK, but Winnipeg’s best stretches in this game came on the PP. They convincingly won the chance battle at 5v4.
Despite some early back and forth scoring, the Flyers came out in the 2nd period and definitively put their stamp on the game, limiting the Jets to just 4 even strength chances and producing 11 of their own.
Home/Away Chance Locations
Given the high chance counts on both sides, I’m not sure either coach is going to be happy with the team defense in this game.
The word balance perfectly describes this game, as nearly every line posted an identical stat line. Nobody stood out offensively, or defensively. Not surprising given both team’s willingness to trade chances in this game.
The only exception would be the Bellemare line, which took advantage of some offensive usage to separate themselves from the pack at even strength.
From a match-up standpoint, Sean Couturier was sewn on to Bryan Little’s hip and his line was edged slightly in the chance battle.
The Flyers’ de-facto 4th line centered by Ryan White got exploited in an extended shift against the Scheifele unit, but otherwise did a respectable job against the Jets’ bottom-6.
Bellemare’s line was treated more like a 2nd scoring line by Berube, drawing a Top-6 match up and crushing it.
On the blue line, there was a slightly less balance for the Flyers. After one of their best games of the season against the Coyotes, the Colaiacovo and MacDonald pairing fell completely flat.
The Schenn/Del Zotto pairing, which has struggled defensively in recent games, had an outstanding game at both ends of the ice.
Streit/Schultz fell victim to that high event, trading chances mentality. While they were offensively successful, they also gave up a bushel of chances against.
- 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
In terms of individual performances, Matt Read and Claude Giroux got robbed. Both players had numerous wide open looks on Michael Hutchinson and simply couldn’t cash in.
Recent call-up Petr Straka has impressed with his offensive skill-set. He sprung Wayne Simmonds on a breakaway with a perfect stretch pass and helped create Nick Schultz’s goal by being a menace in front of the net.
