That’s probably a pretty obvious headline. We don’t expect Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Matt Read and Scott Hartnell to stay completely off the scoreboard all season long.
Across the roster so far in the 2013-14 Flyers season — at 1-7-0, it’s the ugliest start in team history and the worst in the NHL this year — the pucks have just not gone in the net for basically every single player. But based on the individual history of every single player on the team, that’s something we should expect to change very soon.
The shooting percentages paint a pretty ugly story so far, but also an optimistic one. Here’s every player who’s played at least three games for the Flyers this season, looking at their shooting numbers last year, this year and across their careers (excluding Michael Raffl because he never played in the NHL before this year).
| Last season | This season | Career | |||||
| Player | Pos | GP | Shot % | GP | Shot % | GP | Shot % |
| Adam Hall | C | 37 | 0.0% | 8 | 0.0% | 610 | 7.0% |
| Andrej Meszaros | D | 11 | 0.0% | 5 | 0.0% | 538 | 5.1% |
| Brayden Schenn | C | 47 | 10.1% | 8 | 11.1% | 118 | 10.7% |
| Braydon Coburn | D | 33 | 2.6% | 8 | 12.5% | 501 | 4.6% |
| Claude Giroux | R | 48 | 9.5% | 8 | 0.0% | 341 | 11.7% |
| Erik Gustafsson | D | 27 | 8.3% | 3 | 11.1% | 63 | 7.7% |
| Jakub Voracek | R | 48 | 17.1% | 8 | 0.0% | 375 | 10.3% |
| Jay Rosehill | L | 11 | 14.3% | 5 | 0.0% | 88 | 7.5% |
| Kimmo Timonen | D | 45 | 6.4% | 8 | 0.0% | 1023 | 6.2% |
| Luke Schenn | D | 47 | 3.7% | 8 | 20.0% | 365 | 3.6% |
| Mark Streit | D | 48 | 7.2% | 8 | 0.0% | 499 | 7.2% |
| Matt Read | R | 42 | 15.3% | 8 | 0.0% | 129 | 13.9% |
| Maxime Talbot | C | 35 | 12.2% | 8 | 10.0% | 512 | 11.9% |
| Nicklas Grossmann | D | 30 | 4.8% | 8 | 0.0% | 393 | 1.4% |
| Scott Hartnell | L | 32 | 10.8% | 5 | 0.0% | 880 | 11.3% |
| Sean Couturier | C | 46 | 5.3% | 8 | 0.0% | 131 | 8.3% |
| Tye McGinn | L | 18 | 9.1% | 3 | 42.9% | 21 | 15.0% |
| Vincent Lecavalier | C | 39 | 11.6% | 5 | 9.1% | 1042 | 12.1% |
| Wayne Simmonds | R | 45 | 13.6% | 8 | 6.3% | 375 | 12.0% |
| Zac Rinaldo | C | 32 | 20.0% | 8 | 0.0% | 106 | 6.8% |
As you can see, just about every Flyer is having an awful year so far when it comes to converting on their shots.
The exceptions:
- Tye McGinn, who’s scored on 42.9 percent of his shots in the three games this season. That uhhhh…. won’t keep up all year.
- Luke Schenn, who has one goal on five shots, 16.4 percent higher than his career average.
- Max Talbot, who’s shooting at a 10 percent conversion rate, roughly his career average.
- Brayden Schenn, with two goals in eight games is shooting roughly at his career average.
- Erik Gustafsson, shooting slightly above his career average.
- Braydon Coburn, who has one goal in eight games and will certainly not score one goal every eight games this season. He has just 32 goals in on 696 shots in 501 career games.
- Vincent Lecavalier has one goal on 11 shots in five games, which is just a touch under his career conversion rate of 12.1 percent. /
You’ll notice that aside from Lecavalier, who has also been injured the last three games, not one big name is on this list. Giroux, Voracek, Hartnell, Read and Simmonds are all having trouble putting the puck in the net, and when that many big names are being held off the score sheet, the whole team is going to suffer.
Shooting percentages can fluctuate for a lot of reasons, and it can be hard to figure out exactly why players aren’t scoring at any given time — or on the flip side, why they’re shooting so hot at a given time. It can be anything from a lack of confidence to a breakdown in the system to running into a stretch of hot goaltenders and/or stingy defenses.
The other side of this is shot production. The shots aren’t going in when the Flyers get them, but are they still getting them? Here’s the shot on goal per game numbers for each Flyer, this year and across their careers:
| Player | Pos | 2013-14 | Career | Difference |
| Erik Gustafsson | D | 3.00 | 1.03 | 1.97 |
| Andrej Meszaros | D | 2.00 | 0.74 | 1.26 |
| Matt Read | R | 3.00 | 1.95 | 1.05 |
| Tye McGinn | L | 2.33 | 1.90 | 0.43 |
| Nicklas Grossmann | D | 1.13 | 0.72 | 0.41 |
| Wayne Simmonds | R | 2.00 | 1.85 | 0.15 |
| Brayden Schenn | C | 0.63 | 0.53 | 0.10 |
| Sean Couturier | C | 1.63 | 1.56 | 0.07 |
| Jay Rosehill | L | 3.20 | 3.16 | 0.04 |
| Maxime Talbot | C | 1.25 | 1.26 | -0.01 |
| Claude Giroux | R | 2.25 | 2.29 | -0.04 |
| Zac Rinaldo | C | 0.50 | 0.69 | -0.19 |
| Adam Hall | C | 1.25 | 1.52 | -0.27 |
| Mark Streit | D | 1.50 | 1.80 | -0.30 |
| Kimmo Timonen | D | 1.38 | 1.75 | -0.37 |
| Braydon Coburn | D | 1.00 | 1.39 | -0.39 |
| Jakub Voracek | R | 1.38 | 2.05 | -0.67 |
| Luke Schenn | D | 0.63 | 1.36 | -0.73 |
| Vincent Lecavalier | C | 2.20 | 3.05 | -0.85 |
| Scott Hartnell | L | 1.20 | 2.31 | -1.11 |
That the Flyers are all struggling at once would lead us to believe the struggles are something internal — based on what I’ve watched from namely Voracek and Giroux so far this season, my bet would be they’re simply trying too damn hard — but there’s no real way to know exactly what’s up. The players themselves don’t even know, and that’s why they seemed so frustrated and baffled after the game.
