There are now less than ten games remaining in the 2023-24 Philadelphia Flyers regular season, and while things are feeling good with a much better than expected product, there’s still one area where the flaws are most noticeable and that’s the man advantage. The power play is firing at a measly 13.4% which is dead last in the league, a full percentage point worse than 31st place Pittsburgh.
If the pace persists over the last few games, it’ll be the third consecutive season the Flyers finished with the worst power play in the league. So how does the organization go about fixing their miserable man advantage?
Step 1: FIRE ROCKY THOMPSON
Thompson is now responsible for two of the three years of terribly-ran power play action. And he is so invested in fixing it that he gave this quote to the media a few weeks back-
“Well, our PP stinks, & he [Gurianov] was a good PP guy at one point in his career. It’s not gonna hurt our PP, because it’s no good anyway.” – Rocky Thompson
Yes, the guy running the power play is openly admitting it’s terrible and he’s out of ideas. That should be a sign that it’s time to move on from him. The overall talent level on the team is a problem, but when the guy running the show is vanilla ice cream, they’re doomed to fail out of the gate.
Step 2: Look Towards the Phantoms
In a complete about-face, the Phantoms had one of the best powerplays in the AHL throughout the season. They weren’t doing anything new and exciting, they were just letting their young talent do their thing. Samu Tuomaala, Olle Lycksell and Emil Andrae ran the show with much success and two of the three of them have not been utilized at the NHL level this season. Andrae especially should get a real opportunity to quarterback one of the units at the NHL level next season. He may take a minute to adapt to the NHL (which Tortorella will surely have no patience for) but he’s the best internal option they’ve got when it comes to an in-house turnaround.
Step 3: Free Agency
We’ve talked about the shallow 2024 free agent pool before, but it just so happens that two of the best man-advantage scorers are the top two forwards still without contracts; that being Sam Reinhart and Steven Stamkos. Reinhart leads the league in power play goals with 27 and has 33 power play points overall, while Stamkos has 15 power play goals and 34 PPP. Do either one hit free agency? Do the Flyers actually pursue them if they do? Both answers are unlikely, but they may soon have no choice but to spend a bunch of money to fix their problems.
The other notable free agent power play master is one the Flyers are very familiar with, that being defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere. Whether or not there’s a reunion to be had does seem improbable, but there’s no denying the one place where Ghost is most effective is on the power play. The last time the Flyers had a consistently decent power play when when Gostisbehere was running it back in the 2016-19 era. Maybe it’s an avenue worth exploring, but they’ve probably got to mend some bridges with the player first.
Step 4: Trade
We’re a little early in the year yet for the full scope of the 2024 offseason trade targets to be known, but there was one name the Flyers supposedly circled around back at the deadline and that’s Senators defenseman Jakob Chychrun. 14 of his 36 points on the year came on the power play and while that may not be overly game-changing, that is definitely a solid option to have available to them on the second unit.
Step 5: Get out of Their Own Way
It’s anybody’s guess as to whether or not the Flyers make any real additions this offseason. And their in-house talent isn’t that strong. But in an attempt to find solutions they throw the lines into a blender with regularity. They’ve been in full on picking names out of a hat for a couple months now. It limits chemistry and often results in inexperienced (or washed up) players taking large roles on the powerplay. There’s only so many times they can rearrange the same deck chairs. Find something that works, even if it’s just visually, and see if it grows. It’s the only real option they have without some outside help.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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