On the Firing of Peter Laviolette

When Pete Rose was banned for life from the game of baseball in 1989, the late Commissioner Bart Giamatti described the ordeal as "a sad end to a sorry episode." Though the gambling connotations were absent (unless you booked action on the odds-on favorite most likely coach to lose his job first), Giamatti's infamous quote can also be applied to Philadelphia's firing of Peter Laviolette this morning.

Often the case when a coach of Laviolette's stature is released (see: having won a Stanley Cup), just about everything written about this move will include the footnote that he'll find another job shortly. Many articles today made mention of this, and for good reason; Laviolette is set to serve on Dan Bylsma's staff for Team USA during the upcoming Sochi Olympics. With common sentiment leaning towards Laviolette coaching an NHL team sooner rather than later, it demands further inquiry why a coveted coach found himself on the chopping block just three seasons removed from a Stanley Cup Final appearance. Without using too many brain cells, the answer points in one direction: the Flyers' front office.

Having foreseen the team's current situation far too long ago, this blogger remained skeptical that GM Paul Holmgren's returns in trade for Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, along with the subsequent addition of Ilya Bryzgalov, would result in a net positive for Philadelphia. In hindsight, Jakub Voracek has proven to be who we thought he was, Sean Couturier is becoming an elite defensive talent, and Brayden Schenn still projects to be a top-six forward. However, the cap crunch created by the Bryzgalov contract ultimately meant that the team could not re-sign useful players (e.g. Matt Carle), and more importantly, set a dangerous precent of overreacting to poor results in short stretches.

We've seen this time and again with Philadelphia. Specifically, whether it was benching Sergei Bobrovsky after one bad period during the 2011 playoffs, trading him after a poor streak in the second half of 2012, signing James van Riemsdyk to a six-year deal after 11 impressive playoff games, trading him after a mere 43 games of 'underperformance,' extending Scott Hartnell following a career year, or losing out on re-signing Jaromir Jagr to woo Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, the message remains clear. If you're not helping the Flyers now, they'll ship you out of town for someone who will. Lost upon Holmgren & Co. has been the fact that adding new players does not guarantee success; it can only improve (or in this case, lessen) one's chances.

We now return to Laviolette. Keeping in mind Holmgren's (and Chairman Ed Snider's) role(s) in this saga, the easy answer to our question looks to be that Lavy could not escape the fate of these players before him. 51 games of underperformance since the beginning of 2013 is simply too long to survive in mediocrity within the crucible that is Flyers hockey. This holds especially true with the aging Al Davis Snider looking for one final championship.

It would, however, be remiss to label Laviolette a mere victim of overreaction and bad luck. His lineup decisions were often suspect (e.g., scratching Erik Gustafsson most of the past two seasons), he mismanaged goaltending (e.g., Bobrovsky/Boucher/Leighton, playing Bryzgalov every back-to-back), and he refused to adapt from his up-tempo style of play when it was clear the team's personnel on defense could not handle the assignment. On the flip side, Laviolette also had his strengths. Looking at Philadelphia's zone start discrepancies and quality of competition, he was a coach that seemed to understand matchups and was not afraid to deploy players he trusted in the roles he trusted them with. Couple this with his style of play, and we see a coach that likes to create more shots on goal, giving his best players the best opportunities to do so.

We can go back and forth on Laviolette's advantages and shortcomings all day; the fact of the matter remains that Holmgren & Co. knew what they were getting from their coach on opening day of the 2013 season. At that point in time, the Flyers were depleted on defense, devoid of scoring depth, and gave the coach no reasonable option to spell their starting goaltender. Though it is unclear whether Laviolette held any say in the moves that sent the Flyers from Stanley Cup contenders to mere playoff hopefuls, at the end of the day, responsibility lies upon the general manager to acquire the best players available for his club. While it remains undeniable that Laviolette's recent poor performance ultimately resulted in his firing, the depreciating talent on the Flyers' roster and the friction between these players and their coach's system cannot be ignored. Ultimately, these trends point not to the Flyers firing their ineffective coach, but instead continuing to employ incompetent general management.

Part III: The Aftermath of the Mike Richards and Jeff Carter Deals

Earlier this summer, I wrote extensively on the deals that sent Mike Richards and Jeff Carter from dry island Philadelphia to L. A. and Columbus respectively, promising a trilogy of sorts. After looking at what the Flyers gained in both the trades and free agency, the final step is to evaluate what the Flyers lost in those deals. While this post is certainly long overdue, the aftermath of last night’s 3-2 Kings victory over the Flyers in their only meeting this season seems like the perfect remaining opportunity to bring closure to this saga.

Beginning with my familiar approach, let’s take a look at both Richards and Carter’s average ice time from last season per nhl.com:

Player	Games Played	ES TOI/Game	Team Rank	PP TOI/Game	Team Rank	SH TOI/Game	Team Rank	Total TOI/G	Team Rank
Richards	81	13:47	4	2:56	3	2:08	3	18:52	2
Carter	80	14:39	2	2:56	4	0:39	6	18:14	4

Unsurprisingly, we see that both guys gave the Flyers a good chunk of minutes in all situations. With the exception of Carter’s reduced role on the PK thanks to the emergence of Darroll Powe, Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette was not afraid to send out either player when he felt he needed a boost in any particular area of the ice. In order to give these minutes their proper context, we will begin by looking into where both players stacked up amongst Flyer forwards in point production, once again thanks to nhl.com:

Player	ES G (Team Rank)	ES A (Team Rank)	ES Pts (Team Rank)	PP G (Team Rank)	PP A (Team Rank)	PP Pts (Team Rank)
Richards	15 (T-5)	24 (4)	39 (6)	5 (T-4)	16 (1)	21 (1)
Carter	28 (T-1)	21 (5)	49 (3)	8 (1)	9 (T-3)	17 (3)

As we can see, both players seemed to match their top-6 ice time with top-6 scoring numbers both at even strength and on the power play. If we take a look at a few more key statistics according to Behind the Net and Time on Ice, it will become quite apparent why Richards and Carter are so good at what they do:

Player	Corsi ON	CorsiRel	Score-Tied Fenwick %	CorsiRelQoC	SF/60	Zone Start %	Zone Finish %
Richards	-1.23	1.1	53.6	0.752	30.6	46.8	50.1
Carter	3.34	7.8	50.5	0.896	29.2	43.8	51.9

Breaking these numbers down, beginning with Richards, his negative Corsi score is perhaps the first thing that stands about his totals. However, if we judge his performance according to Eric T.’s Balanced Corsi, we see that according to his zone start he is actually around 3 shots better per 60 minutes than we might expect. His balanced zone shift is also a little higher than we might expect, and if we couple this data with his extremely impressive 53.6% Fenwick with the score tied, there is a lot here to suggest that Richards is carrying the water at even strength.

Moving to Carter, his totals are just as impressive. Carter actually was put in tougher defensive spots than Richards, and his Corsi ON score is a little more than 4 shots higher per 60 minutes. His Balanced Corsi is around 7 shots higher than what we might expect from a player put in similar situations, and his BZS is around 3 percent to the good. His Fenwick score, though lower than Richards still suggests that he was also doing a major part driving the play forward for the Flyers considering his zone starts.

What is even more impressive is that the above analysis doesn’t even take into account the elephant in the room: quality of competition. Below is a chart of the toughest CorsiRelQoC scores of every player listed as a Center on Behind the Net last season, minimum 20 games played:

Rank	Player	Team	CorsiRelQoC
1	BRANDONDUBINSKY	NYR	1.436
2	ARTEMANISIMOV	NYR	1.412
3	HENRIKZETTERBERG	DET	1.383
4	DAVEBOLLAND	CHI	1.353
5	PAVELDATSYUK	DET	1.175
6	BRIANROLSTON	N.J	1.084
7	JORDANSTAAL	PIT	1.037
8	PATRICEBERGERON	BOS	1.026
9	OLLIJOKINEN	CGY	1.006
10	STEPHENWEISS	FLA	1.004
11	PATRICKMARLEAU	S.J	0.998
12	NATETHOMPSON	T.B	0.973
13	MARCUSJOHANSSON	WSH	0.953
14	BROOKSLAICH	WSH	0.95
15	BRADMARCHAND	BOS	0.921
16	DAVIDBACKES	STL	0.907
17	JEFFCARTER	PHI	0.896
18	TOMASPLEKANEC	MTL	0.895
19	SAKUKOIVU	ANA	0.879
20	DARRYLBOYCE	TOR	0.857
21	MARTINHANZAL	PHX	0.837
22	JERREDSMITHSON	NSH	0.83
23	STEVEOTT	DAL	0.809
24	DAVIDLEGWAND	NSH	0.805
25	PAULSTASTNY	COL	0.802
26	MIKERIBEIRO	DAL	0.8
27	MARTYREASONER	FLA	0.796
28	BRENDANMORRISON	CGY	0.771
29	MIKERICHARDS	PHI	0.752
30	JORDANCARON	BOS	0.745

Both Richards and Carter show up in the conversation with guys who are playing against some of the toughest players in the league. Though they may not score upwards of 80 points per season, both players are certainly producing at elite levels considering the players that they are expected to face night-in and night-out.

What is more, thanks to JaredL we are able to take a look at how the Flyers performed during the past two seasons with and without either Richards or Carter on the ice:

Player On-Ice	Corsi/60	Time (mins)	Corsi QoC
Both	3.398	211.85	0.646
Richards	1.286	2053.55	0.51
Carter	4.953	1950.467	0.386
Neither	-2.322	3514.417	-0.214

Unsurprisingly, these numbers fall in line with everything else we’ve seen – they were able to send the play in the right direction while eating the majority of the team’s tough-minute assignments. Jared was also kind enough to provide data that looks into how some of the Flyers’ other key players performed in situations both with and excluding one of Richards or Carter on the ice during the same time-frame:

Player On-Ice	With	Corsi/60	Time (mins)	Corsi QoC
Giroux	Either	4.698	1379.317	0.839
Giroux	Neither	4.204	784.9	-0.456
Briere	Either	8.912	895.383	0.069
Briere	Neither	-0.775	1238.717	0.224
Hartnell	Either	2.674	987.267	-0.576
Hartnell	Neither	-1.230	1121.883	0.329
van Riemsdyk	Either	2.194	1148.467	0.528
van Riemsdyk	Neither	4.426	704.967	-0.169

Once again, we see that no matter the situation, each player was better with one of either Richards or Carter on the ice except for James van Reimsdyk whose data has a noticeable discrepancy in quality of competition. In order for the Flyers to remain one of the premier Stanley Cup contenders in the Eastern Conference, it is looking more and more like the big line of JVR, Claude Giroux and Jaromir Jagr is going to be asked to carry the mail against top-tier competition in the absence of Richards and Carter. These numbers seem to suggest that it is certainly possible, but we will have to wait until each plays an adequate number of contests before we can finally say whether Paul Holmgren’s plan will pay off in the long run. So far, the Flyers are off to an excellent start, but Giroux & Co. will have to keep up their play in the absence of what was one of the league's most formidable one-two punches up front.

Part II: The Aftermath of the Mike Richards and Jeff Carter Deals

In the middle of the purgatory also known as the NHL offseason, the beginning of unrestricted free agency on July 1st serves as a mad dash of excitement. As fans, we are oftentimes given our first glance into what our favorite teams will look like come October. For fans of the Philadelphia Flyers, however, the first preview into 2011-2012 came 8 days prior with the dealing of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. With the new found cap space following the trades, GM Paul Holmgren wasted little time signing goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov to a massive 9-year/$51 million contract in an attempt to shore up his goaltending situation. The Flyers had of course acquired Bryzgalov’s negotiating rights from Phoenix prior to the start of free agency, and were therefore able to lock up the goaltender should they come to terms before July 1. Once he was free to negotiate with the rest of the league’s UFAs, Holmgren decided to make a splash by signing Jaromir Jagr, Maxime Talbot, and Andreas Lilja to new contracts. Where exactly will these four acquisitions fit within the Flyer lineup? Let us turn to the numbers to try and find an answer.

Taking my familiar approach, I am going to start by looking at the per game ice time of the Flyers’ newly-acquired skaters. Setting Jagr aside, below are the totals for both Talbot and Lilja from last season per nhl.com:

Player	Games Played	ES TOI/Game	Team Rank	PP TOI/Game	Team Rank	SH TOI/Game	Team Rank	Total TOI/G	Team Rank
Talbot (PIT)	82	12:01	10	0:06	20	2:55	2	15:04	9
Lilja (ANA)	52	13:53	6	0:01	7	3:30	2	17:25	5

As we can see, Talbot’s ES TOI would most certainly portray him as a bottom-six checking forward – a role which he will be expected to reprise in Philadelphia. He is also certain to play an important role in the team’s penalty killing, and his hefty average time helped contribute to a Pittsburgh unit which ranked 3rd in the NHL in shots allowed per 60 minutes last season.

Moving to Lilja, it seems that he is a defensemans version of Talbot – a third pairing player who logs major minutes on the penalty kill. He should see a similar role in Philadelphia, replacing veteran Sean O’ Donnell whilst challenging youngsters Erik Gustafson and Kevin Marshall for playing time. Lilja should bolster the team’s back-end depth with another capable body, which could prove important should veteran Chris Pronger miss an extended amount of time to begin the season.

Getting back to the team’s wild card signing of the summer, where does Jaromir Jagr fit into all of this? Having not played in the NHL since 2007-08, it’s hard to project just how much ice time the future hall-of-famer will see this season as we cannot refer to any recent data. However, Jagr does figure to play a large role both at 5-on-5 and on the power play, and will most certainly see top-6 minutes in both categories. Setting Jagr aside once again, what kind of context can we give both Talbot and Lilja’s ice time? The tables below should help to clarify such a question:

Player	ES G (Team Rank)	ES A (Team Rank)	ES Pts (Team Rank)	PP G (Team Rank)	PP A (Team Rank)	PP Pts (Team Rank)
Talbot (PIT)	6 (T-13)	12 (10)	18 (11)	0 (T-11)	0 (T-13)	0 (T-14)
Lilja (ANA)	1 (T-5)	6 (6)	7 (6)	0 (T-5)	0 (T-6)	0 (T-7)

Player	Corsi ON	CorsiRel	Fenwick %	CorsiRelQoC	Zone Start %	Zone Finish %
Talbot (PIT)	3.91	-2.9	55.3	0.459	54.2	49.9
Lilja (ANA)	-19.64	-11.4	49.4	-0.010	50.4	44.6

Beginning with the man they call "Superstar", Talbot was asked to play against fairly good competition this past season and on the surface seems to have performed okay. Eric T.’s Balanced Corsi shows us that his Corsi ON score is close to what we would expect from someone given such a role, though it does fall short by about one shot. Talbot’s balanced zone shift is also a little below expected which suggests that the gritty forward’s 55.3% Fenwick score is most likely the result of his favorable zone start. Our resident stats guru JaredL took a deeper look at Talbot trying to figure out if the Flyers were getting value out of his new 5-year/$8.75 million contract:

Max Talbot
JaredL here. Like I did for Voracek, Chase wanted me to crunch the numbers on Talbot. Maxime Talbot made a name for himself by getting smoked by Dan Carcillo and scoring on Chris Osgood, two very impressive feats indeed. So he's like Jeff Carter but with four times as many goals in the Stanley Cup Finals. Wow has my material taken a beating this offseason.

The Penguins are probably the toughest team for WOWY analysis because the without-you numbers are mostly determined by who played more with Malkin, Staal and especially Crosby. The best way I can think of to evaluate a role player like Talbot is to look at how well those three did with him on the ice compared to without. The injuries last season make this tough because the sample sizes are really small. Even going back two or three seasons they aren't great but a pattern definitely emerges. Here are the numbers from the last three seasons for those centers, plus the times none of the three were on the ice, with and without Talbot. I excluded times where two of Crosby, Malkin and Staal were together.

Center	Talbot	Corsi	Time	Rate	OppCorsi
Crosby	On	13	264.7	2.947	-0.977
Crosby	Off	200	1972.9	6.082	0.161
Malkin	On	-25	269.1	-5.574	0.358
Malkin	Off	-60	1583.2	-2.274	-0.021
Staal	On	-21	136.7	-9.221	0.165
Staal	Off	234	2419.3	5.803	0.685
None of 3	On	-65	1533.8	-2.543	0.097
None of 3	Off	47	2260.4	1.248	-0.274

Looking only at score-tied spots it gets a bit better for Talbot, but the same unfortunate pattern is present:

Center	Talbot	Corsi	Time	Rate	OppCorsi
Crosby	On	11	91.3	7.226	-0.848
Crosby	Off	123	777.5	9.493	0.224
Malkin	On	-5	97.2	-3.086	-0.941
Malkin	Off	10	601.8	0.997	0.166
Staal	On	-18	51.4	-20.998	-0.13
Staal	Off	34	940.2	2.17	0.687
None of 3	On	24	610.6	2.358	0.187
None of 3	Off	99	876	6.781	-0.483

As you can see from the tables, every group was worse off with him on the ice. Most troubling is that this includes the fourth line. It appears that he performed worse 5-on-5 than the average Pittsburgh fourth liner over the last three seasons. I should point out that Talbot was on the ice for about a third of the Penguins' penalty-kill time and appears to have been a positive. The Penguins were just slightly better off with him on the ice, and almost all of that time was with Staal off the ice:

Penalty Kill	Corsi Rate	Goal Rate
With Talbot	-76.103	-4.384
Without Talbot	-77.455	-5.008

I'm biased, but $1.75M of cap space seems like a lot for a guy who can adequately run the second PK unit but has been somewhere between bad and awful 5-on-5. I'll now pass it back to Chase.

Taking a gander at Lilja’s numbers will probably want to make most of you look away, and for good reason. His scores fall way short of what we would expect from somebody given his role, both in balanced Corsi and balanced zone shifts. His quality of competition certainly isn’t anything to write home about, and he still fails to break a 50% Fenwick score with a favorable zone start. All in all, Lilja’s metrics suggest that he should be used in nothing more than a depth role for the Flyers as he certainly isn’t sending the play in the right direction on his own. I do find Lilja as a rather curious signing, especially considering his 35+ contract which will count against the cap for the next two seasons barring he enters long-term injury reserve status.

Getting back to Jagr, we once again do not have any relevant data to project how he may perform in his expected role come October. We could look at how the Rangers last used him in 2007-08, but Jagr is now 39 years old and figures to have declined since his last season in North America. He has scored at close to a point-per-game rate in the KHL (a lower scoring league), but he figures to see a gross increase in his quality of competition playing for the new-look Flyers. The abundance of power play time and favorable zone start percentage that he figures to receive will help his chances of achieving the 50-point benchmark that I have seen thrown around so loosely. Though his contract is for only one season, Jagr’s age is most certainly a concern. For a player with so many question marks, a cap hit of $3.3 million seems to be a bit of an overpayment. Sure, Jagr could score 50+ points and could give the Flyers excellent top-6 production. Nevertheless, all expectations at this point cannot be justified until we finally see how the crafty Czech can perform against the best players in the world.

Having looked into where the new skaters fit into the lineup, will Ilya Bryzgalov help make up for an offense that is missing Mike Richards and Jeff Carter? Adam Kimelman of NHL.com seems to think so, but as friends of Driving Play Geoff Detweiller and Kent Wilson have written, the numbers simply do not bear this out. Giving Bryzgalov such a lucrative contract is most puzzling to me, especially when Sergei Bobrovsky had an excellent rookie season – his first in North America. The Flyers could be using some of the money that they are lighting on fire handing over to Bryzgalov to help bolster the team’s lost offensive depth, but instead are tying it up in one player who cannot help in this regard.

Unfortunately, I am once again left to conclude that the additions of Jagr, Talbot, Lilja and Bryzgalov do not stack up as a net positive for Philadelphia in the wake of the departure of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. Both Talbot and Lilja do not seem to be carrying the water at 5-on-5 whatsoever and we do not yet know what Jaromir Jagr will provide to the offense should he compete and stay healthy. Mr. Kimelman is not the first to argue that Bryzgalov will make up for some of the offense that is no longer with the club, but as Part III of this saga will point out, Richards and Carter were an integral part of Philadelphia’s success for more reasons than just points on the scoresheet.

Part I: The Aftermath of the Mike Richards and Jeff Carter Deals

On June 23rd, 2011, Flyers General Manager Paul Holmgren sent shockwaves through the hockey world when he dealt arguably the two most notable faces of the franchise – Mike Richards and Jeff Carter – to Los Angeles and Columbus respectively. Since then, much has been (and will continue to be) written about possible motives behind what he and team owner Ed Snider were pondering to make such bold moves. So far, speculation has included both off-ice issues as well as the need to create salary cap space for newly signed goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. Starting with the former, Richards’ tumultuous relationship with members of the Philadelphia media is no secret. For the last few seasons, there have been accusations that he (and Carter) enjoyed a lifestyle where partying was the main focus, leaving hockey on the back burner. Richards’ leadership inside the locker room hasn’t been looked upon any more favorably. It has been rumored that a longstanding rift between the team’s young stars and seasoned veterans – most notably Chris Pronger – could also have played a factor in the stars’ departure from the team. Whether or not these accusations have merit, it is certain that the moves will accomplish one of the team’s likely intended goals: a culture change inside the dressing room.


In the aftershock of what happened almost four weeks ago, another highly-debated question has naturally emerged: are the Flyers still one of the premier Stanley Cup contenders in the Eastern Conference? In order to answer such a question, I am going to break my study into three parts. Part one will look into the deals for Richards and Carter themselves, evaluating what it was that the Flyers added to their lineup. Part two will evaluate Philadelphia’s signings on July 1 and speak to where Jaromir Jagr, Maxime Talbot, and Andreas Lilja fit into the equation. Finally, part three will decipher what the Flyers lost when they made the decision to deal their captain and his swift sidekick.


Of course, trying to answer our question is a bit of a double-edged sword – only time will tell if Holmgren’s return of Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn, a 2012 second round pick, Jakub Voracek, the 8th overall selection in this year’s draft (Sean Couturier), and a third round selection in this year’s draft (Nick Cousins) were an adequate return for both superstars. Fortunately, we can still attempt to decipher what the numbers tell us about these players (and even draft picks). In order to do this, I like to start by looking at players’ average ice time per game. This tells us 1) what situations the players are being used in, and 2) how often they are being used. Per nhl.com, here are the numbers for Simmonds and Voracek, the two players coming to Philadelphia who saw significant ice time at the NHL level last season:

From these numbers, we can conclude that Simmonds played a bottom-six checking role in Los Angeles, the same role that he will most likely see in Philadelphia. Voracek, on the other hand, was one of the Jackets’ top forwards, ranking in the top 5 on his team at even strength and on the PP. This is good news for the Flyers – they will need him to replace any and all minutes in both situations without Richards and Carter in the fold.
With our ice-time analysis complete, we can now attempt to give this raw data its proper context.

 

What do these numbers tell us? Starting with Simmonds, he was asked to play a moderately defensive role against the toughest competition of any forward on the team (min. 20 games played). However, his zone start percentage should probably see an expected Corsi score of zero or slightly worse (see chart), and instead Simmonds sits at -4.02 . DobberHockey tells us that he most often played with Michal Handzus and Alex Ponikarovsky (21.25%), and Handzus and Kyle Clifford (15.33%). Of these forwards, Handzus and Ponikarovsky both have Corsi scores around what we would expect for someone given their roles, but no player seems to be “carrying the water” as we like to say. Unfortunately for the Flyers, Simmonds is no exception and his low scores in just about every category show that he cannot send the play in the right direction on his own against the opponent’s best players.


Voracek, on the other hand, is an interesting case in and of himself. Once again using the expected Corsi graph linked, Voracek actually slightly over-performs what we might expect from somebody given his zone start percentage. However, his impressive Corsi scores and Fenwick percentage are perhaps correlated with a few points of interest. First, his aforementioned high zone start percentage gave him an immediate advantage in generating shots towards the opponent’s net as he quite often started his shifts in prime scoring position. Second, his competition was anything but impressive, actually averaging a negative relative Corsi score. Finally, DobberHockey shows us that among his three most common line combinations, Rick Nash was on the ice a healthy 57.81% of the time. I hardly think explaining why playing with Nash would be beneficial to Voracek, but it is worth noting that Nash was among the league’s leaders in shots last season – his total of 305 ranked 6th in the entire NHL. Though Nash’s Corsi score of 4.49 may be lower than expected considering his own 57.1% zone start, taking into consideration how often he shoots it is easy to see how Voracek’s own score was undoubtedly affected for the better. It will be most interesting to see if Voracek can repeat such gaudy scores without a line-mate sporting the credentials of Mr. Nash.


We have already noted Voracek’s 2:57 of average PP time per game in ’10-11 which will be immensely valuable to Philadelphia in the absence of Richards and Carter. Though he ranked amongst the team’s leaders in said category, however, he only registered 8 total points for his efforts on the man advantage. Perhaps it is unsurprising that Columbus’ Power Play ranked 8th in the league in shots for/60 minutes with Nash in the fold (remember: shots are a better indicator than goals), but for a team that saw success in generating pressure on the opponent, Voracek’s totals still seem low. However, some of this effect can be explained when we realize that Columbus’ opponents saved 91.1% of all shots while on the PK according to Behind The Net. Thanks to mc79hockey, we know that the historic average is around 86.6%, a full 4.5% disparity. Had Columbus’ opponents not been so lucky, both the team and Voracek most likely would have sported slightly higher power play production.


Moving on to the relative unknowns of what the Flyers got back in the deal, on the surface Brayden Schenn and three draft picks may seem like an appetizing return. However, Derek Zona’s study on draft picks and their value tells us something slightly different. Putting Schenn aside for a moment, what can we realistically expect from the first, second, and third round picks that the Flyers gained? Zona’s study is particularly excellent because it shows the historical chance of drafting a “top” player with a certain selection. He notes to “...consider the 'Top Players' to be top five forwards and top three defenseman [on their team].” Knowing what we know about Richards and Carter, I don’t think anybody would argue that the Flyers subtracted two established “top 5” forwards from their lineup. However, the article also notes that the odds of drafting such a player with the number 8-13 selections (they selected Couturier 8th overall) is a mere 41.2%. Looking at the other two picks, the 68th overall selection this season which turned into Nick Cousins has a 7.4% chance of turning into a Richards or Carter-esque player. Considering the Kings figure to be among the top western conference contenders next season in the wake of their offseason, I would most likely expect the 2012 second round pick to fall within this same range. The fact that the Flyers didn’t receive higher than a 50% chance to replenish their lineup with two established stars puts a bit of a hindrance on their returns.


Adding this to the fact that both Richards and Carter were on long-term, cap-friendly deals, and I’m not sure that there is a net positive to be found here. Perhaps Sean Couturier or one of the other selections will make a difference, saving the Flyers money in the short-term should they produce while on an entry level contract. So far, all indications are that Brayden Schenn will be given every possible opportunity to make the final roster, but much like Couturier, there are still question marks surrounding his development. Unfortunately, prospects are called prospects for a reason – there is no guarantee that they will meet development expectations. Considering what the Flyers gave up in these deals, while the return could most certainly prove lucrative, the odds simply do not stack up in their favor.