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6 Comments (3 conversations)
Michael Curran
Charlie,
What is the organization’s stance on Zegras? Are they negotiating, waiting until seasons end or letting him test the market? He is an RFA, I believe.
Matt
I really hope we sign him and it might be for a little less than if we signed him mid season. He’s going to get stronger and more defensively savvy, and looks like a good offensive 2C that can excel on the PP and with some sheltered O zone matchups. Still not a 1C, but with Devo/Cates as 3C and Coots as 4C that’s not bad. Just need an actual 1C.
Vandit Kalia
The Flyers did look the most dangerous when they carried the puck into the zone and then tried to create offense – as opposed to just flinging it into the boards AFTER offensive zone entry. That got me thinking – yes, the Flyers have more points this year, but are they REALLY a better team? After all, last year’s team played pretty well too but got cratered by the goal-tending.
So a quick and dirty analysis using goals differential as a metric – it isnt a perfect metric but in the end, the objective is to score more goals and give up less – whether you do it playing a more offensive system or a more defensive system does change that.
25/26: GF – 210, GA 245, Diff -35, SV% 0.883 over 70 games. That works out to a goal differential of -41 for the full season. Or a GF/GA of 0.857
24/25: GF – 236, GA – 274, Diff -38, SV% 0.872. Assuming they got the same goaltending they did this year and a similar save percentage, they would have had a goal differential of -14, or a GF/GA of 0.944.
That makes last year’s team notably better than this year’s team once you normalize the goaltending, despite the addition of Dvorak and Zegras to the roster, and the development of Drysdale (although they did lose Foerster) and despite the fact that last year’s team cratered after the Farabee/Frost trade with no replacements added.
At the very least, this year’s team doesnt really seem improved in any kind of manner, despite the addition of some young talent Which kinda matches the eye test – they used structure last year to stay afloat, atleast till Briere did a quiet tank, and they are doing the same this year.
Charlie O'Connor
AuthorWait, I’m not following you. The Flyers’ current goal differential in 2025-26 is -10. (GF: 204, GA: 214)
Where are you getting -35?
Vandit Kalia
Well, now that’s embarrassing. I got AI to pull up these results in a tabular form – and one of the few times I didn’t verify, I got duped. There goes my NHL analyst career. 🙂
NHL.com has it at -15 now, so a full season average of -18. So call it a wash.
Even with that correction, the larger point still feels valid: they are still more or less the same team they were last year, just with better goaltending.
David LaVeck
Great game recap once again as this line was especially succinct: “had raised fans’ hopes once more only to see them dashed against the metaphorical rocks” as it sums up the fans feelings leading up to the game and in it’s aftermath. It is a shame that execution still seems to be a major point of weakness for this Flyers team. Hopefully next season with both Foerster and Martone in the fold these types of games won’t be as frequent.