I don’t care how good they are, the Stars’ puke green uniforms are one of the ugliest in sports …

Another Torts “system” one-point gain for the Flyers, pushing them back to a tie for the 6th draft pick if the lottery ends like the standings, instead of sole possession of 5th. Points are counter-productive at this point. Oh well, the third liners and second liners showed heart. Whoopie.

Is Pelletier the new Frost, Charlie? 🙂

On a more serious note – structure can be coached and has been, as is seen on the ice. But half this team has NO finishing skills whatsoever.

There was a play when one of the Flyers was driving to the net and taking the defender with him. The other forward made no effort to create a passing lane and blindly kept charging ahead near the faceoff circle – by the time he got the pass, he had no angle to shoot. Slowing down a little and cutting into the net would have given him a much better angle.

Happened a couple of other times too – the free forward made no effort to provide a better passing lane for receiving a pass.

On the perimeter shots, no Flyer is positioned at the edges to catch a rebound. They all get tied up in front of the goal.

Etc etc.

Hard working team surviving on structure, which may be great for analytics, but in terms of creativity and skill, they are SORELY lacking.

Torts immediately rewarded Andrae for his save by sending him back to Lehigh Valley.

I think as a fan, at this point, it is clear the roster is nothing but third and fourth liners, perhaps with the exception of Risto, Michkov and Konecny, who are second liners, not first liners. MM could grow into a first liner with time, an elite 1-C to play with, and a different coach than Torts so he is free to experiment and grow his immense talent without getting benched for defense or whatever enters Torts mind at the time. So, given this reality, reading about the day in game evaluation and the analytics on each game, seem less interesting than more of a columnist’s perspective would. Charlie, this is in no way a cut on you. You are a great writer, and elite at both beat writing coverage as well as overall columnist commentary. The point I am making, is with this lousy roster, I for one, would prefer more overview columnist articles than nuts and bolts coverage of mostly third and fourth line talent. Once they get some stars in here, then nuts and bolts coverage would be very worthwhile reads.