Meltzer's Musings: Waiting Game, Hakstol, MacDonald, Russia Trip February 13, 2017, 9:21 AM ET [680 Comments] Bill Meltzer

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MELTZER'S MUSINGS: FEBRUARY 13, 2017



1) The Philadelphia Flyers have gone just 8-12-4 since their 10-game winning streak, which has left the team in a position of battling uphill for the final playoff spot in the NHL's Eastern Conference. Yesterday, with the Flyers idle, the Flyers received no help on the out-of-town scoreboard. The Boston Bruins blanked the Montreal Canadiens, 4-0, while the New York Islanders laid a 5-1 whipping on the Colorado Avalanche.



As a result, the Flyers are now three points behind Boston (with two games in hand) in the Eastern Conference standings. Philly is tied in points with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the final wildcard spot, but the Leafs hold two games in hand on the Flyers. Meanwhile, the Islanders have closed to within one point of the Flyers (with two games in hand).



Tomorrow night, the Leafs and Islanders play against each other in Brooklyn. That's a bad news proposition for the Flyers. The bad news is that either the Islanders will leapfrog the Flyers in the standings or the Leafs will open a two-point lead. A three-point game would be the worst possible scenario. The only good news is that it's, of course, impossible for both teams to pick up two points.



The Bruins, who have won three games in a row, are now on ill-timed bye week. They do not play again until next Sunday (Feb. 19) and their first game is against a San Jose Sharks team that will be looking to avenge the beating they took recently at TD Garden in Boston. The Sharks have racked up an 18-7-2 record on home ice.



The Flyers are going to have to take care of business in Calgary on Wednesday and Edmonton on Thursday for this to matter. If the Maple Leafs beat the Islanders in regulation tomorrow night and the Flyers defeat both the Flames (14-13-0 at home) and Oilers (13-10-3), Philly could be back in playoff position by the end of this week. That's a lot of ifs and a lot of looking for outside help. The Flyers have only themselves to blame for the nine-point lead in the standings that they frittered away in less than two months.



2) Several people have asked me to weigh in on the Flyers recent season ticket holder town hall meeting, specifically Dave Hakstol comments to a questioner who very aggressively and pointedly asked about "why Andrew MacDonald never sits out" when Shayne Gostisbehere had been a healthy scratch three games in a row and five times overall this season. The questioner cited social media furor among other things.



Hakstol replied that the questioner had a "short memory", citing MacDonald's near season-long banishment to the American Hockey League last year, and then proceeded to praise MacDonald's play this season by saying he's been a legitimate top three or top four defenseman. The latter comment sent the MacDonald haters and "fire Hakstol" crowd into a frenzy.



My take: Hakstol met a hostile questioner with a defensive response. He needed to stand up for his player and he did so, perhaps overselling his case just a little bit. MacDonald is not an ideal third or fourth defenseman. What is Hakstol supposed to say, though? Is it better to collectively throw his blueline under the bus or is it better to praise a guy who has actually played pretty well in recent weeks.



Putting it mildly, MacDonald will never be a Corsi darling. He concedes zone entries and shot attempts with regularity, especially when playing against top-notch opposition. That does not make MacDonald a horrible player, though. Shot attempt metrics are a rudimentary measure of puck possession differentials but reveal very little about play without the puck.



MacDonald is a competent positional containment defender who, if he can't block a shot (he is second on the team with an average 2.1 blocks per game and, a few years ago, led the NHL in blocks) will concede it but try to keep the shooter to the outside. He's not great in muscle-on-muscle battles but has a decent defensive stick. He is OK with the puck but will cough up some turnovers and failed clears. He is a pretty good on retrievals and skates well.



A couple of years ago, in the first season of his big new contract, MacDonald struggled both with and without the puck. Those struggles continued into last year, which factored into his AHL demotion along with the need for a bit of salary cap relief. This season, though, MacDonald has generally been reliable in his play without the puck and adequate -- certainly not spectacular, but not lost -- when the Flyers have possession. He is an NHL player, not an AHL-caliber one regardless of what his staunchest critics say. Fans on social media tends to go overboard in blaming him not only when he makes a gaffe but for every thing from bouncing pucks to issues that other defensemen -- even the ones with whom he's not partnered -- encounter.



Is MacDonald the guy the Flyers (or any comparable team with playoff aspirations) ideally want out along with Ivan Provorov against other teams' top lines? It's a moot question. On this current Flyers team's blueline, there really hasn't been much other choice other than MacDonald or Radko Gudas. Hakstol can't -- and shouldn't -- publicly say that, but it's the cold, hard truth.



Gostisbehere has had a subpar defensive season and is primarily an offensive defenseman, anyway. The oft-injured Michael Del Zotto has not played as well as he did last season. Nick Schultz is nearing the end of the line. Mark Streit suffered a shoulder injury and has largely struggling since coming back. Meanwhile, the organization continuing to develop Travis Sanheim, Samuel Morin and Robert Hägg in Lehigh Valley.



Hakstol also did not mention that MacDonald had been scratched seven times in eight games between Nov. 3 and 19. Although he was nursing a lower-body issue for much of that time, he was well enough to play in several of those latter games and was not played on injured reserve at any point.



Andrew MacDonald being part of the top six on the Flyers' blueline is not a problem. The problem is that Hakstol's "legit top three or four" proclamation really meant "a top four on our team this season by necessity." A coach, however, has to express faith in his personnel collectively. The reality is that the recent very heavy focus on five-man-unit defensive play to limit opposition shots and chances -- which has also cut into Philly's offense, in part because there aren't enough good possession generators on the back end and an area where MacDonald himself is not an asset -- is reflective of the Flyers' blueline overall being subpar. In fact, Provorov is already by far the Flyers' best all-around defenseman.



One of these days, I will write another Chris VandeVelde-related blog. I have explained in the past WHY he constantly stays in the lineup -- and not just for Hakstol, but also for predecessor Craig Berube in 2014-15 -- which is a separate topic from debating whether he OUGHT to be a lineup fixture. One thing that has nothing to do with it is the University of North Dakota connection.



If the sentiment of playing under Hakstol at UND was truly a factor in roster decisions, then Corban Knight would be on an NHL contract with the Flyers -- he's quietly played his checking role very well for the Phantoms this year and did not look out of place in 20 NHL games with the Florida Panthers last year -- rather than on an AHL deal with Lehigh Valley. If playing for UND "saved" a player, then Michael Parks (now in the ECHL with Quad City) would have been brought back for another shot in the organization after injuries derailed him last year. Hell, Hakstol had coached Parks for the four seasons immediately preceding Hakstol's departure for Philly.



As far as VandeVelde goes, Berube had no UND ties or loyalties but played him most every game with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, too, before Hakstol kept them together following his hiring. Like it or hate it, VandeVelde plays because he plays a very "safe" game, willingly mucks and grinds on the walls and applies back pressure. He's an old-fashioned fourth-line checking forward. Whether such a player still should have an NHL role is a different debate.



I personally think that rookie Roman Lyubimov is a better, righthanded shooting, version of that player with a bit of under-developed nascent puck abilities, yet he gets scratched periodically and VandeVelde stays because he's always used in the PK rotation as well. I don't mind VandeVelde's presence in the lineup in and of itself, except that it's part of a bigger issue that the Flyers dress too many players who offer little if anything to solving the scoring depth issue.



Ultimately, a team's best players have to step up, no matter how tight the checking they face. That means that Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds have to drive the bus at five-on-five as well as on the power play --- with improved five-on-five work from Brayden Schenn regardless of which position or line he plays and more than periodic short-sample offensive bursts from Sean Couturier, whose droughts go on for way too long.



Overall, though, the job that opposition teams have in preparing to play against the Flyers is made easier by the lack of forwards whom they truly have to fear apart from Giroux, Voracek, Simmonds and, to a lesser extent, Schenn. For the first half of the season, regular offensive contributions from the Flyers blueline helped keep the opposition honest: the Flyers defense corps was collective leading the NHL in scoring at one point. That has not been the case for many weeks, though.



Eventually, Provorov's periodic offensive contributions will become more or more regular. He is such a smart young player, and his pinches in the offensive zone are rarely indiscriminate risk-taking. As he continues to gain experience and the roster evolves, he will be part of that solution. Gostisbehere's offensive game will get back on track, too. Streit is not part of the long-term picture.



3) Sorry, "tank the season" crowd but this is not really a great year for bubble teams to be full-fledged sellers at the trade deadline. The 2017 NHL Draft crop is one of the weaker ones of recent years. The top end is average and the depth is so-so. While there are always sleepers to be found and future solid players to be had, it's very much a crapshoot.



Overall, the 2017 crop is such that a team on the playoff bubble might not be as inclined to collect multiple extra picks and instead hang on to most of their impending UFAs for the stretch drive. Alternatively, they might buy one piece and sell off another, with the acquired and dealt picks more or less balancing off one other along with the salary cap implications.



For instance, the Flyers might deal impending unrestricted free agent Del Zotto for a draft pick (possibly they could get an unconditional second-rounder, and most certainly a third) and use the freed up cap space to get an impending UFA forward with a comparable salary and at the cost of a comparable asset.



4) The Flyers Alumni Team leaves for the Russia in a few hours. I am still in a state of stunned -- but thrilled -- surprise that they invited me to come along to cover the three-city tour, but here I am with my bags packed (sans computer, of course) and getting ready to meet up with the guys at the Wells Fargo Center to head off for the airport. We connect to the tour's first stop, Kazan, immediately after arrival at the airport in Moscow.



Day one of the tour diary will be published on FlyersAlumni.org either late tonight eastern U.S. time while I am on the plane to Moscow or else sometime tomorrow when we are in Kazan. It depends primarily on when and where I will have WiFi access.