Good job on getting Mrazek, my experience is that he's a really good starter level goalie, having him backing up Price is a brilliant goalie tandem. I'm not sure about Alzner/Petry as the third defensive pair, Alzner has a terrible contract.
I'd say you need offense more than anything, Hemsky isn't great and Hudon isn't either. It might be best to get Jake Wise onto your team asap to get you some all-round playmaking to up your offensive production.
---
Mid-season report for the 19/20 season, it's January 1st and the Flyers are flying higher than I had ever expected them to fly before the season started.
Western Conference
Eastern Conference
Team Stats
As you can see, I'm first in the East and 2nd overall in the entire NHL. To say that I expected any of this would be the biggest lie of the year, I literally didn't expect to one of two teams to be over 75% on the first day of the new year. We're second best in scoring, 9th in goals allowed (Neuvirth and Sandstrom's non-eliteness shining through). Third lowest in PIM/A, but our special teams are sub-average even though we have the most PP's in the league, so we could be so much more deadly.
Overview
Top Goals
Top Assists
Average Ratings
Couturier is no longer the most prolific scorer in the league, but is still #5 which is... unexpected, still. After 38 games he's 8 points away of tying his career high points (49), so the odds of doing that are extremely high as he's on pace for 80+ together with
Voracek and possibly
Giroux and Nolan Patrick(!) too!
My top line of Giroux/Couturier/Voracek are also leading the league in +/-, which just goes to show you how utterly phenomenal they are on the ice together. Further random stat, There is not a single Flyer Forward in the top 50 of ATOI, so I guess if I were to give the top 6 more traditional minutes, they'd probably be even deadlier, but right now they team is so efficient that I don't want to risk changing the minute allotment, it also means my 4th and 3rd line get more love, thus they are happier, and everyone plays a little bit better across 60 minutes (I feel, at least).
Also, Voracek has the highest AVR in the league right now! I did not see that coming, although he's been having an utter feast with Giroux on the opposite wing as the playmaker, and Couturier banging in front of goal. Would probably be closer to 50 if he had more minutes, but at the same time he just as well could be worse.
GAA
SV%
AvR
As you can see, the team ultimately falters in goal. We're 12th in the league in shots against, so we don't allow a lot of shots and goals in the end, but because neither
Neuvirth and
Sandstrom are elite goalies they ultimately let the team down across 60 minutes with SV%'s around 90% rather than 92%, it's a percentage game, but you can really see the difference between a Sergei Bobrovsky (grumble) and Michal Neuvirth across those.
You might wonder, where is
Carter Hart? Well he's in the AHL for a reason, that recovery is unacceptable and his mentals aren't great either. I'm afraid that I didn't get the luck of the draw and my Carter won't turn into a future Vezina winner, but i'm patient and as long as Neuvirth and Sandy are above average in their job, I can wait.
Flyers Lineup
Flyers Stats
Team Report
- As expected,
Provorov has taken his spot as a star defender with point creation and stifling defense. Of course, he's still growing so he might become even better!
-
Jakub Vrana has been dissapointing, and at 4,5M a year he's an expensive dissapointment. He's not worse than who he replaced, at least, but I expected more production from him because that's why I traded for his rights in the off-season.
Patrick and
Konecny are doing well, and it's clear that Vrana can't keep up with those two. First world problems tho!
- Also, my fourth line has been very poor, but I guess that can always be expected from a fourth line. They just lack 'it' and are an afterthought, but you can't have everything.
- I'm personally still 'meh' about
Dahlin, he's got the potential, he's performing well with good point production for a 19 year old defender and all that. But i'm not charmed by his below-average defensive skills, i'm still waiting for him to grow into it, and he's only 19 so I should be happy that his ratings show that he's a top 3 rookie in terms of performances.
That's all I got to say right now, really. Also I dropped my powerplay shooting from hard to selective, because I feel that passing it around with a man advantage will get me more results, and the early results have been encouraging at higher rates than the season stats imply. Around 20-25% eye-balling it.
Finally, here's a single prospect I'm going to show off. 2nd overall in 2018
Oliver Wahlström, one of the fifty million Swedes I have in my system. Might make his debut in 20/21, because he's got extremely exciting offensive abilities and can even defend! Might even replace Vrana if he doesn't get on enough! Scout rated him as Poor man's Duchene, but i'm hopeful he'll become more like an Ameri-Swedish Ovechkin! I might also sign him and send him to Cape Breton, but he seems to be doing good enough in the NCAA as is.
As always, if people are interested in seeing some pics of players (Flyers or otherwise), feel free to ask for them and i'll try to deliver!
We lead the NHL with 325 goals scored and Winnipeg is behind us with 288! They also finished one point behind us. We lost in the Conference Finale against Philly who went to win the Cup against the Jets.
](./images/smilies/wallbash.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
Milwaukee admirals weren't asking for such a gift and won the next 2 games, also winning the championship
