The Philadelphia Flyers are returning to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2020. They're a team without a whole lot of pure star power. Travis Konecny is pushing the 70 point barrier late in the season, and then players like Trevor Zegras, Owen Tippett, Christian Dvorak, and Matvei Michkov show up in support. So they have depth, but there's no cavalry coming to save the day game in and game out.
Still, the Flyers have scored 3.7 goals per game in a ten game stretch in March and April, 2.6 of which at even strength. How are they doing it?
Work Off the Puck
In these clips you'll see a lot of goals off the rush, and a lot against New Jersey and Boston. That's not a coincidence, that's just good pre-scouting by Rick Tocchet and his staff. This represents the bulk of Philly's even strength offence, and there are a lot of sub-concepts included. But just watch their habits. They're pass ready, they work to position, and they do a great job representing one of hockey's most sought-after codes: play the right way.
Stop at the Net
Pucks on net: tired. Stop at the net: wired. Simple, right? Even with a disciplined team like the Flyers you can see how difficult it is to stop at the net on time. It's obvious because the majority of the time they do such a good job with it. And these are just the goals. Expand the search to scoring chances and you'd see a hundred examples.
Third Man In
The Flyers are running a clear 2-1-2 forecheck in these clips. The third man is not only a funny reference to the Broad Street Bullies, it's a concept that calls for the F3 to get the puck. But it's also used in simple 1 on 1 puck battles. Let's say there's a loose puck. A Flyer and a Red Wing are battling for it. Whichever team has the third player to join the battle usually comes up with the puck. Regardless of the system, the Flyers do great work in numbers below the opponent's goal line. The second clip highlights both of these concepts in action.
The interesting thing is that when you apply these three concepts, you start to notice mistakes even when goals are scored. There are a couple examples of players drifting through the crease instead of stopping, but someone else scores by working hard off the puck to get open. There is also clearly a lot of room for creativity in Philly's approach. As long as they're coming back to these core concepts, players are free to get there however they want.
Things will tighten up in the playoffs, so Tocchet will be reminding those players to keep upping their standard.
The concepts are working for the Flyers. Will they work in the postseason?
