On Sunday afternoon, against the NHL’s foremost juggernaut, the Colorado Avalanche, the Philadelphia Flyers did something they rarely do. Sean Couturier’s goal just 2:09 into the start of the game gave the team its ninth 1-0 lead in 27 games, a 33% success rate of scoring the opening goal.
It’s impressive that the Flyers are a solid 15-9-3 in the standings with that stat, especially given they rank near the bottom of the league in goals (2.81, 25th) and shots (25.2, 30th). They also generate just 2.39 expected goals per 60 at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick, which ranks 28th.
Typically, the formula for a team like the Flyers is to grab an early lead to lock things down defensively. Relying on Dan Vladař (.906 save percentage) and a defense that ranks in the top half of the league in 5-on-5 expected goals against per 60 and penalty kill percentage has usually worked out. But they’ve often been tasked with keeping the Flyers in games, rather than preserving advantages.
The Bigger They Lead, The Harder They Fall
Not only has the frequency of getting early leads been an issue, but the Flyers have been shockingly poor at maintaining some of their bigger advantages. Philadelphia has had a multi-goal lead in 10 games this season, but only half of them have the team reached the end of the game without a serious threat.
Of the five games where they’ve led by at least three goals, twice the opponent has come back to tie the game (even once taking the lead), and had their advantage dwindled within one on another occasion. The team’s shootout prowess bailed them out on those first two occasions. Those first two games include two of the three times a multi-goal Flyers lead has been erased, and the other is one of two times the Flyers have had to defend a one-goal lead late in the game.
Per More Hockey Stats, the Flyers lead for an average of 14:59 per game, more than only the cellar-dwelling Vancouver Canucks and Nashville Predators, and the quickly fading Seattle Kraken. Meanwhile, only the Predators and Buffalo Sabres spend more of their games on average in a deficit than Philadelphia at 25:35. Their 1.222 standings points per game are more than every team in the league’s bottom 20 except the Vegas Golden Knights.
More Hockey Stats also tracks the number of times each team has come back from deficits of different margins. The Flyers are in a six-way tie for the most times erasing a one-goal deficit (seven), with four of the other five teams having qualified for last year’s playoffs. Their four comebacks from two goals down are the second most, trailing only the high-flying Anaheim Ducks and Dallas Stars. And their total of 11 comeback wins leads the league, with only the Ducks also in double digits.
First Is the Worst?
The Flyers are 5-3-1 when scoring the opening goal, including Sunday’s 3-2 defeat to the nearly unbeatable Avs. That makes them 10-6-2 when falling behind 1-0, meaning their points percentage in both situations is an identical .611 mark, an outstanding 100-point pace.
However, the Flyers have often had to work very hard to maintain the few early leads they’ve obtained. Only twice has the team completed a wire-to-wire win in which they’ve scored first and led the rest of the way: Oct. 30 at home against the Predators and Nov. 29 on the road against the New Jersey Devils.
The latter is an imposing victory, but not enough to make up for standing almost alone. Playing in so many close games adds up over the course of a season, especially with the Flyers on pace to challenge the single-season cap-era overtime record, set by the 2016-17 Detroit Red Wings at 29. This season’s Flyers team is currently pacing to play 30 of them.
So far, the Flyers have won seven of the 10 overtime games they’ve played in. It’s reasonable to expect their shootout success (5-0) to continue given Trevor Zegras and Sam Ersson are historically good at scoring and saving attempts, respectively. But once a game gets to OT, it’s usually a coin flip, so the Flyers could be in for a rude awakening if their 70% success rate after regulation drops by a modest 10-15%.
A Tail of Two Months to Come
It won’t be easy for the Flyers to reverse those trends over the next week. The Colorado game began a challenging five-game stretch, with the surprising San Jose Sharks up next before three consecutive contests against legitimate Cup contenders.
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The Vegas Golden Knights have been on the opposite end of the Flyers in overtime success (they lead the league with eight OTLs) but are still a highly-talented squad. The same goes for the Carolina Hurricanes, who the Flyers face in a rare weekend home-and-home.
However, if the Flyers can survive that stretch, things ease up significantly. They don’t play a team above them in the standings by points percentage after this Sunday until Jan. 6, their second game of the new year against Anaheim. While all of those games won’t be a walk in the park, it won’t be any easier for the Flyers to gain — and protect — leads during that stretch.
