Philadelphia Flyers

Throughout the Summer of 2013, PhiladelphiaFlyers.com will be conducting a bracket-style Tournament in which YOU, the Fan, can cast your vote and choose who keeps advancing until the year's best Flyers highlight is unveiled. Below is the official ... Original post: Flyers Recent Headlines

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Wrapup: Flyers at World Championships Congratulations to Flyers defenseman Erik Gustafsson and the rest of Tre Kronor for ending Switzerland's undefeated run at the 2013 IIHF World Championships, capturing the gold medal game by a 5-1 score. The Swedish team had some ups and downs during the preliminary round but peaked at just the right time in the 10-game tournament. Additional congratulat See the rest here: Bill Meltzer

Point totals have a very strong influence in how we evaluate forwards. The goal and assist columns in a stat sheet are very frequently referenced, and the plays where those stats are accumulated weigh heavily on our eye test and our memory. But we don't talk much about what drives point scoring. I've written about how out-shooting leads to winning at the team level, but at the individual level we know some players shoot for a much higher percentage than others. So is the difference in shot quality larger than the difference in shot rate at the individual level? What really leads to high point totals? In the plots below, we look at the correlation between a player's point scoring rate and either (top plot) his team's shot rate with him on the ice or (bottom plot) his team's shooting percentage with him on the ice. A strong correlation would mean that having a high value for one would lead to a high value for the other and the points would fall near a straight line. It's clear from these plots that in any given season, a player's point scoring rate is much more heavily driven by the shooting percentages than the shot rates. Both have an effect, but the correlation in the lower plot is much stronger (R^2 of 0.67 vs 0.37). But this doesn't really settle things yet. In any given season, shooting percentage might be more important, but what if shooting percentage varies a lot? Below are two plots looking at how well shooting percentage in one year predicts shooting percentage or point scoring in the following year. It turns out that shooting percentages aren't very repeatable after all; these correlation plots look more like blobs than lines. Essentially, the variance in shooting percentage is a much bigger factor than either the shot rate or the talent component of shooting percentage. So the team's shooting percentage with a given player on the ice is a strong driver of his point total in any given year, but it turns out to be a pretty poor predictor of what will happen next year. Even though shot rate has less impact on point scoring, its greater repeatability (R^2 of 0.36 vs 0.11) actually makes it more useful for predicting next year's point totals. As we move to larger sample sizes, the variance will start to wash out a bit and we can get a better indication of a player's talent. Still, shot rate remains both more repeatable and more predictive of future point scoring: Reliability Predictive of points Shot rate (1 yr) 0.36 0.24 Shooting percentage (1 yr) 0.11 0.14 Shot rate (2 yr) 0.42 0.36 Shooting percentage (2 yr) 0.21 0.27 Shot rate (3 yr) 0.47 0.45 Shooting percentage (3 yr) 0.29 0.35 Up to now, I've framed this as an either/or choice, but it really isn't. It's interesting to note that shot rate appears to be a larger factor than shooting percentage, but both factors do contribute, and we should use both factors when trying to project a player's future scoring. However, it is critical to bear in mind that a single year's shooting percentage data is almost entirely noise. When we set expectations for a player, we need to look at multiple years of shooting percentage data and remember that whatever happened last month or even last year is pretty close to meaningless. Don't fret too much about how low Hartnell's on-ice shooting percentage was this year or get too excited about how high Voracek's was. If a rookie like Nazem Kadri or Jordan Eberle has one of the very highest on-ice shooting percentages in recent years, it's a better guess that they won't keep it up than that they're destined for sure-fire superstardom. Point totals are a reasonable way to measure a player's offensive contributions. But we need to keep in mind that they're not only driven by usage (ice time, power play time, and situational deployment); they're also heavily driven by random blips in shooting percentage, blips that don't tell us much at all about what will happen in the futur

*I've decided that boycotting Pens games is what's best for my mental health. Hooray for recaps! *Erik Gustafsson won gold! And he was a huge part of the win, not to mention his team's success throughout the tourney. (IIHF) *Meltzer on Gus. (Hockeybuzz) *Anthony SanFilippo on the Flyers' best-player-available draft strategy. (Flyers.com) *Reviewing the worst of this past season. (Flyers Faithful) *The Memorial Cup has begun, with some Flyers prospects playing major roles. (Flyers.com) *Speaking of the Memorial Cup, this bit of awkward helped kick things off. (Backhand Shelf) *Alternative NHL Awards. (On the Forecheck) *How size affects (or doesn't) injuries. (HEotP) *The Baby Pens & Bruins brawl in the AHL playoffs. (Puck Daddy) *The Maple Leafs broke the heart of the coolest astronaut since Buzz. (TSN)

The bronze and gold medal games of the 2013 IIHF World Championships will take play today in Stockholm. In yesterday's semifinals, Switzerland continued its undefeated run in the tournament with a 3-0 shutout of Team USA while Sweden blanked Finland by an identical score. The US-Switzerland game was scoreless until midway through regulation, when Nino Niederreiter finally solved John Gibson. Th More here: Bill Meltzer

It’s time to attempt to eviscerate a long-standing misnomer about the Flyers. There is a belief out there that the Flyers are horrible at recognizing defensive talent in the draft. It’s easy to make that argument when looking at past drafts ... Continue reading here: Flyers Recent Headlines

Photo credit: Dave Chidley / Canadian Press By Todd Cordell (@ToddCordell) The 2013 NHL Entry Draft in New Jersey is just over a month away. As we inch closer to this year’s draft, I’ll continue to plug away and post as many scouting reports on the top draft eligible players from the Ontario Hockey League as I can. Here is my scouting report on 2013 draft eligible forward Max Domi of the London Knights. Max Domi Age – 18 Position – Center Height – 5? 10? Weight – 194 Draft Projection: 8-12th overall OHL Team: London Knights 2013 Regular Season Stats: 39 goals, 48 assists, 87 points, +33, 71PIM, 64 games played 2013 Playoff Stats: 11 goals, 21 assists, 32 points, 26PIM, 21 games played NHL Comparable(s) – Nazem Kadri Upside – 8.5/10 Strengths – Max Domi is quite the package. He’s loaded with skill, is a dynamic offensive player and is one of the best skaters in this year’s class. Domi’s stride is explosive, to say the least. He has an incredibly high top speed and it doesn’t take him long to reach it. He’s extremely shifty and is very good with stops and starts and at cutting strides. He’s not a big guy but what he lacks in size, he makes up for in heart and feistiness. He won’t back down from anyone and he rarely gets outworked. While Domi’s willing to mix it up physically, he’s very good at getting under the skin of his opponents and drawing penalties. Domi sees the ice very well and is an excellent playmaker. His hockey sense is through the roof and there are very few passes he can’t make. Domi isn’t afraid to go to the dirty areas of the ice and has no problem filling the net, either. His hands are incredible and he can often be found stick handling in a phone booth. Weaknesses – While there aren’t many flaws in Domi’s game, he needs to work on his defensive zone play. Sometimes he is caught out of position or is trying to cheat out of the offensive zone and the Knights give up a scoring chance or goal as a result. You could also argue he’s too confident and gets carried away with his cockiness at times. Domi will need to do a better job of controlling himself at the next level. Another thing I noticed is that Domi tries to be too fancy every now and then and attempts to force a play, when most of the time it’s best to just keep it simple. Career Projection – Given Domi’s work ethic, speed, vision and overall ability he could blossom into a top line center. He’ll need to improve his defensive zone play if he wants to be an all situation player at the NHL level, but he certainly has the ability required to be a very effective offensive player in the NHL for a long time. 2013 Draft Eligible Prospect Profiles: Sean Monahan – Ottawa 67?s Darnell Nurse – Soo Greyhounds Ryan Hartman – Plymouth Whalers – Follow Todd on twitter @ToddCordell NHLToddCordell@Gmail.com The post Max Domi Scouting Report: 2013 NHL Draft Prospect Profile – London Knights appeared first on The Hockey Guys.

Apologies in advance for the brevity of today's blog. I have an early morning flight to catch. Later today, the two IIHF World Championship semifinal games will be held in Stockholm. At 9 a.m. EDT, Erik Gustafsson and Team Sweden (6-2-0) take on Finland (7-1-0), while Team USA (6-2-0) plays undefeated Switzerland (8-0-0). Phantoms goalie Cal Heeter is a member of Team USA but has not dressed for a Read more from the original source: Bill Meltzer

With the eyes of the hockey world focused on the Stanley Cup Playoffs and even the World Championships in Sweden and Finland, another very important and historical tournament is set to begin. And it's one that Flyers fans might want to keep an... View post: Flyers Recent Headlines