VOORHEES, N.J. — One of the more delicate balances in hockey is how you use your top players on special teams.
Most clubs prefer their best scorers on the power play — not the penalty kill.
Under Peter Laviolette, Flyers captain Claude Giroux racked up close to two minutes a game on the penalty kill most seasons.
When Craig Berube took over, Giroux’s average fell to only 45 seconds a game on the penalty kill. Berube wanted him fresh for five-on-five play.
Coach Dave Hakstol wants his best players working both sides of the puck. That means Giroux’s shorthanded minutes are going to rise.
“He’s doing a good job on the PK,” Hakstol said. “Fact remains, we've got a lot of forwards we think can do a good job killing penalties. We want six, seven guys available every night. They may be a bit interchangeable, including G in those situations.”
Giroux played a whopping 4:01 on the penalty kill — slightly less than a quarter of his overall ice time (18:37) during Monday’s 1-0 shutout over Florida (see story). He had a couple shorthanded chances, too.
The Flyers had eight penalties to kill, including a four-minute one to start the game. Somehow, the NHL’s previously-ranked 29th PK units — through two games — rose to the occasion, holding the Panthers to zero power-play goals on six attempts.
Through three games, Giroux is averaging 2:20 shorthanded a night and 3:13 on the power play. Over 82 games, those are taxing special teams minutes.
“I’m not looking for offense right away; if you play good defense your chances are going to come,” Giroux said of his shorthanded chores.
“One guy I used to look up to when he played on the PK was Mike Richards. He played good defense so that’s how he would get those chances.”
It’s possible Hakstol is using Giroux a lot now to stabilize the penalty-kill units which were horrific the entire way last year, especially on the road, hovering between 27th and 30th overall in both categories.
The Flyers gave up four power-play goals in their first two games this season then rebounded nicely on Monday, though goalie Michal Neuvirth gets some credit here.
What was impressive was holding Florida to just four shots while blocking four shots during the Panthers' four-minute power play a little more than a minute into play.
The momentum the Flyers generated coming off it saw Brayden Schenn score what proved to be the only goal of the evening.
“Any time you are early in the game there is a penalty to be killed like that, four minutes, I think it shows how the game is going to go,” Giroux said. “If they get a goal or maybe two goals, I think it would change the whole aspect of the game, and we were able to kill it and get momentum out of it.
“I’m not going to tell these guys to take penalties, but sometimes when you kill a big penalty, when everybody sticks together and we kill it, momentum comes to our side.”
Florida is a puck-possession team. The Flyers sealed off passing and shooting lanes Monday, something they didn’t do on Saturday when the Panthers scored three times.
Monday’s game saw the Flyers jump from 29th to 17th overall in shorthanded efficiency which, incidentally, is where they rank on the power play, as well.
So what was dramatically different between the two games?
“Not a lot different,” Hakstol said. “It’s little things and it’s a game of inches sometimes. Saturday, not a lot of things went right. We were a foot or two off of two or three plays. [Monday] we were in pretty good position. We were pretty scrappy.
“I thought we did a good job when they did have good possession and good puck movement we did a good job keeping things to the outside and finding an area either to jump up on a rebound or finding a spot to getting a force going and get a puck down the ice.”
The defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks visit Wednesday with a struggling power play (21st overall).
If the Flyers are going to stabilize their penalty kill, they’ll need to focus on getting it done on the road (20th overall). Given the Flyers' even-strength scoring woes, every shorthanded goal they give up makes it twice as hard to overcome.
And consider this: Giroux has nine goals and 23 points in his last 37 games, going back to last season, but only four of those goals came at even-strength. Jakub Voracek has five goals and 19 points in his last 35 games, but just one even-strength goal. They’re your top forwards.
Which further intensifies the need for having a strong penalty kill and reducing the minutes of certain players, particularly Giroux.
“It's hard, a lot of guys get a lot of minutes and some guys don’t get any minutes at all,” Mark Streit said. “We didn’t have a rhythm as a team and we still killed it. It gave us a lot of momentum.
“But still, it tired certain players out, and you don’t get into a rhythm as a team. Again, I thought we took too many penalties and it's tough to win hockey games like that when you use so much energy.”
It’s something Hakstol and PK coach Ian Laperriere need to watch closely this season.