Separating Fact From Fiction As The Flyers Are Pushed To The Brink

That sucked. A terrible 1st period. Michael Leighton playing hockey from the Flyers. Battling back from down 3-0 to tie the game only to lose in overtime and be down in the series 3-2. Not a great feeling.

But as the series winds to Game 7, it is important to separate some Flyers facts from myths. Why? I do not know, I just watched my team lose a playoff heartbreaker and want to write about something.

Myth: The Flyers have terrible goaltending all the way around.

Fact: Despite a terrible 1st period from Brian Boucher and a bad rebound given up by Michael Leighton which led to the game-winning goal, the only goaltending problem the Flyers have is Peter Laviolette's insertion of Michael Leighton as a back-up goaltender over Sergei Bobrovsky. While Bob has had a better year than Boucher, Bob's longest season in the past was 31 games and this is his first full year in North America. While I believe all the talk that about him being worn down is nonsense, I cannot say that with absolute certainty as I have never been able to meet with him personally. Even still, I would much prefer a worn out Bob on the bench or as a starter than Michael Leighton, who is one of the worst goaltenders to play in the NHL since 1998.

As far as Boucher and Bobrovsky go, they are not a weakness on the team. The league average even-strength save percentage, the best metric we currently have for goaltenders, in the NHL this year was .919. Bobrovsky and Boucher combined to have an even-strength save percentage of .923. That is .004 higher than league average and when you consider that most goaltenders in the NHL fall between .900 and .930 in ESS%, that is pretty statistically significant. So when anybody watches Bobrovsky and Boucher this year and concludes that the Flyers have a goalie problem, they are factually wrong. Game 5 tonight was one of, if not the first game this season the Flyers lost directly because of goaltending issues.

Myth: The Buffalo Sabres currently have a 3-2 series lead, and are therefore a better team than the Flyers.

Fact: No matter what the series score is now or what it ends up being, this fact will remain true: the 2010-2011 Buffalo Sabres are not a better hockey team than the 2010-2011 Philadelphia Flyers. While some may look at this and say Justin is being a sore loser and a blind homer, look at any advanced statistics which analyze the game at deeper levels and you will see this is true, almost painfully at times. There is more to hockey than scoring goals and goalies making saves. The Flyers and the Sabres have played six games thus far in the month of April 2011, five of which have been playoff games, and in all six games, the Flyers outplayed their Buffalo opposition. Look at Corsi (total shot differential, including blocked shots) and you will see the Flyers have the upper edge. Look at scoring chances for each game as tabulated by SB Nation blogs Die By The Blade (Sabres) and Broad Street Hockey (Flyers). The scoring chances by most counts are at worst even and at best in favor of the Flyers.

It has been proven there is no such thing as a hockey team that shoots efficiently, just teams that generate shots or not. So when you measure how good a team is, you do not go by goal scoring metrics, but rather by shot and chance producing metrics (shots on goal alone are a dangerous stat to play with as they are very much subject to score effects; a team trailing is going to push the situation more and force more shots on net than a team with the lead, if you want to come to any meaningful conclusions using shots on goal alone, your best hope is to go by shots on goal solely at even strength in tie game situations). And these shot and chance generating metrics have been won, at times convincingly so, by the Flyers in all six games. The Flyers are the better team on paper, even without their best player (Chris Pronger). They match up well with the Sabres and have been the better team thus far in this series. But the simple truth is a whole lot of luck has not been on their side, and in large part that is a lot of what playoff hockey comes down to. In large part, that luck has come in the form of the officials. Bad officiating decisions were the dominant story in Games 2 and 3, and a bad call in Game 5 led to a Sabres 4-on-3 power play goal. Obviously other factors certainly played into this one, but this did end up as a 1-goal game.

For instances of luck preventing the best possible teams from advancing, take a look at last year's playoffs, for example. The 2010 Canadiens were not a better team than the 2010 Washington Capitals. The 2010 Canadiens were not a better team than the 2010 Pittsburgh Penguins. The 2010 Philadelphia Flyers were not the best team in the Eastern Conference (if you adjust the standings to the pre lockout days before a tie game after 65 minutes of hockey went to a roulette wheel spin, the Flyers were better than 7th, but still far from the best). Luck plays an integral part in sports. Just re-watch the 2010 NLCS for further proof of that.

Much will be made about the Flyers being shutout by Ryan Miller in Games 1 and 4, but if one of the worst goalies to play in the NHL since 1998 and face 2000 or more shots can get three shutouts in five Eastern Conference Finals games, doesn't say there is more to goaltending than pure goalie skill? The same conclusion can be drawn using Roberto Luongo getting yanked in the past 2 Western Conference quarterfinals games against the Blackhawks. Play both of those series a million times, and that same number of those events will rarely repeat itself.

The point being, just because events happen, even in a 7-game series, does not mean they are in any way indicative of true talent levels. Michael Leighton is a terrible, terrible goaltender, yet he has tied an NHL playoff series record with 3 shutouts. It is not that the Washington Capitals can't win in the playoffs, it's just they haven't won in the playoffs. Regardless of who wins this series, the 2010-2011 Philadelphia Flyers are a better hockey team than the 2010-2011 Buffalo Sabres. That is a fact that can be supported with numerical evidence.

Myth: If the Sabres win the series, we can all point and laugh and mock at how wrong this post and that last statement is.

Fact: The 2010-2011 Philadelphia Flyers are a better hockey team than the 2010-2011 Buffalo Sabres. One or two more games, regardless of result, will not change that.

Myth: The Sabres have exhausted their supply of great saves and luck, therefore, they must win Game 6 or 7 with skill alone.

Fact: Much like a coin, a bouncing puck has no memory. Flip a coin 100 times, and the odds are you will get streaks of six straight heads or six straight tails at least three times. Just because something happened one game, does not mean the opposite will happen the next game or that the same thing will happen again in the next game. The puck will bounce where the puck bounces. The referee, potentially one yet to work a game in this series, will call what he calls. The shots will go where they go. As a fan, you can only hope these things break your way.