Game 4 of this Stanley Cup Playoff series has been a bit of the ol’ back and forth.
Rangers win one. Flyers win one. Rangers with another. Flyers counter that. Rangers grab the fifth game.
Common sense would dictate that Game 6 should be Philly’s turn to keep things going with a win at home to send things to a winner takes all thriller, right?
That may not necessarily be the case so long as the Flyers top six continue to struggle, and as long as Coach Craig Berube trots out anyone too slow to keep up with New York’s speed. That has truly been the main culprit in my humble opinion. Not the right defense on the second power play, or which forward plays with another, or what they’re filling the Gatorade bottles with.
New York’s claim to fame lately has been about team speed. They like fast players, and the club happens to have a bunch of them. The weak link of course is this club’s inability to develop any deep chemistry required (thus far) to create consistent threats with it, or the opportunity to craft quality scoring chances on the fly. In fact it’s been the Flyers slower players that allowed the Rangers the time needed to actually become cognizant of a scoring chance, and they have made the most of it.
First it was Ray Emery, a warrior indeed between the pipes, but a guy who most definitely no longer has the side to side movement as a goalie to handle 2 on 1 rushes, and East-West passing. Thanks to the Flyers slow defensive corps, the Rangers have done nothing but grabbed the puck, flew by a blue liner, and then played back and forth with another speedy forward moving into the play. Emery wasn’t able to cut these off as well as he wished to and the results were a mixed bag: two losses, and a win most consider him having stolen from New York.
Steve Mason came back in game four and shocker, his agility, the ability to make those cut off saves, those were what essentially killed the types of plays the Rangers were employing to take early leads, and later get timely goals on botched defensive coverage against them.
Then along comes Hal Gill.
When big defender Niklas Grossmann went down after rocking his legs against the boards, the Flyers were forced to replace him with one of two options. Hal Gill, a ginormous stay at home defender with plenty of Playoff experience, or Erik Gustafsson, a mobile defender who is still trying to crack the every day defensive pairings.
Berube would assume Gill would be the better fit, given his resume,but again did not account for Gill’s horrific lack of speed, something that would play itself out in epic fashion as not only did Gill get blown by and looked out of place, but then his experience failed him, delivering bad passes, and generating some of the worst puck possession anyone has witnessed.
Why would anyone stick someone with the mobility of a traffic pylon on the ice against a club capitalizing on slower defenders is astonishing, and as much as I have respected Berube’s decisions, this was not one of his better ones. Gustafsson, while not experienced, has shown flashes of a younger Kimmo Timonen like player, a mobile puck handler who can keep up with the likes of a Hagelin, or a Zuccarello, or Nash, St Louis, and Richards for that matter.
No one is expecting Gus to suddenly break out, start scoring goals like crazy, but he has the physical tools to aid the Flyers in a way they so badly need to stay alive in the series, his speed, and understanding of angles. Coupled together and he can keep up with New York’s forwards, and at least disrupt them long enough to keep them from again creating chemistry and opportunities that lead to victories.
If Philly can’t utilize it’s own speed, find some more scoring from the top six forwards, and keep the Rangers at bay instead of giving them odd man rushes, this series will come to a sad end for Philadelphia on Tuesday night, starting Gus would be a good start on getting back in it.
Photo courtesy of NHL.com
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