The team is starting to jell, they have four lines playing well for the most part and developing chemistry. Remember that scoring is stochastic, creating scoring chances is what matters, few players shoot worse than 8% or better than 12% so over time it evens out.
8-2-2, long enough it's starting to look like last season before Hart went MIA.
Binnington was on a heater, he's a hot and cold goalie, tonight he was hot.
Tippett is underrated b/c he's not as good as his raw talent (size, speed, shot) suggests he should be but that ignores how much he creates with his speed, nonstop motor and physical play, even if his linemates have to clean up after him. He's much improved as a passer and he can shoot - like most volume shooters, he's going to have cold stretches and then those periods where everything goes in the net. Career Sh% of 9.4, so if he's 6.2 so far, expect regression to the mean.
Another guy going under the radar is Cates, struggled out of the gate moving back to center, but he's settled in and that line with Foerster and Brink is playing well. Cates added speed over the summer and is now above average (so did Brink), but took him a while to get comfortable playing a more aggressive style. Now he's just attacking the puck, might be the best Flyers in terms of winning puck battles.
This was a tough test, back to back having to fly out after a game, surprised they held up as well as they did in the 3rd period. TK taketh (bad penalty leading to tying goal) and TK giveth (great play in overtime to spring Michkov). TK and Frost seemed to struggle with checking, both were knocked off or lost the puck a lot this game.
Zamula played really well, wonder if Torts may rotate Seeler, Zamula and Grans until Drysdale returns.
This is where "rebuilding" comes in, if they were focused on the POs, they'd sit Drysdale, but they need to find out if he's in their plans. The two areas where the Flyers definitely have good coaching are D-men and goalies - Kolosov has improved by leaps and bounds.
