The Flyers’ power play has been stuck in the mud long enough that the club is now looking for help from a familiar place: the point. For the upcoming season, a lot of the hope is riding on Jamie Drysdale, and on Friday he said he spent a major chunk of the summer trying to upgrade the shot that could change the look of that unit.
“I worked on it a lot,” Drysdale said at the Flyers Training Center. “It hasn’t changed.
It’s still something that’s been a main focus. Trying to create more chances on the offensive side.
I think we’ve got a lot of skill on our team.”
Drysdale said he believes the work showed up in the form of more pace on the puck.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I think velocity as well as just shooting more.
Just having more confidence in it. It’s a little bit of a broken record but the more you shoot, the more it opens up.
The more chances you’re going to get, the more chances everyone else is going to get.
“It just makes everyone more dangerous.”
Rick Tocchet said he sees it too.
“I do see a harder shot. I do know that he’s worked on it,” the coach said.
That matters because the Flyers are trying to drag a long-struggling power play into something more functional. Drysdale said the fix has to be real, because special teams can tilt games.
“We have a good team and if we fix that just a little bit better, it makes us that much better overall,” Drysdale said. “Now you’re talking about a different team in terms of the win column.
“A lot of games are won and lost on special teams. That’s definitely a big focus.
I think we’ve got the skill. It’s not an excuse at all.”
A big part of that work has been video study for the players who live on the man advantage. Drysdale said the goal is to sharpen the reads before the puck even arrives.
“It’s knowing those lanes,” he said. “It’s just picking the right ones, making the read sooner before you get the puck.
It’s finding the spot I know I’m going to be in and working from those spots. Just getting ultra-comfortable with my shooting lanes.”
He also spent time on his skating and footwork, with an eye toward setting up better looks from the blue line.
“My skating coach, I was doing a lot of blue line stuff with her,” he said. “I know where I find myself typically. Spots I want to find myself more in.”
Trevor Zegras, who scored 10 of the Flyers’ 37 power-play goals last season, said the summer work around special teams usually comes down to skills that can be sharpened even without penalty killers on the ice.
“I guess there are always things you work on in the summer that go hand-in-hand on the power play,” Zegras said. “Obviously you don’t have penalty killers that you run with in the summer.
Whether it’s entries, one-timers, you work on them. You hope it translates once the season starts.”
Matvei Michkov finished second on the team in power-play goals with four, a number that underlines how much the Flyers need more spread-out production if that unit is going to become dangerous.
The schedule is also making camp feel different. Travis Sanheim said the shortened runway has changed the rhythm, with players getting only about 12 days to prepare because of the expanded schedule, a two-round playoff run and an earlier regular-season start.
“Making the playoffs should have excited a lot of us heading into the offseason and fueled us,” he said. “I think everyone took care of their offseason and came in here in great shape. We’re ready to get going.”
Tocchet, meanwhile, is already looking ahead to Saturday morning’s intrasquad scrimmage at the Flyers Training Center. With the first preseason game set for Monday night in Hershey against Washington, he said the staff wants a clearer picture soon.
“We’re still putting lines together,” Tocchet said. “Figure who to play with who.
With these two games (Caps on Monday, Bruins in Boston on Tuesday), we’d like to start getting our team together soon. We’re going to go with 10 forwards, six defense on each team.”
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