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You don’t need me to tell you that the game of hockey has changed.

It’s obvious. It’s all about speed. It’s all about showcasing skill. There’s no more fighting. There’s not as much non-fighting physicality either.

The game moves at a greater pace than it used to and when it moves so quickly, more mistakes are bound to happen, and the the teams that make the fewest mistakes and take advantage of the most mistakes of their opponents are going to win.

Yes, there is more to hockey than that, but if you need your description stripped down to the equivalent of a two-plus-two equation, that’s it, for better or for worse.

And yet, here are the Flyers doing something a little bit differently to try to win games – and it’s working.

Entering play Tuesday, there were 55 players in the NHL who had at least 20 goals. None of them were Flyers. Travis Konecny eventually joined that group, which has now swelled to 58 players, when he scored a tip-in goal for his 20th of the season in the Flyers 5-1 win over Columbus, but the point is, for a game that relies so heavily on speed and skill as much as hockey does, the Flyers aren’t especially fast, nor do they showcase their skill by generating a lot of shots or chances. The Flyers are smack dab in the middle of the pack in average shots on goal in a game with 31.5, ranking 14th in the NHL.

Top half, yes. But barely.

Instead, because the Flyers don’t have any stand out superstars who are chasing scoring titles, they play a system where they are relying on everyone to score – and are the seventh-highest scoring team in the NHL, which may be a little bit surprising, because they don’t come off as a high-scoring team, especially since their power play has been nothing better than mediocre all season (20.1 percent, No. 16 in the NHL).

But, what is making the Flyers formula so successful is something taken out of the “old school” play book:

They frustrate the hell out of the opposition with stingy team defense.

Now wait a minute Anthony. The Flyers are allowing 2.88 goals per game. That’s not terrible, but it’s also not among the best in the NHL. Heck, there are 10 teams who allow fewer goals per game than that. What are you trying to get at here?

Yes, this is true. By that measure they are simply good. Not even very good and certainly not great.

But, do you want to know what they are great at?

Shot suppression.

The Flyers allow the fewest shots on goal of any team in the NHL, and frankly, it’s not even close.

The Flyers allow 28.5 shots on goal per game. The next fewest is a tie between Carolina and Los Angeles at 29.4, nearly a full shot more per game than the Flyers.

And it’s not just the shots on goal, Flyers opponents struggle to even get off shot attempts at all against the Flyers. At 5-on-5 the Flyers have allowed 2,456 shot attempts, which is second-fewest in the NHL, behind only Carolina (2,350), who has played 62:30 fewer minutes of a 5-on-5 hockey than the Flyers this season.

In the end, you can break down data and numbers anyway you want, but all that matters in the end is the goals on the scoreboard. If you want to prevent your opponent from scoring, the best way to do it is to not let them shoot.

Of course, this comes back to the grandfather of all analytical measurements – Corsi – where it’s argued that teams with a better Corsi percentage will be better teams because they are driving play and controlling the puck more than the opponent.

Makes sense, right?

Well, the Flyers are a positive Corsi team, but their Corsi For percentage is only 51.47 at 5-on-5, meaning that almost 49 percent of the time, they are playing without the puck, which would suggest that the Flyers shots allowed should be higher than it is. But, it isn’t.

Why?

Alain Vigneault’s system is not the Left Wing lock that the New Jersey Devils employed in the 1990s that dragged the game through a swamp of mud and slush in the neutral zone.

You can’t get away today with what the Devils used to do back then when it came to interference and holding up players in the neutral zone.

But, there are elements to it that can work, and the Flyers employ it. Quite simply, their forwards are playing what you hear being called a 200-foot game, but it’s not quite that.

Sure, the forwards are playing well in their own end when the play gets there. That’s where the “200-foot” part comes into play.

But the Flyers are winning games right now in the neutral zone. They are shutting teams down between the blue lines. They aren’t letting teams hit the red line with speed. That’s the difference.

In other words, the Flyers opponents may eventually get the puck into the offensive zone, but they aren’t getting there with the pressure that speed presents. They have to be more methodical and work their way through the Flyers neutral zone pressure.

The Flyers don’t allow speed to be a factor, not by matching speed with speed, but doing something more geometric – denying speed by taking away it’s time and space.

And the Flyers have four lines right now that are adept at doing this – and barring an injury or a trade (more on that in a minute) – I don’t see much in the way of change to this group anytime soon.

THE VETS ARE UP TO THE CHALLENGE

With Sean Couturier centering the top line, you know you’re going to get reliable defense from a forward. He was the mid-season leader for the Selke Trophy when the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association released their mid-season awards.

But the most impressive player on that line has been Jake Voracek, who has bought into what AV preaches. A few games back, Vigneault talked about “non-negotiables” with Voracek when it came to the way he plays. Those non-negotiables relate to the back pressure he needs to provide.

The Flyers three longest-tenured players are together on that line (along with captain Claude Giroux, who is getting on a hot streak points-wise of late) and are leading the way against many of the best players on the opposing teams.

SWARMING TWOS

Next I want to jump down to the fourth line, because that’s where I feel the next biggest impact is.

I don’t mean that as a slight to anyone in the middle six, because they are playing really well systemically too, but the difference between the Flyers and a lot of other teams, is they have found a combination on the fourth line that works well together and is a great fit for this system.

AV talks about the “relentless pursuit of the puck,” and when it comes to that, the “deuce caboose” (you know, because they all have the No. 2 on their uniform, and are listed last in the lineup, but still come at you like a train) is a living, breathing example.

Michael Raffl, Connor Bunnaman and Nicholas Aube-Kubel have provided from the fourth line what the kind of play and energy that a lot of teams don’t even get from their third line.

It may have taken the Flyers nearly two-thirds of the season to find the right combination, but this trio has been excellent. Their impact on a game is felt i every shift they take. And AV has no issue putting them out there in almost any scenario. Protecting a lead. Down a goal. A tightly-played tie game. A track meet. These guys can adapt well.

But more than anything, they dictate the pace and style of the game.

They all skate hard. They never take a shift off. They hunt pucks. They take pride in patrolling the neutral zone and making it their own. It’s a mindset, and they have it.

Raffl is the veteran who has made a career of being a guy who always has to fight for a job and his role, while Bunnaman and Aube-Kubel are youngsters who are just hungry for an opportunity and not worried about their stat lines.

It’s a joy to watch them play game in and game out.

Kevin Hayes has been great in the neutral zone on his line with the more offensive minded Travis Konecny and Joel Farabee while Scott Laughton centering Tyler Pitlick and a rejuvenated James van Riemsdyk is a pesky third line, but the difference makers right now for the Flyers have been the lines on either end of the spectrum.

And although the Flyers really didn’t play a great offensive game (they did score five goals on just 15 shots against Columbus, four of which can be described as goals resulting from good “puck luck”), they really frustrated the heck out of the Blue jackets in the neutral zone and never let the undermanned and reeling Columbus squad get going at all on offense.

They’ll need a better all-around game if they’re going to beat the Jackets in Columbus on Thursday, but as long as they continue to control the neutral zone as well as they have, they’re going to be one of the better team in the NHL and a very, very hard out in the playoffs.

TRADE WINDS BLOWING?

The Trade deadline is Monday. Everyone is saying the Flyers are in need of a bottom six forward. I’m not so sure anymore.

Jeff Carter’s name re-emerged. Maybe the Flyers kicked the tires, but I don’t see it.

If anything, I think the Flyers might be interested in adding another veteran depth defenseman to be their No. 7 considering the uncertainty of Shayne Gostisbehere at this point.

They’ll keep a close eye on the Zach Bogosian situation in Buffalo, for sure.

Other than that, I really wouldn’t be surprised if GM Chuck Fletcher decides to stand pat at the deadline.

Because, to be honest, the Flyers, as currently situated, are good enough to make a run and don’t need to blow assets on a roll of the dice for a player who may or may not fit into this system as well as the group that’s currently playing.

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