Here are some things we’ve heard since the Flyers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 to take a 2-1 series lead in their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal matchup.

https://twitter.com/DewbaaNator/status/1295191963185160192

There was plenty of that reaction on Twitter after the game. This is just a small sample. And it befuddles me. Really it does. When I sat down to write this analysis, I had a list of things I wanted to talk about – and I will get to those shortly, but I can’t, for the life of me, understand why there remains such anger and frustration for a team that is playing in the NHL playoffs and leads their opening round series 2-1.

Maybe it’s the fact that the Flyers haven’t been relevant in the postseason for the past eight years. Maybe it’s because we grew accustomed to the Flyers failing in dramatic fashion and inventing new ways to lose games over the previous handful of seasons.

Maybe it’s because there is a whole new generation of fans who don’t remember what it was like when the Flyers were considered the team to beat in the Eastern Conference.

Whatever the reason is, and it could be valid or it could be complete B.S., I have this to say in response:

This is the NHL playoffs, people. It’s the hardest tournament in sports. It’s not about winning as much as it is about surviving and advancing.

Teams don’t just steamroll their way to the Cup. Seriously, who was the last team to do that? You have to work for it. You have to earn it. No one is just going to roll over and let you blitz past them.

The Flyers are facing a determined opponent with a veteran goaltender. You can be frustrated with the lack of offense in this series thus far, but you also have to acknowledge that the Canadians are playing their asses off too.

In a normal season, you can throw out the regular season records once the playoffs come around. Heck, we’ve seen No. 8 seeds win the Cup in the last decade. The last time the Flyers reached the Final, they themselves were a No. 7 seed who would have missed the playoffs entirely inf the didn’t win the shootout on the last day of the regular season.

This, of course, has not been a normal season. A new playoff format was drawn up in the dirt with a stick and some bottle caps and Montreal was able to sneak into the conversation despite seemingly being nowhere near the playoffs five months ago.

But five months is a long time. Guys heal up. Young players improve. Everyone starts over again from scratch. It’s really no different than seeding the playoffs based on last year’s teams.

Montreal today is not Montreal from March. This is a better team. The Flyers aren’t the same team from March either. They’re better too.

But, we are constantly reminded that this is a matchup of the No. 1 seed and the No. 12 seed as if that should signify a huge difference between the two squads.

That’s where the fallacy lies here.

Are the Flyers a better team than the Canadiens? Certainly.

Is it by a wide margin? No. Especially not after five months off.

And was Sunday night’s game boring? Ugly? Sloppy? Terms that were tossed around ad nauseam by fans in the cess pool of Twitter?

Hey, who am I to tell you your personal opinion is wrong. If you didn’t like the game, that’s your perception and  your reality.

But this game wasn’t boring. This game wasn’t ugly. This game wasn’t sloppy. This was playoff hockey. Watch the game again if you can. You know the outcome, so just watch the players. How they played. What they did. The sacrifices they made for the good of the team.

It’s games like this that from a team perspective make the run to the Cup worth all the while.

Sure, the Flyers have only scored three goals in three games. Would it be better if they scored more? Of course. But, when there is no room to maneuver on a sheet of ice that is brutal to play the game on, you have to resort to defensive-minded, physical hockey, and the team that executes that better will win more often than not.

That team on Sunday was the Flyers. Here’s what we learned:

1. Heavier, physical play makes a difference

Here was another tweet that bugged me:

Alain Vigneault took two smaller, skilled players out of the lineup for Game 3, benching Joel Farabee and Shayne Gostisbehere, and tabbed bigger, stronger players in Michael Raffl and Robert Hagg to play.

Both had strong games. The Flyers as a whole were incredibly physical. Travis Konecny was a whirling dervish on the ice. His game was ramped up a couple of notches. Sean Couturier was a big body hitting the Canadiens.

There’s no doubt that this was an employed tactical strategy.

What made the Canadiens so good in Game 2 was their speed and shiftiness. The Flyers negated it in Game 3 with size and physicality.

Look at the last two teams to win the Stanley Cup. The Washington Capitals two years ago and the St. Louis Blues last year – they won by playing a bigger, heavier game in the playoffs. Even Boston, reaching the Final last year, played the same way.

The sport of hockey has shifted to being a more speed-oriented game that highlights the skills of the players. That’s all well and good for the regular season – but come the playoffs, these are the kinds of games that happen. Tough. Low-scoring. Not a lot of room to operate. It becomes more of a throwback – and in those “olden days” hitting mattered.

The Canadians had very few chances offensively. That’s partially because the Flyers punished them physically. The other reason was this:

2. Blocking shots is important, too

Good observation here by Brandon. One of the other tropes we hear from the fancy stat faction is how blocking shots means you don’t have the puck, so they aren’t necessarily a good thing when you have a lot of them.

I always cringe when I hear that.

No team possesses the puck 100 percent of the time. And even if you are a puck possession beast, you only have it between 53 and 55 percent of the time.

The rest of the time, you’re playing defense. You’re either trying to get the puck back or are trying to stop the other team from scoring.

The Flyers laid out and blocked 24 shots in the game Sunday against Montreal. Guys like Matt Niskanen and Nicolas Aube-Kubel were standouts.

Everyone wants to praise Carter Hart for the shutout – and we’ll get to him because he did have a great game, but he still only faced 23 shots, and most of them were low-percentage.

He was great when he had to be, but this was more a team shutout than a goalie stealing a game.

The Flyers’ defensive plan was excellent. They took away Montreal’s strengths. They limited them completely. The Canadiens best chances came off turnovers. They weren’t able to generate anything on their own.

Up and down the lineup, the Flyers were really strong defensively especially:

3. The top line

https://twitter.com/DaBirds610/status/1295193552947949571

The stars, I can only assume, has to be the top line of Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek.

Well lets start with the simple thing. Let’s see who scored the lone goal of the game:

https://twitter.com/NHLcz/status/1295255474921787394

So that’s Couturier winning an important faceoff back to the oft-maligned Hagg, who passes the puck to Giroux, who puts a shot on goal that is tipped by Voracek past Carey Price.

Voracek now has two of the three Flyers goals in this series. Giroux has two assists.

But hey… they’re shit, right?

Let’s not lose sight of the fact though that these guys were controlling the play when thy were on the ice too. The Habs had no answers for their forecheck, their back check for anything. Voracek was deserving to be named the star of the game, and not just because of his goal.

Giroux also won a huge faceoff late in the third period when the Habs were pressing for the tying goal. You know who else did?

4. Nate Thompson and the fourth line

This tweet was great in my opinion:

It seemed that way, didn’t it? You know why? He was everywhere. He had a great game. So did Raffl and Tyler Pitlick on that fourth line.

Thompson only played 13:07, but you noticed him every time he was on the ice because he was always involved in the action. This “Fourth line” actually played more than the James van Riemsdyk/Derek-Grant/Aube-Kubel line, and deservedly so.

Thompson had a big faceoff win too in that final minute of action. His performance will go unmentioned by many. Ditto his linemates. But, if you watch the game closely, you will see what this trio means to this Flyers team. You want reasons the Flyers lead this series 2-1? The efforts of this line is a huge part of it.

5. Carter Hart

Yes, he’s the lead story everywhere. Yes. He had an excellent game. No shutout is ever recorded if the goalie is just so-so. He bailed out Scott Laughton twice on two turnovers in the second period with big saves. He stopped Montreal’s budding star Jesperi Kotkaniemi on the doorstep in the final minute of play.

When the Flyers needed him, he was awesome.

He also had help from the posts and the crossbar four times.

But, good goalies get that help from the pipes. It usually means they are well-positioned. Couple that with the defense in front of him and its no wonder Montreal couldn’t score.

The impressive thing about this performance by Hart though is his ability to shake off a bad game. Not that he personally had a bad outing in Game 2. It wasn’t his fault the team left him out to dry. But, a goalie never likes getting pulled, his fault or not.

And Hart bounced back, as he is wont to do. I keep saying he’s unflappable. This is more evidence of that.

The kid doesn’t let pressure get to him. In fact, he thrives on it.

The Flyers are now 9-0 after a loss dating back to January 8. Hart isn’t the reason for all nine of those wins, but he’s definitely been a big part of it. It’s nice to have a reliable goalie, isn’t it?

6. The powerless play

I keep saying that the power play is less important to a good 5v5 team than it is to a team that may not be as good 5v5, and the Flyers are a good 5v5 team, so it really hasn’t concerned me as much as everyone else.

That said, it has grown stale in its look and feel and needs an overhaul. The Flyers were 0-for-6 on the PP Sunday and if they could have just scored on one of those six chances, the whole complexion of the game would have changed.

The Flyers have proven they can win without a good power play, which speaks volumes about this squad, but they will need it to be at least a passable power play if they plan on playing into October.

At this point, I except a complete overhaul of the power play. Whether that means a change in style and approach or a change in personnel, what we see in Game 4 on Tuesday should be something completely different when the Flyers have the man advantage.

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