Philadelphia Flyers: 5 numbers that defined the 2020-21 season

73.1%

Yep, that was the Flyers’ penalty kill percentage this season. Next to last out of 31 teams in the NHL. And what makes it so baffling is that the Flyers finished a perfectly acceptable 11th in the league last year, essentially with the same on-ice personnel in shorthanded situations (except for Matt Niskanen). Obviously, the goaltending was bad, and the Flyers couldn’t get a save to…well…save their lives.

But I thought that guys like Sean Couturier and Scott Laughton were supposed to elevate a penalty kill. Other prominent forwards on the PK, such as Oskar Lindblom and Joel Farabee (who I don’t really see as being a penalty killer), also clearly didn’t get the job done. And, of course, defenders like Ivan Provorov and Travis Sanheim took a beating from opposing offenses as well.

The Flyers surrendered the most power-play goals in the league this year, and they looked totally overmatched on a nightly basis. One has to wonder if time has run out for assistant coach Mike Yeo, who bears responsibility for this mess. Then again, who knows what the coaching staff will even look like next year. But no matter who’s behind the bench or is “in charge” of the PK unit, results like these are sure to doom any team.