Boston Bruins: The Philadelphia Flyers will easily be the toughest challenge of 2021
The Boston Bruins will have their hands full with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2021.
Following months of negotiations and planning, NHL fans, as well as Boston Bruins fans, finally got some optimistic news last week as it appears there is a plan in place for the season to be played. Within the proposed plan for the 2021 season, it was revealed that there were two major changes that would be taking place.
The first change set to take place is that the NHL is planning on holding a 56-game regular season. This will allow the league to complete the season and postseason in time for offseason activities such as the NHL Draft, free agency, and training camp prior to the beginning of the 2021-2022 NHL season.
The second, and objectively more exciting, change is the temporary division realignment that will take place in the 2021 season. Due to the stringent Coronavirus restrictions that have been imposed by Canada, the NHL came to the realization that they would need to realign the divisions in order to get all 31 NHL teams to be able to play in the 2021 season.
With this realignment and the intra-division scheduling format that will be taking place in this upcoming season, there will be some contentious matchups and a chance to ignite, or re-ignite, rivalries throughout each division.
One team that is going to be in an unfamiliar place following the realignment are the Bruins. In a typical NHL season, the B’s would represent the Atlantic Division and would do battle with adversaries in Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Montreal, to name a few.
But with this realignment, Boston has been essentially reassigned to the Metro Division and will now be competing with the likes of the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, New Jersey Devils, and old Atlantic foe the Buffalo Sabres.
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While this new division provides some exciting matchups, it is also arguably the hardest and deepest division following the re-alignment. With up and comers like the Rangers, Flyers, and Sabres in addition to established contenders like the Capitals and Penguins, the Bruins are going to have to battle all year just to make it to the playoffs.
While every team in the division is likely to be tough to beat, I think the B’s will have an extra difficult time handling the Philadelphia Flyers.
While a few of the other teams in the division have been able to tout Stanley Cup Championship success in prior years, not many of them are as well-positioned for the 2021 season as the Flyers.
The Flyers were blazing hot prior to the “halt to play” and were able to capture the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference following the round-robin games at the beginning of the “return to play.” The Flyers’ playoff run got as far as Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals before the New York Islanders were able to send them home.
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Despite coming up short, the Flyers’ roster is returning a mix of young talent and veteran leadership that has them poised to make another strong run at the Stanley Cup.
The Boston Bruins should not take the Flyers’ offense lightly.
On the offensive side of things, the Flyers scoring attack was led by 22-year-old Travis Konecny, who set a career-high with 61 points in just 66 games.
In addition to the breakout performance from Konecny, the Flyers are also returning five other forwards who were able to eclipse the 40-point mark (Sean Couturier, Jakub Voracek, Claude Giroux, Kevin Hayes, and James van Riemsdyk).
With the remarkable return of Oskar Lindblom following his battle with Ewing’s Sarcoma and the continued development of young players such as Konecny and 19-year-old Joel Farabee, the Flyers look to be on the up and up and will be tough for the Bruins’ defense to contain, especially with the loss of Torey Krug and likely Zdeno Chara on the blue line.
The Boston Bruins shouldn’t sleep on the Flyers’ young and talented but inexperienced defensive corps.
On the back end, Philadelphia suffered a key loss with the surprising retirement of Matt Niskanen. Niskanen was one of the older and more experienced players in the Philadelphia defensive corps and they will now need some of their young blueliners, namely Ivan Provorov and Travis Sanheim, to step up and capture the leadership and production lost with the Niskanen departure.
At just 23 years old apiece, Provorov and Sanheim both averaged over 20 minutes of ice time last season and led the Flyers’ defense with 36 and 25 points respectively, and seem to be poised to take the next step towards being leaders on the blue line.
With the average age of their defensive unit at just 25 years old, the lack of game experience will likely be something that the Bruins’ forwards, namely Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, and Brad Marchand, will attempt to exploit to give them an advantage, however, they will still need to overcome the young star in net for Philadelphia, Carter Hart.
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The Boston Bruins will have a tough time getting pucks past Carter Hart.
The Flyers have been in the midst of a goalie carousel that some may argue is decades-long. However, it appears that they have found the solution with the 22-year-old Hart.
Through his first 74 games as a pro, Hart has amassed a .915 save percentage and a 2.59 goals-against average. While he still has some game experience to gain, the Flyers seem to have confidence in his ability and feel they finally have the piece in net that they have been searching for all these years.
Both the Bruins and the Flyers have Stanley Cup aspirations this year, however, they’ll have to do battle eight times in the regular season and potentially more if the stars align for playoff matchups.
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With the aforementioned high-powered offense and the talented young defense, the Flyers pose a difficult matchup for the Bruins and will likely be a thorn in their side for the duration of the 2021 season.