Claude Giroux & Sons Are Playing Some Big Time "Fuck You" Hockey Right Now
A couple weeks ago Alain Vigneault called out guys like Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek, saying that the team needed more from their veteran leaders. Then just 2 days ago, Alain Vigneault called out guys like Jake Voracek, James van Riemsdyk and Kevin Hayes, again saying that the team needed more from their veteran leaders. As you might notice there, Voracek got called out on both instances but Captain Claude was only the first time. Why is that? Well because Claude Giroux is a mother fucking leader of men. Claude Giroux doesn't need to be told twice that he needs to lead the way on the ice for this team to succeed. There's no need to call out the Captain twice because the Captain can handle his own shit like a professional. So what does he go out and do last night?
Claude Giroux tucks away 2 goals and adds 2 assists on the first 4 Flyers goals of the game, before Kevin Hayes put away the empty netter to seal the dub. A 4-point night from Captain Claude and you could tell he was playing "fuck you" hockey all night. It's the exact type of game you need to see out of a team's leader. The Flyers got off to an absolute dog shit start. It was 2-0 before most of the idiot fans in Carolina could even find their seat. And for a team that struggles big time on the road, it was looking like last night was going to be another colonoscopy of a Flyers game. But when the team needed him the most, that's when Father Claude and his sons went to work.
In case you didn't know, Claude Giroux had a son over the summer. So not only does he have Dad Strength now, but he also has those fatherly instincts. Which made it easy for AV to stick young Morgan Frost on his wing, and Travis Konecny on the other. His linemates last night were pretty much an infant and a misbehaving toddler. So you need a dad on that line or else you're going to have an episode of Rugrats on your hand. But Claude Giroux isn't like a regular dad. He's a cool dad. He's a cool dad who will let his sons do some crazy shit like this Travis Konecny assist to Captain Claude to start the scoring for the Flyers.
What was especially great about this goal is that these two just saved Jake Voracek's ass from getting shipped off to Siberia. Because right before this goal, the Flyers were on the powerplay. Then that jackass Voracek takes an unsportsmanlike penalty with 55 seconds left on the PP. For a guy who has been pretty abysmal so far this year, taking a penalty whilst on the powerplay and down 2-0 doesn't seem like the ideal decision to make. But G and Konency score 4v4 and everybody forgets what a jackass Voracek was. Also, the Flyers were able to get a powerplay goal later on in the period (with Claude getting the primary assist) so it all worked out in the end.
Now let's bring Morgan Frost into the blog, shall we? For all you fancy stat nerds out there, Morgan Frost is the NHL's all-time leader in goals per game.
He got his first career goal in his first career game on Tuesday when the Flyers lost to Florida. And then last night he scored his first NHL career shorthanded goal after Captain Claude did what he does in the faceoff dot, and won it cleanly to The Snowman for an absolute laser beam.
So Giroux had a goal setup by Konecny. Then he setup Morgan Frost with his 2nd goal in 2 career games. Now it's time to get the whole family together. And this one right here was the most impressive out of the 3 goals this line scored together last night.
As for the rest of the guys? Well I thought it was a great night for Sean Couturier playing in his 600th career game even though that line wasn't able to get anything on the scoreboard. It's tough to take Konecny off of his wing, but as long as you keep Lindblom and Couturier together they'll be able to go long stretches at a time where they completely dominate possession.
- It was a brutal start to the night for Brian Elliott, who let in 2 super leaky goals early, but once he was able to settle in last night he made plenty of big time saves. Especially late in the 3rd period when the Flyers desperately needed to hold on to the lead.
- The Flyers don't need Brian Elliott to be perfect. They just need him to be able to give this team a chance. That's exactly what he provided last night. Those two saves in the 3rd period more than make up for the shitty two goals to start the game.
- Good to see Ivan Provorov get on the board. For some reason he still just looks like a guy who isn't playing with a ton of confidence. It's not as apparent as guys like Gostisbehere but you can tell that Provorov just doesn't have a ton of faith in himself right now. So every goal is going to be a big time confidence boost.