Why Calling Up Alex Bump Will Not Fix A 31st Ranked Flyers Offense
Megan DeRuchie-The Hockey News
Flyers hockey should not feel like cardio, yet somehow every night turns into a stress test. You sit down thinking you’ll enjoy a clean defensive game, and twenty minutes later you’re pacing like you’re waiting for a table at Chickies and Pete’s before an Eagles game. The defense looks like a top-tier unit, the goaltending has been much improved, but the offense shoots like they’re trying to avoid hitting the net. Seriously, the number of posts they’ve hit this season is equal parts impressive and maddening.
The Flyers are 9-6-3 with a top-ten goals against number, but they play every night on a razor-thin margin. They score 2.61 goals per game and have only 47 total, which ranks 31st in the league. That’s not a talent problem, it’s a shot problem. Through 18 games, they average 24.72 shots per night, third-fewest in the NHL behind San Jose and Seattle. When you spot the league leaders almost nine shots a night, like Colorado at 33.74, you’re signing up for one-goal games whether you want them or not.
The wild part is how strong the other half looks. They allow just 25.17 shots per game, one of the lowest figures in the league. They sit at 2.83 goals against, tenth overall, and the penalty kill is 87.5 percent, third in the NHL. Games like the loss to Ottawa, where the Senators had only 13 shots but still took the win, or the road win in Nashville, where the Flyers suffocated the Predators, show you just how real the defensive structure is.
But when your offense shoots in the low twenties, you force yourself into close games, which makes every game a stressful event. In the past couple of weeks, you’ve seen it over and over — a shootout win over Montreal, an overtime loss to Edmonton, another shootout adventure against St. Louis, the overtime collapse against Ottawa, and we’re not even 20 games into the season. They keep dragging games into extra time because they don’t create enough pressure early. With this defense, they should be closing teams out, not turning every night into free hockey.
That leads to the question — should the Flyers promote Alex Bump to spark the offense? He’s earned the attention. At Western Michigan, he led the Broncos with 47 points, won NCHC Forward of the Year, Frozen Faceoff MVP, and helped deliver a national title. He already has seven points in his first eleven games with Lehigh Valley, and the league is starting to take notice. He looks like an NHL-caliber player.
The mistake is pretending he is the fix for a system that is not generating chances. I will say that this 24.6 shot average comes from Rick Tocchet’s structure, which intentionally limits chances for both teams. His teams have traditionally had lower shot numbers, but this young team needs some rope to slip pucks into the net. Defensively, it works and we see that, but offensively, it’s choking them out. You can’t run a bottom-three offense in this league and expect to lean on the defense forever.
Tocchet and the staff need to scheme their way into the thirties before they throw a 21-year-old phenom into the mix. Clean exits need to hit forwards in stride, which is a true issue right now. The first power play unit needs to shoot instead of hunting for the perfect pass. Right now, Trevor Zegras and Owen Tippett are both sitting just under three shots per game, with Travis Konecny right behind them, and that is nowhere near the volume you need from your top forwards.
Once the Flyers live in the offensive zone and push shot totals out of the gutter, that’s when you bring up Bump. You plug him into a line with structure, and because you use him as a finisher, not a savior to a weak offense. You have to give him the chance to grow, not the responsibility to solve a scoring issue the team created.
The defense already looks like winning hockey. Fix the shot generation, and you change the entire trajectory of the season. Then add Bump not as a rescue mission, but as a weapon on a team ready to take a real step. The last thing Flyers fans want to see is their top prospect come up and be mediocre and struggle. That’s not how you build superstars, and for a fanbase that is starved for a legitimate superstar, I can only say that patience is a virtue. Fix the scheme, then bring Bump into the mix.
Steve Hamilton
Steve may have been born in California, but don’t let that fool you. After dating a local woman and clashing with her and her family over sports for decades, he has an affinity for Philly sports. Balancing love for Philly and Bay Area sports teams may seem impossible, we can all agree that the Cowboys are the true evil.
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