Numbers don’t add up for Giroux, Gostisbehere
Flyers star players struggling
PITTSBURGH >> The problem with high profile NHL events, something the Flyers probably won’t have to plan on anytime soon after Saturday night, is that they tend to spotlight matters that otherwise might slip under the radar.
Prime example: the ongoing inability of two of their marquee players to play like they should.
So the North American media is entreated to wondering why Claude Giroux has seemed to fall off the statistical shelf in the second half, and why Shayne Gostisbehere appears to have reached rock bottom there.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Giroux said amid a media splash at Heinz Field late Friday afternoon. “You try to do the best you can do to help the team. Right now, it’s not going in.
“I really believe we’re playing some good hockey, playing the right way and we’re going to get rewarded soon.”
Giroux’s almost daily hard work has been rewarded with only 12 goals this season, but that goes along with 30 assists in 60 games.
This after a fairly impressive start to the season. Giroux had 16 points over his first 15 games. His run of effective and productive play essentially lasted almost until Christmas, his team not-so coincidentally following suit with a 10-game winning streak.
But starting with a pointless game against the Devils in Newark on Dec. 22, Giroux has scored two goals and managed 11 points in his last 25 games. Over that span, the Flyers have gone 8-14-3.
As the captain goes, so go ...
“You try to play the right way, do what’s asked of you,” Giroux said. “We have had a lot of chances but at the end of the day it has to go in. We’re done with excuses. We’re here to play some hockey the way we want to play.”
While the numbers have slid noticeably, Giroux’s approach to games and the way he’s reacted to this second-half slide appear to be unchanged.
“That kind of tells you about the person,” general manager Ron Hextall said Friday of Giroux. “Pretty good person. He cares about his team. He cares about his teammates. He cares about the way he plays. That’s an innate human trait that he has; a strong sign of leadership.
“Look around, we have a lot of guys that need to play better and more consistently. We’ve got a few guys whose numbers are not where they should be.”
From a numbers standpoint, Gostisbehere is one of them. Like Giroux, however, he is also a player determined to not use excuses.
They could if they were of a collective mind to do so.
Both players underwent similar hip surgeries in the offseason. Both have publicly stated or at least strongly indicated they were back to full strength by the start of the season. Watching them all season would lead you to believe otherwise. That has seemed especially true of Gostisbehere, who doesn’t seem as elusive or quick on his feet as he did.
But Hextall remains firm in his convictions that perceptions can be altered by statistical shortcomings.
“I think his push-off has been great. I think at times this year it’s been real good,” Hextall said of Gostisbehere. “We all try to look at stuff like that, but sometimes when things aren’t going well, it’s more mental that causes you to not have the push or the energy. It’s all a negative feeling.”
Gostisbehere has been a clearer picture of frustration than Giroux, even though the young defenseman would be able to explain some of that away with the knowledge that he’s a better scouted player now that he’s been in the league for more than a year. Nevertheless, the power play point man and fast-skating rookie defender who turned the league on its ear for a period of months last season has all of four goals and 25 points in 54 games as a semi-static soph.
Again, Hextall thinks that has less to do with recovering from the surgery as one might believe.
“A guy, when he’s going through a certain period where he’s playing well, he looks fast or faster,” Hextall said. “Conversely, when he doesn’t have a lot of energy he might look lethargic. I really don’t think it’s tied to hip surgery. There’s enough of them around where players have been real good players the very next year, so I don’t believe that.”
As for Giroux, there is intense pressure on him to rebound from this period of personal malaise. Those around him have seen signs that he’s about to break out of it.
“I think (he’s) about to break through,” longtime Giroux cohort Jake Voracek said. “He’s always been a streaky player, and not streaky that he’s going to go on a tear for 10 games and then disappear for 10. He was streaky for 18 and then struggled for two, then he had another 20 games.
“It’s only a matter of time. I think the last two games he played really well. For the guys who don’t watch the hockey game, they look at the stat sheet and say, ‘Oh, he didn’t have any points.’ But that’s the way it is. ... He’s a guy you want to have on the ice in all situations.”
Through 70-degree practices Friday, and the snow, rain, heat, sleet and windy gloom of night — all of which is expected to be part of the conditions for the game at Heinz Field Saturday — this game might be a pretty good time to start.