Flyers sacrificing the body, playing winning hockey, and impressing former defenseman

Back in 2012 on HBO’s Road to the NHL Winter Classic docuseries, then-Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov famously said, “They don’t have goalie gear, but they still got to block the shot. Who is crazier, me or defenseman? Who is weirder?”

Well, the current iteration of the Flyers is all kinds of weird. In games through Nov. 8, the Flyers were averaging 14.79 blocks per game. Across the four-game road trip, in which they won the last three, it’s 23.67.

That’s what happens when you block 23 shots against the San Jose Sharks (the lone loss), 21 against the Anaheim Ducks, 20 against the Los Angeles Kings, and an eye-popping 30 in Carolina on Wednesday against the Hurricanes. Overall this season, the Flyers are tied for fifth in the league in blocks, with 272.

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“It’s another thing that [John Tortorella] has put into the way we’re going to play,” winger Travis Konecny said after the 3-1 win against the Hurricanes. “Instilled that in our brains that if you’re not doing that, you’re not playing, and that’s been probably since camp, that he’s said that, Day 1. It’s all out there, you’ve got to know what you’ve got to do.”

Of the 18 skaters who played Wednesday, only four were not credited with a blocked shot. The two guys who led the way? Defenseman Travis Sanheim and forward Ryan Poehling with four each. As goaltender Carter Hart mentioned after stopping the 31 shots that did reach him, it shows that his teammates are buying in and showing a willingness to compete by paying the price to block shots.

“It’s winning hockey. ... Everybody knows who’s watching the game on the bench, fans, whoever, and you block a shot, it pumps you up,” former Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen told The Inquirer.

“It means that you are ready to do whatever it takes to win the game and help the team, and that’s what the team sport is all about,” Timonen said. “It’s, we do everything we can to win the game, and blocking shots is a huge part of it.”

Timonen certainly knows a thing or two about blocking shots. He ranks No. 2 all-time for the organization, behind Ivan Provorov, with 956 blocked shots in 519 regular-season games. Timonen, who also played for Nashville and Chicago over a 16-season career, blocked 1,188 overall in 1,108 career games.

It’s also something that Tortorella thrives on. During his tenure with the Rangers, the team was known to be a shot-blocking machine; in his four full seasons, New York ranked fourth in the NHL (4,588), with defenseman Dan Girardi leading the league with 726 blocked shots.

For defensemen, the task of blocking shots comes a bit easier as they tend to have more time to react and are usually standing upright. It’s a skill rarely taught — Timonen said he was never educated in the art of blocking a shot growing up — but there is definitely a right way to go about it, especially for forwards who need to slide feet first, protect the face, and find the lanes.

And there is a wrong way, too. In 2000, Montreal forward Trent McCleary slid too early, and a slapshot by Flyers defenseman Chris Therien caught him in the throat, fracturing his larynx, and requiring emergency surgery. Timonen witnessed teammate Ian Laperrière, now coach of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, block a shot with his face.

Timonen played with and against Shea Weber and was always worried when the powerful defenseman was on the ice — whenever he was on the ice, Timonen was saying to himself, “Uh oh, uh oh.” His former Nashville Predators teammate had one of the hardest shots in NHL history, as noted by a slapshot clock in at 108.5 mph during the 2015 All-Star weekend. But that was during the hardest shot competition.

On Wednesday night — in a game — Vancouver Canucks blueliner Filip Hronek scored on a slapshot that registered 107.9 mph.

“Yeah, it is scary because [at] that speed you have no time to react, and he might come up high, might come low [with the shot],” Timonen said. “Usually when it’s a one-timer and coming from the point, he had time to raise the puck, but it usually goes high. So it is scary.

“And those guys can shoot the puck so hard it doesn’t matter what kind of padding you have, it’s going to hurt.”

The pain can sometimes last for a few weeks depending on where the puck hits the body and how much padding is there, Timonen said, but he stressed it’s all about the attitude. He saw it Thursday night as every five-man unit for the Flyers was ready to do whatever it took to hold off the surging Hurricanes to win the game.

And it’s clearly a team effort, as Nick Seeler (37 blocks; T-12) and Sean Walker (30; T-39) are the only ones in the league’s top 50. As expected all six defensemen lead the way as Sanheim (27), Cam York (24), Egor Zamula (18) and Louie Belpedio (13) follow. Scott Laughton is the highest-ranked forward and is tied with Belpedio, who has played six fewer games.

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It shouldn’t come as a surprise that every player who has suited up this year has at least one blocked shot. As the Orange and Black alum Timonen noted, although he has never met Tortorella, he has heard how much he demands and gets “[ticked] off” if guys don’t block shots. It shows how far the players are willing to go for each other. The Flyers’ buy-in so far seems to be working as the team is off to a surprising 8-7-1 start.

“I can tell they’re having a good time, they’re having fun. They smile when they score, they smile when people come onto the bench. And that’s usually the good side of the team that they’re together,” said Timonen, who has watched the past four games since returning from his native Finland.

“When I watch their game, they’re together, they play for each other, and that’s the beauty of hockey. ... If you don’t have team chemistry, you don’t have fun, and you’re not happy for the guy next to you, you’re not going to win games. ... To me, it looks like they’re having good times, and that’s huge.”