Philadelphia Flyers need diverse goal scorers

The Philadelphia Flyers are a good team, let’s collectively as whinny Philadelphia fans admit that. But we also need to admit that right now they are struggling. So what needs to be done?

We’ve talked about the defense, which is a no brainer, and Ilya Bryzgalov has to stay hot for the city to remain confident in him, and oh yeah the big players need to not be injuried anymore. But there is one thing that the Flyers have done in the past that hasn’t really been discussed.

They are good at having a diversity of goal scorers and point leaders.

In the past they have always had a good amount of players that can score goals when the team needs it, and they never really had a Sidney Crosby or Steve Stamkos that figuratively carried the team. They did have one briefly last year with Claude Giroux, but even last season he had Scott Hartnell right behind him.

What the Flyers really need is a team that knows how to score and knows how to win games. Right now it’s not Giroux who leads the Flyers, although he does have three goals and five assists, but it’s actually Jakub Voracek who currently leads with ten points from his three goals and seven assists.

Matt Read was leading before the Flyers last game, and he does still have the most goals of the team (five), so we’re definitely going to see more from him. Brayden Schenn is right behind him, so the Flyers are seeing a lot of these guys trying to go to the net and score some goals. Which is definitely a good thing and it will eventually help.

In order for the team to play well against the New Jersey Devils in Newark on Friday night, they are going to need to rely on their diversity of goal scorers. Every player needs to be at Marty Brodeur’s net harassing him and putting pucks into the slot. Brodeur is a fantastic goalie and is hard to beat, as the Flyers have seen in the past (see also last season’s playoff run), so in addition to solid defense, they need to push hard tonight.

I’m expecting at least a goal from Matt Read and some solid saves from Bryz.

Deanna Vasso is a Flyers contributor for www.rantsports.com. You can follow her on Twitter @Dmvasso.