The Flyers are a mess defensively, a far cry from last year. The reasons for that have been myriad, with the defense screwing up almost as often as the forward core that was so highly touted entering this year. For every egregious Robert Hägg turnover in the defensive zone, you have a poor backcheck or overly-aggressive forecheck that destroys any semblance of structure the team possesses. With Sean Couturier missing a prolonged stretch at the beginning of the year, it would seem to the uninformed observer that this team lacked any elite defensive options outside of Ivan Provorov.
Claude Giroux should be in the Selke conversation, even as a winger
