MELTZER: Finishing First

On a leaguewide basis, teams that score first in a game end up winning far more often than not. This season, the league average is a 70% winning percentage when scoring first. Over the last 10 years, it's a 69.0% average, with no team in the league lower than the Buffalo Sabres' 58.2%.
Although some analytics devotees scoff at the first goal being more important than any other goal, there's a simple reason why it's important. Getting the first goal (or any one-goal lead) means that an opponent is going to have to score back-to-back goals at some point in order to win. Alternating goals the rest of the game will add up to a loss. Only when there is a lead change in a game is the first goal rendered a non-factor.
For the Flyers, who have a 67.7% winning percentage over the last decade when scoring first and 63% this season (17-7-3), no player has been more proficient at tallying the game's first goal this season than NHL All-Star game selection Travis Konecny.

Konecny, who has dressed in 46 of the Flyers' 49 games this season, has scored the game's first goal seven times, ranking second in the NHL in that niche statistical category. The team is 6-0-1 in those games.

"Obviously, that's what you want to do every game. Get the lead and build on it. It doesn't always work out that way but that's what you come into every game trying to do. It's definitely a lot harder when you have to chase the game," Konecny said.
The 22-year-old right winger scored the season's first goal in the Flyers' 4-3 opening day win in Prague against Chicago. Most recently, Konency's first of two goals in Saturday's 4-1 Wells Fargo Center victory over Los Angeles, he put the team ahead 1-0 at 3:48 of the first period on a give-and-go rush with James van Riemsdyk.
In between, Konecny scored the game's first goal in the Flyers' 6-2 home win over Vegas on Oct. 21, their 3-2 shootout win in Boston on Nov. 10, the 4-3 home win over Ottawa on Dec. 7 (before leaving the game due to injury), the 5-4 overtime loss in Carolina on Jan. 7, and the 3-2 home win over Washington the next night.
"He is a very skilled player, but I really like the energy -- the motor -- that TK brings to our lineup every night," Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. "He is one of the players we rely on to make plays and he's done it in some timely situations for us."
Early in the season, Konecny caught fire as part of the "CLIK" line with center Sean Couturier and left winger Oskar Lindblom. Subsequently, he's played with a variety of different linemates, generally with team captain Claude Giroux as a member of the line (either at center or left wing).
The third member of the line has included the likes of Morgan Frost (now with the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms), Kevin Hayes and van Riemsdyk.
No matter who is on his line, Konecny's style doesn't change: play with pace, get involved physically, chirping opponents and being aggressive in trying to make plays. He's also improved aspects of his off-puck play and risk management with the puck that were sometimes issues earlier in his career.
"It's fun to play with him," Giroux said. "We've played together a lot, and I think we've got pretty good chemistry. At the same time, I think we can play better. Every game is big because there's not a lot [of standings points] between most of the teams. When we have everybody going, we're tough to beat. [Konecny] is definitely someone who gets everybody going by the way he plays."
PRACTICE REPORT:
* The Flyers resumed practice after a full day off on Sunday, and had one addition to the lineup out there.
* The club announced prior to the team taking the ice that forward German Rubtsov has been recalled from the Phantoms... It's his second recall to the club after making his NHL debut earlier in the season on Nov. 1 at New Jersey.
* Rubtisov has 12 points (2g-10a) in 28 games for Lehigh Valley this season, including points in four of his last five games (1g-3a).
* Following practice Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher also announced that forward Michael Raffl is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Raffl, who left Saturday's game I the third period, skated with the team at practice but left early.
* Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault was forced to leave practice early due to sickness.