The Flyers are a game over the midpoint of the season and coming off last year's performance you have to give him credit for an amazing bounce back performance. He obviously struggled with confidence as well as after effects of the surgery and his play was spotty at best...especially defensively. Even when he was great in his first season, I always questioned whether he could even be passable defensively. He looked like a 2nd pair dmen at best and a big liability in his own zone. This year he's looked night and day defensively and has recently been on the top pairing with Provorov and looked really good doing it. Would never have thought he could pull that off based on how he looked last year. He's never going to be a top notch defender but his improvement has been dramatic.
That goal that he scored yesterday was a terrific example of what he's become...breaks up two consecutive plays in the neutral zone and on the 2nd one he jumps into the play and takes a nice pass to score the tying goal. Just a great play.
Stat wise he's been spectacular...tied for 1st in goals scored among dmen (9), 3rd in scoring among dmen with 32 pts and his signing is looking like a Simmonds type steal at $4.5 million for the next 5 years. Kudos to Gost for a tremendous bounce back season.
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