Five games into the season, and the Flyers stand at 2-3-0. Since the Flyers named star winger Claude Giroux captain , the Flyers are no stranger to a slow-er start. His first full season as captain, excluding the lockout, saw the Flyers go 1-4-0 after 5 games at the beginning of the 2013-14 season. The next year saw the Flyers start out 1-2-2. Since then, the Flyers have went 2-2-1 in 2015, 2-2-1 in 2016, and 3-2-0 in 2017.
While the Flyers may not be fast starters as a whole, their captain has been quietly putting up some pretty solid numbers in the first month of the season.
In October of 2014, Giroux posted 2 goals and 5 assists during the first 5 contests, and totaled 6 more assists during the rest of the month, putting his point total for October of 2014 at 13 in just 10 contests. Two seasons ago, Giroux started off with 6 assists in 5 games, and added 4 more along with 2 goals for 12 points in 10 games in October of 2016. Just last season, Giroux tallied 1 goal and 5 assists during the first five contests, adding 5 goals and 3 assists during the rest of the month, an putting up 14 points in 12 games during October of 2017.
Of course, 5 games isn’t very indicative of how a team, or a player, performs all season long. Players get off to hot starts all the time and then fizzle out as the season drags along. Claude Giroux is a different beast though.
Last season saw Claude Giroux get off to his hottest start as a Flyer. It also saw him post the most points of his career with 102 through 82 games. The 2014-15 season saw Giroux get off to similar start, but with a milder end to the season with 73 points.
So what do all these numbers tell us about Giroux, the Flyers, and how the rest of the season will go? The answer, absolutely nothing.
Teams get hot and cold more often than the temperature outside recently. Players do as well. There isn’t much to look into here, other than the fact that Claude Giroux is having a pretty good start to a mediocre season, thus far. The season is not over, meaning the Flyers will win more games and Giroux will score more points. How many games and how many points is anybody’s guess.
There’s no point in judging a team’s overall success off of 5 games at the beginning of the season. Much the same, there’s no point in judging how a player will do after just 5 games as well. There’s 77 games remaining, and 7 of them left in the month of October. Giroux tends to enjoy a decent amount of success in the month of October, so expect him to put up a few more points by the month’s end, and expect the Flyers to do the same as well.
Mandatory Credit: John Geliebter-USA TODAY Sports
