Photo Courtesy of Kate Frese
It's safe to say that through the month of December, the Flyers were picking some momentum up. Since Black Friday — a 3-2 win over Nashville — the Flyers went 8-2-2 and looked like a completely new team.
They were spirited, they were playing a more complete game, they were holding leads. They climbed to within several points of a playoff spot. Some credit the arrival of the heralded Shayne Gostisbehere, but realistically, there were further reasons for this turnaround.
After a 4-3 win against St. Louis last week — a game that saw the Flyers fall 3-0 and then proceed to rattle off four goals in the final half-hour of game play — the Flyers found themselves with six days before their next game. Half of that break was for the NHL's mandatory three-day holiday break, but regardless, no team surging like the Flyers wants to take six days off when things are picking up.
Sunday was their first game after the holiday break, and they looked sluggish in a 4-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks in the start of a three-game road trip in California. They did not take the ice for a morning skate, and only had one practice day, practicing on Saturday morning in advance of a Sunday-afternoon matchup. It was roughly 27 hours between when they left the ice for practice, and took the ice for their game.
This Christmas-induced layoff was not the first timely stretch without a game played for the Orange and Black this season. Early this season, the Flyers played won two of their first four games, including a marvelous shutout of the defending-champion Chicago Blackhawks. What then followed was a six-day stretch, and when the Flyers took the ice for their next six games, they found themselves in the win column just twice.
In the 10 games that followed that six-game stretch, the Orange and Black went 2-5-3, and things were starting to look dismal. What had the makings of a promising start turned into a painful-to-watch stretch of hockey — a stretch of hockey that made Flyers opponents look like the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens night in and night out.
The Orange and Black don't have the easiest schedule coming up. Their next five games consist of San Jose, Los Angeles, Montreal, Minnesota and the New York Islanders. Of those teams, only the Sharks are not one of their division's top-three teams, and Carey Price is not likely to return to the cage by Jan. 5, making the Canadiens matchup less daunting.
Of course, it's not exactly fair to compare the two breaks. The 82-game grind otherwise known as an NHL season has different stages for each team. What looks like a Stanley Cup contender in October is a dumpster fire by December, and what looks like pure hopelessness in January often translates to a bubble or lower-seeded team come April.
As the Flyers continue to adjust under Dave Hakstol and Hakstol continues to adjust to the NHL, their game and system continues to grow and develop. The skid after the October break provided a valuable lesson learned that the Flyers learned the hard way, and no NHL team has finished a season without adversity.
Luckily for the Flyers, they only have one more stretch of six days without a game this season, from Jan. 27 until Feb. 2. The Habs will be the Orange and Black's first game after that break, giving them a formidable test in their return. Unlike this one, though, they will be able to take the ice for more than three days, meaning they won't have to worry about missing a beat while off the ice.
It was a six-day layoff where things started to go awry for the Flyers, and they will not look to repeat that after their most recent six-day break. They already started on the wrong foot against a dismal Ducks team, and will have a set of tough opponents coming up.
Rob Riches is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter @Riches61
