The Flyers woes at Madison Square Garden continued on Wednesday night, extending their losing streak to three games.
One player came to play. Steve Mason made 32 saves, including several highlight-reel saves, to keep the Flyers in the game.
The rest of the roster simply didn't show up. That spelled a 2-0 loss for the Flyers to the Rangers on Wednesday night.
If not for Mason, the final score would have matched the lopsided performance.
The Flyers were out-played in every aspect, surrendering another power-play goal, failing to strike on power-play chances and being pushed around at every corner.
There wasn't much of a test for Cam Talbot, who made 31 saves in the shutout win. Talbot stopped 10 shots in the final five minutes, only truly being tested once the Flyers pulled Mason with 3:32 to play.
Claude Giroux managed to play, despite being ruled out just yesterday due to a lower-body injury. Scott Laughton only played seven minutes in his season debut. There are no excuses, but their performances were somewhat expected.
Jake Voracek was definitively the strongest forward for the Flyers once again. Voracek seemed to do everything he could to extend his points streak to 11 games.
Everyone else was subject to plenty of criticism. And there was a lot to go around.
"We didn’t skate, we didn’t compete, you got to play hard in this league and we didn’t do that," head coach Craig Berube said. "Soft plays. What really upsets me more than anything is being soft in your end."
"That bothered me a lot," GM Ron Hextall said. "We didn’t come out hungry enough and we didn’t play well. We’ve got to be a lot better than that."
Hextall was overheard in the back of the dressing room screaming at his players for the effort in an explative-laden tirade.
Most of the Flyers were at a loss for words.
"We know how to play hockey,” Voracek said. "I wouldn’t say we weren’t ready. We just were slow. I don’t know why. I don’t have the answer."
"We kinda sat back," Giroux said. "We had our chances in the third period. I know I can play better. We got to find a way to get our game going here."
The one player that had room to talk wasn't shy about his comments either.
"The cause for concern is there wasn’t much of a pushback," Mason said. "You can’t use time off as an excuse. The lack of pushback? This should be an easy game [to be motivated].
"Come in to MSG against a big rival. Then throw a pretty poor game. They came at us, had good zone time and we didn’t have much of an answer."
It's becoming a pattern for the Flyers, who after winning six of eight games have lost three straight, all with the same lackluster effort.
"Nothing like that was said but we don’t have to be told we didn’t have a good game."
But that didn't stop the GM and head coach from saying what needed to be said. And with six games in the next 10 days, the ball is in the players' court.
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @KDursoPhilsNet.
