(Kate Frese/Sports Talk Philly)
By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Evaluating the Flyers season to this point depends on who you ask. There's the GM's plan. There's the coach's job to put the best team on the ice and get them to perform. There's the players who are supposed to be driven for success. And there's the fans, who really set the expectations for a season as much as anyone within an organization.
Here's the reality at this point: the Flyers energized the city with a 10-game winning streak. Within the team, confidence was at a high — players buying in, a coach making all the right calls, a GM seeing the fruits of his labor, fans starting to think about possibilities. In the month since, the Flyers have posted a 3-8-3 record and have fallen out of a playoff spot as of Tuesday's results. The Flyers won't get to do anything about it until Saturday, when they return against the New Jersey Devils.
Everyone is always subject to evaluation and criticism. Right now, this is a team playing poor hockey in every aspect and criticism is high and comes easily.
That's where the Flyers were on Tuesday afternoon, as GM Ron Hextall and head coach Dave Hakstol evaluated and looked ahead with the team.
For Hextall, the vision remains to the future. And the Flyers are in position to take the steps to become a contending team. Just not this season, at least not on a serious level.
A playoff spot is still within reach, and given that the Flyers had a nine-point cushion that the GM wanted to see his team protect, it's safe to assume Hextall's goal this season would still be a playoff appearance. That said, the true goal is to win a Stanley Cup and the GM feels the window is starting to open now.
"The window is actually starting to open, the way I see it," Hextall said. "The kids we have on our team. The kids we have coming. There’s things happening here that are good. We’re going to get better here. We’re not going to get worse."
Hextall has always stayed the course, taking an approach similar to the Sixers "process" in trying to build a contender on the ice. In times like these, when the Flyers can't seem to buy a win and haven't deserved one of late, you'll find cries for drastic measure. Make a trade. Bring up one of the kids. Waive an underperforming player. Not so fast with Hextall, who has been patient all the way and won't change that mindset now.
"The worst thing you can do is overreact when things aren’t going right and that’s not gonna happen" Hextall said. "But if we can find a way to make ourselves better, we will.
"I don’t care if we win every game the rest of the year or lose every game, we’re staying on course. We set out on a course two and a half years ago — we’re not deviating from what we planned. I’m not going to make a trade to send a message."
Hextall has firmly set up the blueprint and is prepared to see it through.
The Flyers have 10 players on the roster this season who are not signed for next season. Two of them are goalies Steve Mason and Michal Neuvirth. Hextall is expected to sign one of them to carry the bulk of the starts next season before turning the reigns over to one of their many prospect goalies.
Three more are restricted free agents — Shayne Gostisbehere, Nick Cousins and Roman Lyubimov. Three of the defensemen — Mark Streit, Nick Schultz and Michael Del Zotto — all of whom could conceivably not be back next season, would take over $11 million dollars off the books. The two goalies combine for another $5.7 million this season. That's almost $17 million in available cap space this offseason to keep some players and add new ones.
Stay the course. Trust the process. However you look at it, Hextall will be in a better position to shape this team even more come June.
Then there is Dave Hakstol, who is responsible for trying to revitalize a team that went from potentially challenger for a top-three spot in the Metropolitan Division to the outside looking in on the playoff race.
As Hextall said, Hakstol has tried the different combinations — the benchings, the line changes, alternating goalies — and it hasn't worked. At some point, the coach can do no more and collectively, coach and players need to come together to escape any sort of struggles they are having.
With a break comes a time to reflect. Hakstol's reflection on the Flyers is a frustrated team trying to do too much. His thoughts are about taking things back to basics.
"It's get back to the simple things. That's where you start," Hakstol said. "You don't look at the big items. Sunday's game in Washington we played an extremely good two periods. Excellent road game to that point. We had given up four or five scoring opportunities against. We had given up 10 shots against. Then we went through a stretch of five minutes where not a whole lot of things went right. We've got to repair that."
As Hextall said, the Flyers woes of late aren't from a lack of trying coach different combinations to get out of it. But it was obvious as the weekend came to an embarrassing end that the Flyers were a shaken team, which provided a new perspective to the break for Hakstol.
"In all honesty, maybe this break is the best thing for us," Hakstol said. "For everybody to get away for a couple of days and be able to come back here on Friday after a short break. It's been a tough stretch. It's tough mentally. It's a little bit tough physically. So maybe the break will clear some of that.
"When you're going through tough times, the mood isn't great. The mindset of this group has always been strong. It's a pretty together group. That's the foundation we have to rely on coming back on Friday afternoon."
It's a tough position for the Flyers. For a change, they didn't fall into a deep hole with a slow start to the season. They got hot still fairly early into the schedule and built up a cushion in the standings. Now they will have to fight their way back into the playoff picture. But one thing the Flyers have left is game, nearly 36 of them in fact, to make a push again.
"You have to look at it for what it is and clear the table and get back to it here," Hakstol said. "The great thing is, you can always find a positive if you really want to look for it, we're right in the heart of a playoff battle here with 35-plus games to go. We're in control of that. We just have to realize that and get back to it."
