Flyers sluggish response sending wrong message
In recent weeks, the Flyers had two things going for them. They had not come out slow to start games and they were in every game they played. In fact, since Jan. 1, the Flyers had only five losses in regulation, all by one goal.
So on one hand, the Flyers were very much due for a game like Tuesday's. But on the other, a team that came within seconds of a crucial win over the Rangers on Saturday and battled to a one-goal loss to the NHL's best team on Sunday failed to respond with the same intensity. They had no intensity in fact.
The lifeless Flyers saw their playoff hopes take another hit as the Ducks rolled to a 4-1 victory on Tuesday night.
It was all downhill from the beginning. The Flyers were outshot, 15-5, in the first period and trailed 2-0 on a pair of goals by Rickard Rakell.
"It’s frustrating, especially at home, to come out flat like this," Claude Giroux said. "We lost the game in the first period. Obviously we battled back and tried to catch up but we didn’t play catch up hockey like that, it’s hard."
"I don’t think that’s something we can rest on tonight, we weren’t good enough in this hockey game, bottom line," head coach Dave Hakstol said. "We weren’t good enough as a team in this hockey game, you can focus that on the first period if you like, but when you look at it throughout, we weren’t good enough through this hockey game as a hockey team."
The Flyers three-game winning streak, started before the All-Star break and continued with back-to-back wins against Montreal and Nashville last week, is now a thing of the past after three straight losses including two in regulation.
With every game holding importance, the Flyers couldn't afford the start they had. To make matters worse, the Ducks had played in Pittsburgh on Monday night, losing 6-3, and entered the more tired team. The Flyers though had played five games in eight days. Is fatigue setting in?
"You guys are just saying excuses right now. You know, we gotta be better than that," Giroux said. "We know we have a tough schedule, but every team has a tough schedule. So we need to find a way to get it done and tonight we weren’t playing our game. As a team we want to have an identity and tonight that wasn’t the case. We need to figure it out."
"You can’t use that as an excuse though," Steve Mason said. "You have to get up for these games, this is the most important stretch of the season right now and we’re kind of coming up pretty limp right now. We have to find a way to get back in the winning column here and it’s really not going to get that much easier."
Regardless, for a team that had closed the playoff gap to two points and has appeared to be so much of a better team in the past two months, this is sending the wrong message. In Tuesday night's game that wasn't a team that desperately needs points in every game. That was a team that is quickly going from potential contender to potential lottery pick.
One of the only positives was the Flyers avoiding the shutout with a late third-period goal by Wayne Simmonds, which was assisted by Shayne Gostisbehere to extend his points streak to nine games.
Now trailing by six points in the playoff race, the road doesn't stop for the Flyers as they play three more games this week. With 30 games to go, there isn't any room for poor starts, a lack of energy or lapses that suddenly turn into three-game losing streaks.
"You can’t go back and get the start back tonight, you can’t get those two points back," Hakstol said. "We have to as a group make sure whether we’re a little bit tired or in a tough stretch, regardless of all of that there’s pretty important points available two days from now and we have to do a better job. I’m not pointing fingers at guys in the group, we just have to do a better job."
"I think it just comes down to us, ourselves," Gostisbehere said. "Taken three steps forward and three steps back. If we are going to be a playoff team, we got to learn how to figure it out. If we don’t win games, we aren’t going anywhere. We are not going to sit back and play the blame game. We got to look at ourselves in the mirror and just keep working."
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
