Every hockey team experiences adversity over the course of the season. Part of what separates top clubs from the pretenders — almost as much as the collection of talent on the roster — is their ability to pull things together and avoid the snowball effect that results in prolonged losing skids.
The foundation for a winning streak is often painstakingly built from gradual and subtle areas of improvement shown in the latter games of stretches in which wins are scarce. The reverse is also true. Losing streaks are often born of the compounding bad habits that teams get away with during the latter games of winning streaks before the losses start to pile up.
With so much parity in the National Hockey League, every team goes through this cycle to varying degrees. The difference is that top teams get their issues corrected sooner rather than later, so they don't spend too long lingering in the valleys.
Team confidence doesn't appear or disappear just like that. It starts with habits, results and repetition.
Winners of three straight games and four of their last five, the Philadelphia Flyers have actually played pretty good hockey overall in a span of the last nine matches. During that span, the club has gone 5-2-2.
Going back to the start of the nine-game stretch, the Flyers were mired in a deep and prolonged slump: 1-6-2. They were coming off a home game against the Washington Capitals in which there were actually a few glimmers of hope but the negatives outweighed the positives.
In the 5-2 loss to Washington, it was all about finish and not about the start. he Flyers held short-lived 1-0 and 2-1 leads over the opening 30 minutes of the game but missed out on opportunities to grab firmer control of the game.
For example, during six-plus minutes of first period power play time, the team generated all of one shot on goal. That was a negative turning point.
As the game progressed, the team generated three separate two-on-one rushes; the first of which could have put the Flyers in solid control and the latter two which could have cut a third-period deficit to one goal. Not one of them was turned into a goal.
In the meantime, the Flyers hung goaltender Steve Mason out to dry over and over again both at even strength and on the penalty kill. The score could easily have wound up anywhere from 7-2 to 10-2. While Washington did not put an outrageous quantity of shots (30 overall) on the net, they had very high quality chances from point-blank areas or through heavy traffic.
Over the next nine games, the Flyers scraped up whatever positives they could take away from the Washington game and then gradually put together their current 5-2-2 stretch.
Nov. 14: Flyers win with late rally
Between the Washington debacle and a game two nights later in Carolina, the Flyers recalled young offensive defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere from the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms. It was announced that veteran offensive defenseman Mark Streit, who had clearly been struggling in recent weeks, needed surgery to repair a detached pubic plate and would miss a prolonged stretch of time.
The Carolina game was far from a thriller or a stirring performance by either club, but the Flyers left Raleigh with two points after they rallied late to force overtime and then beat the Hurricanes, 3-2.
Philadelphia was held to just seven shots through the first two periods but trailed just 1-0 courtesy of a seeing-eye goal by Luke Schenn midway through regulation. The Flyers controlled most of play in the third period and the 37-second overtime.
A nifty play by the agile Gostisbehere to shake off a defender and snap a shot on net resulted in a deflected goal by Wayne Simmonds with 3:09 remaining in regulation. In overtime, Jakub Voracek ended a season-long goal drought, scoring the game-winning goal as he re-directed a slap pass by Michael Del Zotto.
Nov. 17 to 19: Good process, bad outcomes
The real turning point for the Flyers started to come about over the next tw games: home matches against the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks. Philadelphia, the lowest scoring team in the NHL through the first quarter of the 2015-16 season, simply could not bury chances to win either game.
In terms of structure and process, however, these were the two games where the Flyers finally started to right their ship. In both games, Philadelphia put forth strong and competitive efforts even though they ended up with shootout (3-2) and overtime (1-0) losses.
In the LA game, the Flyers held a pair of one-goal leads on a first period power play goal by Gostisbehere and a third-period even strength goal by Claude Giroux.
LA responded with a first-period Jamie McBain power play goal that deflected off Flyers' defenseman Luke Schenn and a tying goal by Milan Lucic in the final minute of regulation scored on the rebound of a double deflection that went off the goal post.
Against LA, Philadelphia got a dominant all-around game from Giroux. The team captain finished with a goal and an assist while going 24-for-28 (86 percent) in the faceoff circle. One of the few draws that Giroux lost started the late game sequence that ended wth Lucic's tying goal, but it hardly detracted from a night where he was outstanding on both sides of the puck.
Voracek had two assists in the LA game, while Brayden Schenn racked up eight shots on goal in 10 shot attempts after a one-game sojourn as a healthy scratch followed by a promotion to the top line.
In the second period, a would-be goal by Schenn was overtuned upon review in the Situation Room in Toronto. The goal was disallowed on the basis of being propelled into the net with a distinct kicking motion.
Playing his third straight solid game in goal, Mason stopped 38 of 40 shots in regulation and overtime and then one of two in the shootout. Anze Kopitar scored an unstoppable top corner goal in the second shootout round for the game-winner. The Flyers went 0-for-3.
Mason was even better in the game against San Jose two nights later, shutting out the Sharks through regulation. The entire Flyers team played well except for one big remaining problem: they couldn't buy a goal.
In terms of territorial possession and shots on net, the Flyers were the better team in the San Jose game more or less from the first television timeout of the game onward. That was especially true in the second and third periods. The goal-starved trio of Sean Couturier, Wayne Simmonds and Matt Read were particularly dominant in the puck-possession and shot attempt categories.
Scoring chances were not very abundant for either club in the game, but Philadelphia had enough opportunities — including an early game breakaway by Michael Raffl off a picturesque lead pass by Gostisbehere and a third period point-blank chance for Voracek — to pull out a win. They just could not finish.
The Flyers were very strong on the penalty kill in this game, going 4-for-4 with a proper balance between aggressiveness and good positioning, including a 4-on-3 kill in overtime. Mason stopped the only two shots he faced.On the power play, Philly was 0-for-2 on an abbreviated power play and one full-length advantage. They generated four shots on net and had a couple of deflections that missed the net.
In overtime, the Flyers yielded a 2-on-1 counterattack. Once the puck got across from Joonas Donskoi to Melker Karlsson in point-blank range, the needed the shooter to make a mistake by flubbing the shot, shooting it directly into Mason, hitting the post or missing the net. None of the above happened, and the Sharks won 1-0.
Nov. 21 to 25: Two setbacks but greater unity
The Flyers bookended disappointing road regulation losses to Ottawa and the New York Islanders around a home overtime win against Carolina. The two losses were reminiscent of the Washington game. Strong starts were overshadowed by costly mistakes and ongoing scoring woes.
Even so, all three games saw an encouraging new pattern start to emerge: the Flyers started to do a better job at sticking up for their teammates. Players who rarely fight did so on behalf of teammates who had been injured on reckless or careless plays by opposing players.
In the Ottawa game, one of the team's least likely combatants, Sam Gagner, immediately stepped up to the defense of linemate Scott Laughton, fighting the much larger Alex Chiasson directly after Chiasson pushed Laughton head-first into the lower part of the side boards.
When the Flyers rematched with Carolina, Gagner went down in a bloody heap in the defensive zone at 8:40 of the first period a hit by Brad Malone. Gagner suffered a nasty laceration near his left eye. In response, Bellemare fought the larger Malone a few minutes later.
On Thanksgiving eve in Brooklyn, Raffl was boarded by Islanders defenseman Nick Leddy. In the second period, Giroux fought Leddy both as a response to the earlier incident and as an attempt to spark his own team after New York had taken control of the game following a shorthanded goal on the Leddy penalty.
In both the Ottawa and Islanders' games, the Flyers' undoing came in allowing attention-to-detail lapse goals in the final minute of the first period that were followed by then yielding an early second-period tally.
The Ottawa game saw the Flyers' energy and performance drop significantly as they allowed their mistakes to compound and went on to sustain an ugly 4-0 setback. At least in the loss to the Islanders, the Flyers plugged away as best they could — getting shots on net rather than blocked or fired wide was a problem — but a late empty-net goal made it a 3-1 final.
The shutout loss in Ottawa prompted head coach Dave Hakstol to change some of his line combinations. Most notably, Voracek was taken off Giroux's line at five-on-five (he remained on the top power play unit) and placed on the third line with checking specialists Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde. Brayden Schenn moved from left wing to right wing on Giroux's line and Raffl was restored to left wing on that line.
In between the losses to the Senators and Islanders, the Flyers beat Carolina in overtime, 3-2. Special teams carried the day for Philadelphia, who went 5-for-5 on the penalty kill with a shorthanded goal by Giroux and power play goals by Brayden Schenn in the second period and Gostisbehere in overtime. Michal Neuvirth took a shutout into the third period before finishing with 31 saves on 33 shots to earn his fourth win of the season
Schenn's tally ended the third-longest goal drought for the Flyers in franchise history after 168 minutes and 53 seconds. Since that time, the Flyers have scored 11 goals over the last four games; nothing earth-shattering but certainly a significant improvement.
Nov. 27 – Dec 1: Multiple pieces click into place
The high point of the Flyers' season to date has come over the last three games. The club defeated several high-quality opponents in succession, earning a 3-2 overtime home win against Peter Laviolette's Nashville Predators and following it up with a 3-0 road win against the New York Rangers and a 4-2 victory in a rematch with the Senators in Ottawa.
On Black Friday, Del Zotto and veteran callup forward Colin McDonald scored in regulation for the Flyers before Gostisbehere notched another overtime game winner on the power play. Neuvirth played another strong game in goal, with 33 saves on 35 shots. Playing for just the second time in November after a concussion and a prolonged stretch as a healthy scratch, Russian defenseman Evgeny Medvedev also enjoyed a strong all-around performance.
The next afternoon in Madison Square Garden, the Flyers ended a 10-game regular season road losing streak against the Rangers.
Simmonds scored breakaway and empty net goals for the Flyers, bookending an assist on an early third-period insurance goal by Couturier. Mason turned back all 24 shots fired on his net, including all 10 he faced in a difficult first period for the Flyers.
New York by far had the better of the play over the final 12 minutes of the opening period. The Flyers were the better team over the second and third periods.
The Flyers survived two first-period penalties that, for a time, left them with just three defensemen on the blueline. At the 10:48 mark of the first period, defenseman Nick Schultz was steamrolled by a heavy hit by New York's Dylan McIlrath. Schultz was injured on the play, drawing the ire of defense partner Luke Schenn and triggering a fight.
Schultz left the game with an upper body injury. He did not return. For his troubles, Schenn was tagged with 17 minutes of penalties, including an instigation minor and the 10-minute misconduct that comes with it. Late in the period, Radko Gudas took a needless unsportsmanlike conduct penalty behind the Flyers' net.
Surviving the penalties and getting back up to five defensemen gave the Flyers a lift. Medvedev (25:52 of ice time) and Del Zotto (who logged 29:20 of ice time) were nothing short of stellar, and they needed to be.
As the calendar flipped to December, the Flyers made the most of their return engagement in Ottawa. It took three separate one-goal leads plus an eventual empty-net goal to hold off the host Ottawa Senators by a 4-2 count on Tuesday night. Philadelphia earned its first three-game winning streak to date in the 2015-16 season.
Gostisbehere, Medvedev, Simmonds and Couturier (empty net) scored for the Flyers. Once again, Mason was very sharp in turning back 23 of 25 Ottawa shots to earn the win. Additionally, the Flyers ran a streak of successful penalty kills to 21 in a row.
After several games of generating significant offensive zone pressure but no goals and then finally having a breakout game against the Rangers, the trio of Simmonds, Couturier and Read picked up where they left off at Madison Square Garden.
Simmonds was nothing short of stellar. All game long, he caused havoc near the Ottawa net. The power forward had a strong night against the Senators on the cycling and forechecking game. He created a third-period power play for the Flyers. Last but not least, it was Simmonds who blocked a pass with Ottawa pressing to tie the game late in the third period and then fed Couturier for the empty-netter than iced the win.
Dec 4-5: A new challenge
Now that the Flyers have seemingly hit their stride, the challenge will be to continue to improve. Their next two opponents — the New Jersey Devils (away) and Columbus Blue Jackets (home) — present a different type of challenge.
Both last season and during the current campaign, the Flyers have often fared well against top-flight opponents while struggling against fellow bubble teams and even the league's bottom feeders. Columbus has become a troublesome opponent for the Flyers ever since the Blue Jackets migrated to the Eastern Conference when the NHL realigned its divisions for the 2013-14 season. Meanwhile, Philly has struggled mightily against the Devils ever since losing to New Jersey in five games in the 2012 Eastern Conference semifnals.
Changes of players, coaches and general managers have not significantly altered the game optics or outcomes. In their last 14 regular season meetings with New Jersey, the Flyers are 3-11-0. That includes a 2-6-0 mark in the last eight games in New Jersey. Overall, the Flyers are 1-5-0 in the six most recent home and road meetings with the Devils.
Taking at least three of a possible four points out of the New Jersey and Columbus games would be a boon for the Flyers to continue to climb out of the hole they dug for themselves during their horrid late-October-to-mid-November stretch of nine games.
Things will only get tougher next week with a brutally difficult three-in-four gauntlet looming: home against the New York Islanders on Tuesday followed by consecutive night road games against Ken Hitchcock's St. Louis Blues and the Western Conference leading Dallas Stars.
Bill Meltzer is a columnist for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @billmeltzer.
