Tag: Alain Vigneault

Depending on how his offseason goes for the Philadelphia Flyers, Chuck Fletcher might end up seeing his way out the door if he isn’t careful.

Now it’s about playing for pride. It’s about playing for jobs. It’s about giving a damn that you even have the opportunity to play. That’s what the Flyers face over the next few weeks. Their playoff hopes are dashed. An eventful offseason likely awaits. So it’s up to the players still here following Monday’s deadline to compete in these games, to show a sense of pride.

Less than 24 hours before the trade deadline, the Flyers were left with a stunning defeat to the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL lowest team in the standings, handed a loss by lowly Buffalo for the second time in two weeks. It was the most fitting of endings for a team that has continued to get in their own way all season.

Thursday night was a really good game from the Flyers if you are strictly looking for positive building blocks moving forward. There were two very notable areas that stepped up and helped get the game to overtime and put them in a position to win. But if you were strictly looking for two points and a chance to stay in the playoff race even just for a little longer, it was another night where even a solid effort came up short.

Wednesday night’s game in Buffalo was the fourth time this season the Flyers were handed a 6-1 defeat. This one was by far the worst though, because this one helped the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL’s last-place team in the standings, snap an 18-game winless streak. It was a new low for the Flyers, and a fitting way to cap off a month that progressively got worse. 

The Flyers may be sitting fifth in the East, three points out of a playoffs, still very much mathematically alive. But their defense is in shambles. Almost every core player that was expected to produce on the higher end offensively has shown struggles. The goaltending has been questioned. To put it simply, the Flyers are a mess right now, and it’s become clear that the current system is just not working.

Times like these leave the masses calling for action of any kind. You certainly got that on Tuesday from the Flyers. Less than 24 hours after completing a comeback win over the Buffalo Sabres, 4-3, in overtime, the Flyers made an interesting move, placing defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere on waivers.

Monday’s game was a battle royale of mediocrity. This was a game that probably played out exactly as it should have in both result and process. Yes, the Flyers are a better team than the Sabres. The standings certainly reflect that. But for 40 minutes, they weren’t close to that, so much so that they not only once again dug a hole to the worst team in the league, requiring another frantic third-period rally, but they also had to shorten the bench to do it.

After another lopsided defeat to the Rangers that eerily resembled last week’s 9-0 embarrassment, this time an 8-3 margin, the statements made this week mean very little. This team is fractured beyond repair. It likely requires some sort of significant change. And the worst part is that in a year where there is so much uncertainty and hesitancy to take action, the Flyers might be stuck.

GM Chuck Fletcher didn’t gloss over the cold hard facts of where the Flyers rank in various categories. He called out the puck management problems. But his most telling response came when he was answering a question regarding Erik Gustafsson that ultimately transferred over into the defense as a whole.

Losses are losses at this stage of the season. Whether it’s 9-0, or 6-1, or 2-1 in overtime, they all hurt the same in the standings. It’s a missed opportunity at two points that you had when the night began. But in this game, when the Flyers did deliver the effort and executed better for almost the entire 60 minutes, two glaring mistakes cost them, and this time, they didn’t have the answers to make a couple of mistakes change the result.

In Saturday’s game, it took just over six minutes for the Flyers to allow a goal. After another 10 minutes, the Islanders had four on the board and the game was as good as over. Two more third-period turnovers padded the score further, resulting in a 6-1 defeat for the Flyers. There’s an awful lot to unpack in another result like that.

Within 10 minutes, the Islanders opened up a three-goal lead of their own, and added a fourth goal with under five minutes to play. That was all they needed, as a late first-period goal by the Flyers was all they could get in a 6-1 defeat to the Islanders on Saturday night.

On the back end of a back-to-back, coming off a 9-0 drubbing, it was going to take something deep down for the Flyers to win this game. They got it from a line that was powered by their captain, and the goal came from their strongest player, one whose name was branded by an entire hockey community, city, and locker room.

After allowing the first two goals of the game to put themselves in another hole, the Flyers gave up another goal in the first two minutes of the second period. The game was essentially over right then and there, because the 18 minutes that followed were not just the worst the Flyers have played this season, they were historically bad.

Both Alain Vigneault and Claude Giroux said the Flyers are trending in the right direction. James van Riemsdyk agreed and said they did a lot of good things. But the results don’t lie. The Flyers are not a playoff team at the moment in the standings for a reason. And they need a quick fix or this will be yet another season of disappointment, yet another season of mediocrity.

Thursday’s game was just another example of how ugly it’s been lately. Washington didn’t have to look their best to put a stranglehold on this game. And on a night when Washington, Boston, and the Islanders all picked up two more points in the standings with wins, the Flyers fell just a little farther behind in the race. Those points are costly no matter when they are lost.

They got the win, they got the two points, and offensively, they did a lot of good things that ultimately resulted in the number of goals they needed to get the game to overtime. But there are plenty of flaws that, at least this season, appear to be beyond repair, and that’s concerning with more tough matchups coming in the weeks ahead.

The 3-1 loss to Washington marked the end of a 1-3-0 week for the Flyers, that produced just two points in the standings and pushed them below the playoff line. At 22 games into the season, there is still time left in the season and the panic button shouldn’t be pushed just yet. But there are ongoing trends that don’t bode well for the Flyers if this continues in the weeks ahead.

In the third period, the Flyers looked tired. They looked like the tank was empty. And the Penguins, certainly not at their best, were able to take advantage with one goal that proved to be the difference in a 4-3 result. And it doesn’t get any easier, as the Flyers are right back on the ice on Sunday.

The Flyers gave up three goals in the first four minutes of the game. Alain Vigneault used his timeout. The Flyers didn’t come back in waves, but trimmed away the lead and completed the rally with just over two minutes left in regulation, resulting in arguably their most impressive win of the season.

Carter Hart’s shutout performance plus three second-period goals were the difference, as the Flyers once again defeated the Sabres, 3-0, on Sunday afternoon to complete the weekend sweep.

It wasn’t a pretty win, and it wasn’t going to be pretty with the Flyers still plenty shorthanded from their COVID situation. But Claude Giroux marked the first player to return on a list that will only be increasing with each passing day, and he showed just how motivated he was to come back strong.

Captain Claude Giroux was back on the ice for the first time since going on the COVID list on Feb. 9, leading to the postponement of that night’s game against the Washington Capitals. Plus, five more Flyers games have new dates in the latest round of league reschedulings.

While the Rangers snapped a four-game losing streak and earned just their fifth win of the season against the Flyers on Thursday night, the circumstances the Flyers were in made this an uphill battle from the start. The Flyers got off to a good one at that, but ultimately had to overcome too much to secure that second point.

The Flyers were back on Tuesday for practice with a limited group and more players are expected to rejoin the team on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s game against the New York Rangers. The Flyers also had five games rescheduled by the NHL in the wake of COVID-19 caused postponements.

The problem is that the Boston Bruins are a good team too, so if you are going to live by the mantra that good teams find a way to win, better teams find a way to exploit that. The Flyers finally paid for their flaws this season, and now it is on them to learn from it.

The Flyers managed the win in overtime after essentially surviving the final 40 minutes of regulation. It was another example of how they have managed to weather multiple storms over the early part of this shortened season. Here are five takeaways from Saturday’s game between the Flyers and Islanders.

If not for their goaltender, it could have been a different game entering the third. Instead, the Flyers had an opportunity in front of them: win a period, win a game. They won the third period with continued timely saves and timely goals to go with it. Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s win over the Devils.