Nick Jensen
Travis Konecny extended his points streak to 10 games with a hat trick and matched his career-high with 24 goals on the season in the Flyers 5-3 win over the Capitals.
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.
On Saturday night, things may just have come to a head. For the third time this week, the Flyers were no match for the Capitals for most of the night, having another furious rally fall short and losing for the fourth time in the last five games, 5-4.
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.
The Capitals grabbed two goals late in the second, then another in the third as they closed out a 3-1 result on Sunday night at Wells Fargo Center.
For the second straight game, the Red Wings fired 38 shots Carter Hart’s way. This time, Hart made 37 saves, leading the Flyers in a 3-1 win over Detroit.
The Flyers won in overtime, 6-5. In the end, it doesn’t matter how the points come, as long as they keep coming. But against the lowly Red Wings, this was a game that the Flyers needed to lock down and didn’t do it. Sure, they survived, but it sets the stage for a difficult game to come on Sunday in the back end of a home-and-home.
