The Flyers have had their share of third period problems since the All-Star break and they have had well-documented issues protecting multiple-goal leads this season. So what happened last night as the team blew leads of 3-0 and 4-1 (courtesy of Ville Leino's first career hat trick) was not a complete shock. It was, however, very disturbing to see how quickly the team unraveled late in the third period and overtime.

Over the last month, the Flyers are just 6-6-2. Rather than starting to gear up mentally for the playoffs, the club is showing itself to be a mentally fragile team for which no lead is safe and which has been coming up small in third-period crunch time. The defense looks vulnerable -- Chris Pronger is hurt, Kimmo Timonen hasn't been himself defensively of late and Sean O'Donnell looks to be out of gas. Turnovers and loose defensive coverages by forwards continue to wind up costing the club goals. And rookie goalie Sergei Bobrovsky has been inconsistent from period to period.

The good news for the Flyers right now is that, apart from the surging Capitals, their closest pursuers in the Eastern Conference race are having their share of issues of late, too. But right now the team can't even worry about potential playoff matchups and seedings. They need to clean up their own house first.

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