The Philadelphia Flyers have never been an organization known for its patience with losing. The historical tendency when the team gets off to a very slow start has been to make major changes; whether it is a significant trade and/or a coaching change.
In the wake of last night's frustrating 2-1 loss in New York and 2-5-0 start to the 48-game regular season, there seem to be a lot of folks clamoring for major changes. There's a lot of finger-pointing going on and talk about how this guy or that guy needs to go.
As I see it, though, everyone needs to take a deep breath. There is a litany of areas where the Flyers are a mess right now, but the "tear everything down" panic mentality is a good way to ensure the team ends up in the draft lottery rather than the playoffs.
I'm not saying the team should not be considering a variety of ways to improve, up to and including trades. What I am saying is that making changes for their own sake ignores the many areas that need improvement regardless of personnel.
I don't care who the coach is or what trades are made. If the Flyers don't work through the assorted team-wide issues that have cost them dearly in the early going of the season, they aren't going to win many hockey games this season. The over-arching issues:
* Collectively, the Flyers are an offensive mess right now. For all the justifiable hand-wringing over the ongoing problems with the power play (13.5 percent), the team has had just as much trouble scoring at even strength. The team has scored just 14 goals through seven games; nine at even strength and five on power plays. Philly has scored zero or one goal four times, including last night. They've scored two goals twice (in Buffalo and last Thursday's 2-1 win over the Rangers).
* The Flyers take too many penalties and can't kill them. Last night, Philly showed a bit of desperately needed improvement in terms of staying out of the box. But they still had a fatal letdown on a penalty kill, which came right on the heels of a failed 5-on-3 power play that even included a stretch of about 15 seconds in which one of the New York penalty killers was playing without a stick. Philly found themselves down 2-0 to a New York team that rarely blows leads. For the season, the Flyers rank 29th of the 30 teams in the NHL with a PK success rate of 67.6 percent (10 PPGA in 31 shorthanded situations).
* The Flyers can't win faceoffs. Their team's 44.9 percent ratio on draws is 29th in the NHL. Last night, it was even worse, as Philly won a miserable 34 percent (21 of 61) of the faceoffs against the Rangers. When you can't win the puck off the draw and also have trouble recovering it when you don't have it, it makes for a lot of offensive frustration and eventual center ice faceoffs of the undesirable kind.
* The passing, skating and forechecking games haven't been there with any consistency. The Flyers haven't kept their feet moving nearly enough. For example, they are missing the stretch-pass ability -- this is an area that Matt Carle was quite good at executing -- that made other teams fear the team's ability to burn them off the rush.
* At five-on-five, the Flyers have NOT statistically been that bad defensively thus far. They've given up nine even-strength goals in seven games, which would be an acceptable number if they were doing other things right. Ilya Bryzgalov erasing mistakes has been a big reason for it, along with moderately improved coverages. However, as we saw on the Rangers first goal last night, when other teams get their forecheck going, the Flyers are still prone to turning pucks over either under duress (takeaways) or by their own mistakes (giveaways). Last night, Philly had 20 turnovers; 11 by the giveaway route and 9 via takeaways by the Rangers. They were very lucky Bryzgalov was at the top of his game and kept the damage to one even strength goal and one power play goal.
* You can look up and down the lineup and struggle to find players other than Bryzgalov who have had more good games than bad ones thus far. Claude Giroux is pressing; and he's the number one who needs to be the catalyst. Aside from the blowout win over Florida, pretty much all of young players who stepped up last season have been struggling to find their games. The veterans such as Danny Briere and Mike Knuble haven't been able to finish either. Even if a trade were to get made, many of these players would still be the ones responsible for helping to get the team on track offensively.
For all the doom and gloom, let me add that there is now a chance to regroup. The Flyers have two days to prepare for back-to-back games against Washington (road) and Carolina (home). Thereafter, there another two days to prepare for a home game against Tampa and then single days off between home games against Florida and Carolina (again).
If the Flyers can win four of those five games, improving their record to 6-5-1 or 6-6-0, things won't seem quite as dire. Although New Jersey and the Islanders are off to good starts, neither the Penguins nor Rangers have set the NHL ablaze in the early going. As of this morning, the Penguins are 10th in the Eastern Conference and the Rangers (who still have a negative goal differential) are 8th.
Imagine it were a normal regular season and there are 48 games left. The Flyers are in a tie for first place. In January -- traditionally the Flyers worst month of the regular season -- Philly hits its usual skid with a 2-5-0 stretch. But the Penguins and Rangers haven't been much better in their own six-game stretches over the same span.
Would that be cause for panic? No, although the circumstances are a bit different this time.
It's not like the Flyers have a body of work this season where they had an OK month of October, got red-hot in November to early December and then hit a rough patch for a few weeks thereafter. Even so, there are players on hand who got the job done for the team last year and are most certainly capable of doing it again.
There is clearly a lot of work ahead --not just in practice but in actual game situations -- to get the ship righted. An astute trade could help but most of the answer has to come from what's already within the locker room. If it doesn't, this team will continue to struggle regardless of personnel moves or even the nuclear option of axing the coach.
Lastly, I will say this. If you look at the seven games to date, you will find, that aspects of "the process" (meaning doing the little things right) have been in place in segments of every game but one. There just has not been nearly enough of it created early or sustained. To break it down individually, you'll find the Flyers had:
* A bad first period in the opener against Pittsburgh, followed by a dominant second period and an even third period.
* A bad first period the next afternoon in Buffalo, a good second period and the team utterly running out of gas in the third period.
* A decent first period (despite a 2-0) deficit against New Jersey but frustration setting in for the rest of the game after an early second period penalty shot goal made it 3-0.
* A solid 60-minute effort -- but struggles to finish chances -- in a 2-1 win over a tired-legged Rangers team.
* A blowout win over a decimated Florida team that realized pretty early it was going to lose the game. There was some third-period sloppiness by the Flyers with the big lead.
* An awful game -- despite an early 1-0 lead -- in Tampa Bay. Very few, if any positives to take away from that one.
* A game in New York in which the Flyers got outplayed for two periods, but didn't quit. They got one goal back early in the third period and had numerous opportunities to tie the game -- power play time galore, some pucks in good shooting areas -- but in which shots were either errant, blocked, stopped by Henrik Lundqvist or (too often) not taken at all. But at least aspects of the process they needed were in place.
With Bryzgalov off to an excellent start, the Flyers at least have one major area that is not a concern at the moment. The rest needs a lot of work, and soon.
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