Last night's 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center was just another miserable day at the office for a Philadelphia Flyers team that is adept at self-destruction. The club has become numb to losing, and has shown a consistent inability to play fundamentally sound two-way hockey, especially at five-on-five.
There is really no need to delve deeply into what happened last night, as the Flyers fell behind 3-0, rallied back into the game with two ugly-but-good goals and then promptly found themselves out of the game again. The scenario was all too familiar. Philly defended poorly, failed to finish open scoring chances against Henrik Lundqvist, and overrelied on Ilya Bryzgalov to keep the game close. Bryzgalov did his part for most of the game but ultimately let in a backbreaking Rick Nash goal on a wraparound.
Things are so bad for the Flyers that it's almost needless to point fingers at individual players or coach Peter Laviolette. The team has collectively done a horrible job this year, from the front office to Laviolette to the vast majority of the roster. Shortened schedule or not, this season is a massive organizational failure.
Yes, Danny Briere was awful prior to his recent concussion. Yes, Braydon Coburn has come up very small this season when faced with the challenge of taking on bigger responsibilities. Bryzgalov's save percentage is unacceptable. Those three have been the most popular whipping boys.
But guess what? You can pretty much go up and down this team's lineup and find large-scale underachievement in key spots.
Scott Hartnell has been skating in cement ever since returning from his foot injury. Brayden Schenn has one point in his last 10 games and is minus-10 in that span. Sean Couturier has lost any semblance of confidence in what has been a brutal second season. Defenseman Andrej Meszaros' play since returning from his most recent injury has made it look like someone cloned Lukas Krajicek and put him in Meszaros' uniform.
You can keep on going. Claude Giroux has fallen short of expectations. Kimmo Timonen looks his age (and the sobering fact is that he's still the team's most reliable all-around defenseman more games than not).
The coach doesn't get a pass, either. Who is ultimately responsible for having his team ready to play, especially in a so-called must-win game? Who has to tailor and adjust his system to the personnel he has available? Who is ultimately to blame for frequent cookie-cutter losses to rival teams that make opponents fight for real estate?
Paul Holmgren also has questions to answer about the way he assembled a weaker team than the one that took the ice a season ago. The organization was so busy chasing its Zach Parise and Ryan Suter pipe dream that the roster suffered as a result. Likewise, the team ultimately ended up putting all its eggs in the Shea Weber offer sheet basket and ended up being forced to try and pass off a player like Bruno Gervais as a bonafide starting six defensemen.
The Flyers have reached a point where they aren't even playoff pretenders anymore this season. Yes, they still have a mathematical possibility of putting together a run that gets them to the postseason. But when a club hasn't strung together so much as a single measly three-game winning streak, looks like it couldn't defend Mother Teresa and couldn't shoot the puck into the ocean from the beach, the chances of putting together such a run are slim to none.
That is a collective failure, and the Danny Briere trade/buyout rumors and "fire Lavy" talk isn't going to magically fix things by itself. In reality, no one's job should be totally safe.
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