The Philadelphia Flyers ended their back-to-back weekend with a disheartening 6-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, seeing their playoff chances diminish even further (although they haven't been eliminated completely).
The Philadelphia Flyers ended their back-to-back weekend with a disheartening 6-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, seeing their playoff chances diminish even further (although they haven't been eliminated completely).
A pair of first NHL goals from Olle Lycksell and Adam Ginning gave the Flyers some life, but it wasn't enough to stop the barrage of goals they felt from the Blue Jackets, who sit last place in the Metropolitan Division.
"Just Not Good Enough."
Although the team has tried their best to remain optimistic about their playoff chances in the midst of their worst losing streak of the season, alternate captain Scott Laughton didn't mince words about how big of a disappointment this game was for the team.
"Just not good enough in the first period to come out flat," he said. "It falls on some of our older guys, and especially me. Got to get this group ready to go. It's not good enough."
Head coach John Tortorella also acknowledged that lackadaisical nature of their game, not trying to give any excuse as to why they performed the way they did.
"I thought we were a little bit sloppy, a little bit loose tonight in front of our goalie," he said. "We've just got to get ready to play our next game."
It's a frustrating position to be in, when nobody seems to know where to go from here. The flaws in the Flyers' performances have been identified and criticized until people are blue in the face, but they've been getting the same disappointing results time and time again.
The Blame Game
Many considered this game against the Blue Jackets to be the one that would basically determine whether the Flyers had any hope of making the playoffs after losing the previous six games. While not completely eliminated, their current chances sit at just 27%, according to MoneyPuck.com.
Naturally, fans want someone or something to blame for why the Flyers were riding high for so long only to drop the ball in the home stretch of the season. So who/what is the culprit—is it the powerplay? Has Tortorella lost the room? Is it the goaltending? Is the team just exhausted?
Right now, there aren't a lot of concrete answers, and there most likely won't be until at least the end of the season. The new culture of the organization (and, yes, I'm aware that everyone is sick of how much "culture" is used to find a silver lining with the Flyers' recent outings) is to take things game by game, and to hold each other accountable while also putting on a united front. As this fanbase has learned from the Cutter Gauthier trade and the deals for Ivan Fedotov and Alexei Kolosov, the masses don't tend find things out about the behind-the-scenes workings of the Flyers unless the organization wants them to. We can speculate and complain and point fingers all day long but, at least as of right now, there's just no way to know for sure.
Onwards And Upwards
Tortorella admitted that certain players haven't responded well to the challenge put in front of them by the playoff push, but stuck to the Flyers' season-long philosophy of leaving the past in the past and focusing on the next game.
"I don't think a lot of people are playing their best hockey," he said after the Blue Jackets game. "I think there's some guys that have found their way a little bit. Other guys are pressing...[But] we can't get discouraged. No one's going to help us out of this. Being discouraged isn't going to help it. We've just gotta try to stay positive, have a good practice day Monday, get on a flight, and get back to work."
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