When you know the exact problems that ail your favorite hockey team, how much more can we really write about it?
The defensive zone coverage is suspect at best. The turnovers are laughable in all three zones. Generally, the team is young and they make a lot of mistakes. The goaltending is not able to bail out all of the above, and if we’re being fair, shouldn’t be expected to do so. The coach is trying to play a system that does not suit the personnel he has on hand, and he doesn’t seem willing — or perhaps he’s unable — to alter that system.
These are the biggest of the problems facing the 2013 Philadelphia Flyers. They have been the same problems that have plagued them in all of their losses this season, and we have written about all of them for over a month now. We are sick of writing about them, and you are sick of reading about them. It’s hard to do it much longer.
And for the powers that be in the Flyers organization, how much longer will they sit around and not do anything about it? Today’s loss to the Boston Bruins, when combined with the two other losses in what was viewed as a hugely important week for this team last weekend, feels like a breaking point. Maybe it will be, maybe it won’t be. But with less than half a shortened season left and a spring without playoffs staring 80-year-old Ed Snider in the face, I’d be shocked if that breaking point has yet to appear over the horizon.
A few bullet points after today’s loss:
* Sort of frustrating that all three of Boston’s goals came in such a limited period of time during the first period. Ultimately of course it doesn’t matter when the awful defensive breakdowns in a hockey game happen, but the Flyers weren’t “3-0 loss” bad for most of the game today.
* Sean Couturier, one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL, played just 10 minutes today. He is in the doghouse and it doesn’t make any sense. Would love to hear Laviolette talk about the reasoning behind this.
* The Flyers had 41 hits today and are second in the league in this department, proving that there is no correlation between hitting people a lot and winning hockey games regardless of what half the hockey world will insinuate.
* Andrej Meszaros returned to the lineup and promptly got walked on by Milan Lucic and Tyler Seguin down low on the goal line on Boston’s first goal. So that was fun.
* The Islanders won today and tied the Flyers in points and might legitimately be a better team than the Flyers, so watching the last week and the last month of hockey didn’t make things set in for you, that little fact might.
* Biggest week of the year against the three teams we hate the most. Three embarrassing losses. Go team.
Questions with Answers
- How does Andrej Meszaros perform in his return to the lineup? 17 minutes,some power play time, eight seconds of PK time that resulted in the goal above. Overall he looked about as good as the rest of the team. Nobody was good.
- How does a team come out of the opening faceoff the game after blowing a three-goal lead against their biggest rival? lols
- Peter Laviolette made some questionable coaching decisions on Thursday night, including the decision to misuse Sean Couturier. Do things change today? Nope.
- insert goaltending question here Same old. Not the problem, not the solution.
- insert question about the defense here Just really, really bad.
- Jake Scoracek. All the points? Jake Voracek scored as many points as the Philadelphia Flyers did today.
Comment of the Day
How have blue jacket fans and toronto fans dealt with this for so long?
>> reaper1221
