Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Skirting fine line between playoffs and mediocrity
If there was a camera running, Ron Hextall could have been flipping hand-puppets on the big screen. As it was Wednesday afternoon, he was contorting his fingers to show what he considers a miniscule difference between so many of the 30 NHL teams.
“The band for winning and losing is right there,” Hextall literally pointed out with his hands on a makebelieve chart. “If you play on this end, you can go 10-0. And if you play here, which isn’t much worse, you can go 3-9-3. Like, it’s a fine line.”
A short time before, his head coach, Dave Hakstol, tried to make a similar point, using words rather than imaginary images. Pointing to the 4-2-1 run his Flyers had just been on, and indicating his opinion that they’ve been taking a little too much heat from fans and me--
dia during it, Hakstol frowned and said, “You get the feeling on certain days that we haven’t won a hockey game in three weeks. So ... mindset is everything. Positive. Sticking together. Doing the things we do and doing them well. Those are the things that this team is going to do.”
Perhaps indicative of the closeness of Hextall’s plotted vision of NHL parity, the Flyers took on an Islanders team Thursday night that was breathing down their necks in what is supposed to be a chase between even-up wild card hopefuls. Indeed, true to Hakstol’s spoken mandate, his Flyers had long stretches of positive play, stuck together and stuck up for each other and probably did a lot of whatever the hell it is that they do well in this game.
They had Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss scrambling quite a bit. Heck, Hak even let exiled sparkplug Shayne Gostisbehere play. And he did better than OK. And the Flyers promptly lost 3-1.
So now make it a 4-3-1 “run.”
They’ve lost their last three games.
They’ve scored 13 goals in their last 10 games.
They have been outscored 20-3 in their last six losses. This is parity? Really? “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Hextall said Wednesday. “I talk to (other general) managers all the time and we talk about the same thing. All of our ups and downs, why we’re having ups and downs. It’s a fine line between winning and losing.”
They walked one against the Islanders. Did a lot of good things, at least in their eyes. Yes, they could have won, maybe even should have won, since they had 15 of the game’s first 18 shots on goal.
They scored a power play goal after that, ending a scoreless run at 134 minutes, 56 seconds. But despite multiple evenstrength chances and two great late power play opportunities against the Isles, the Flyers wouldn’t, couldn’t score again. So yeah, they lost again. Hakstol’s short-term view aside, this “fourpoint” loss to their nearest division pretender makes the Flyers 4-11-3 since what seemed like a landmark home win over the Washington Capitals Dec. 21.
It was easy to anticipate the Capitals to rebound from that and charge to the top of the league standings, just as they’ve done.
You wonder how many people thought the Flyers would turn tail and head the other way, as they have.
“Everything’s pretty close,” Claude Giroux said after this latest loss. “I think if you look at the standings everybody’s pretty tight.”
They have fallen to 2622-7 (59 points), and have fallen out of the last Eastern Conference playoff spot, now occupied by the mediocre Bruins.
It’s still going to be a bit of a musical-chairs style chase down the stretch, if only because once you get past the real conference contenders — the Caps, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Montreal and the Rangers — everyone else is mediocre or worse.
The Flyers will have to work hard to remain mediocre.
Parity in this case is more a parody of a playoff race.
“It’s pretty frustrating,” Wayne Simmonds said. “We started off well tonight, scored a goal ... then sunk back in.”
They did so against a team they really needed to beat at home. As it stands, the Flyers are now one point up on the Isles and have played three more games than those Brooklyn immigrants. They’re in position to pass the Flyers by, too, and other teams aren’t that far behind.
“Those games are really important,” Mark Streit said. “It hurts even more . ... It’s a tough loss against a division opponent. As much as it sucks right now, you’ve got to turn the page and just ... stay positive. Keep doing the things that we’ve been preaching about.”
At least the preaching, whether it comes from the coach or other teammates, doesn’t seem to be falling on deaf ears in the locker room. But any spoken pleas of help at the trading deadline will die there.
Hextall again shot down any thoughts of trying to trade for scoring help at the Feb. 28 deadline. It’s that time of year for him to do so, both with hand gestures and words.
“If something makes sense for us and makes us a better team and the price is reasonable we would look at it,” Hextall said. “This isn’t the time of year for reasonable prices, so I’d (not) be optimistic to say something will come along. But you never know. You never know.”
What the Flyers don’t know is whether Hextall will really try to do what should be done — that is, stop pretending.
A veteran scorer added to this mix might help it win that last wild card spot. What such an addition wouldn’t do is make these Flyers contenders. What makes more sense is trying to gain more assets by selling before the deadline, and perhaps using those assets for a major trade in the offseason.
Pending unrestricted free agent Mark Streit is a real candidate for such a rent-a-deal. Might bring a second-round pick if they’re lucky. And pending UFA goalie Steve Mason shouldn’t be considered out of the realm of possibility, either. Solid goalie for a contender that might suddenly need one prior to the playoffs.
All of that remains to be seen over the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the Flyers will continue to try to play up to expectations. Which at this point can’t be any higher than any other team’s.