Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
On way to stability, inconsistency is still a problem
PHILADELPHIA >> There was the best team in the Eastern Conference, a recent Stanley Cup winner. There was the hottest team in the NHL. There was the firstplace team in the Atlantic Division. And just in case their recent strength-of-schedule wasn’t sturdy enough, the Flyers would finish a four-games-ineight-days sentence in St. Louis, where the Stanley Cup happens to rest on a shelf.
“You know,” Alain Vigneault was saying Thursday, before yet another game against another playoff-minded team, “we compete.”
Given it all, and there was some responsible pregame chatter that they may never have faced that many decorated teams in such rapid succession in their history, the Flyers were pretty high on themselves as they reported for a test from the visiting Montreal Canadiens.
They had beaten the Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins and, Wednesday, the champion Blues in overtime. Their only loss in the stretch was to Tampa Bay, which scored the only goal in the game and, when right, can be more dangerous than any team.
With that, the Flyers had returned to Eastern Conference relevance, all while adding heavily to their self-image.
They were pretty good, they
had good reason to decide.
“It’s been good,” Scott Laughton said. “We’ve stepped up our play. After a tough road trip, not having the success we wanted, we came back and have played some good hockey.”
With that, there would be the standard disclaimer, the one that has haunted the Flyers for years, and particularly this one.
With that, there would be the obligatory reminder that nothing yet had really been settled.
“We’ve got to continue this before the break,” Laughton said, “and keep rolling.’” Ah-ha. The Flyers didn’t continue it, at least not Thursday, falling, 4-1, to an opponent already in an even more desperate push back toward the postseason bracketology. The Flyers flipped 41 shots at Carey Price, a few of them dangerous, most ordinary and one from Joel Farabee that counted. But they were a little slow when the play opened and quite inaccurate when shot opportunities arose. With that, there was the question, not only fair, but mandatory: How is it that the Flyers have been so inconsistent? Why can they win one night in St. Louis, and be so deflating the next night at home?
And haven’t they been that way all season, often great, too often flat?
“I would say a lot of our positive play, or good play, has come from our top-end players,” said Vigneault, nicely skating around the edges of the mystery. “When they play the right way, when they play consistently, making the right decisions with the puck and competing and checking, I think the rest of the group follows. I would tell you that most teams are that way.”
Vigneault’s point, if it was coming through unscrambled, was that some of the best teams in the NHL flop when, for whatever reason, their top players uncork average games. Those were the Capitals, Bruins and Blues the Flyers had just beaten. That was his proof.
“We’ve played against some pretty good teams lately, whether it be Boston with the (Patrice) Bergeron line and their back end, whether it be the Stanley Cup champions, whether it be Tampa Bay which had won nine games in a row,” Vigneault said. “It seems teams feed of their top players playing well and playing hard. Everything else follows suit.”
Vigneault mentioned Sean Couturier, touting him as the Flyers’ most consistent player. Couturier worked last night, but didn’t leave the Habs at all exasperated, playing to a minus-one and generating five shots. Nor did it help that Carter Hart was still out with an abdominal injury and that Vigneault was unwilling to trust injury-plagued Brian Elliott, 34, to start games in two time zones in two nights. So inexperienced Alex Lyon it would be in goal, and to predictably professional if underwhelming results.
“There was a five-minute stretch in the second period that was a momentum killer,” Lyon admitted. He added, “It was a learning experience.”
The Flyers have been accumulating learning experiences since the spring of 1976. But recently, at least, they seemed to have secured some solutions. Their recent schedule, if not their schedule overall considering the way they were made to open the season in the Czech Republic, has bordered on unfair. But their inability to carry excellence beyond a certain point has continued to drag them toward the middle of the conference.
Some nights they’re great.
Some nights they are not.
In some schedule stretches they dominate.
On one recent road trip, they seemed unfit to compete. Why? “I’ll try to figure it out,” Matt Niskanen said. “But I don’t have an answer.”
The Habs were a little quicker and offered better goaltending. But they, too, had played the night before, falling at home to Chicago.
As for the Flyers, inspired by that victory in St. Louis, they did sound ready for the challenge.
“I don’t think this is a letdown game,” Laughton suggested beforehand. “I think this is a really good hockey team and we’re going to have to show up and play our best hockey at home.
“I think we’ve been doing that.’’ They had been. But the special teams, the championship contenders, teams like the Flyers believe they can be, know how to keep it going, no matter how heavy the burdens.