A culture of tolerance providing sorry results
PHILADELPHIA » The Flyers played three postseason games at home and were outscored by a dozen goals, one more deflating than the next.
They tried one goaltender, then another, then another, and somewhere had a fourth on retainer just in case.
They showed some courage, with a couple of them playing through pain and injury, and by winning an elimination game on the road to force a Game 6 Sunday. That one, they would lose, 8-5, the game not ending before a small beer-can storm rolled through the Wells Fargo Center. And … “We got better as the season went on,” Claude Giroux said. “On the positive side, we’re going to learn from this, and we’re going to get better.” Please. Really? Again? Yet there it was, plain and without a hint of modesty. There it was, the way that so many of the franchise’s critics demanded it should be, back when the previous owner, Ed Snider, wasn’t playing by that rule. There it was, the eternal, haunting wail of the ever-developing majorleague operation that everything will improve over time.
A nasty germ that infected the sports universe at just about the time the time rotisserie and fantasy sports were born, the vow of long-term improvement has become acceptable and, often, preferred. In too many brainwashed minds, the obsession with building a team has become more addictive than winning games. And as long as a franchise can roll out a reasonable farm system and back it up with a teen-aged goalie playing in half-a-bush-league 3,000 miles away, then all else has
Not everyone believes that. For with that shower of litter Sunday, there were thunderclaps of boos. Yet what the Flyers have become is what many begged them to become: Patiently content with claiming improvement. Once, losing as the Flyers did at home this spring would have been cause for overturned executive-box tables and a determined march by the owner to the press area, followed by a charge that the officials were somehow crooked. But not only doesn’t it work that way around the Flyers anymore, there literally is no more alpha owner to complain about something like that. Something like what? Something like losing one home playoff game, 5-1, then another, 5-0, then a third, 8-5, after leading by two goals. That’s what. The players showed some pride. Sean Couturier played on a torn right MCL and had a hat trick. Ivan Provorov played with a left arm that might as well have been attached to his shoulder with toothpaste. Travis Konecny gave Conor Sheary a stick across the back that the Penguins’ forward more than had coming.
But the postgame dressing-room comments, most of them anyway, were repulsive.
“I couldn’t be,” Andrew MacDonald decided, “more proud of this team.”
When Jason Kelce said he couldn’t have been more proud of the Eagles, that resonated. The Flyers did OK this season, squeezing into the playoffs. But that was an organization that never settled for not winning a Stanley a chance to be excused. Cup. And even when it wasn’t winning Stanley Cups for decades, at least an empty playoff season was likely to be spiked by the head coach calling the players chokers, or a goaltender calling a head coach inept.
Instead, there was this from Dave Hakstol: “You always want development to be this smooth path, a smooth climb. It doesn’t work that way. It’s kind of a jagged climb. And you just push in that direction.”
Could work. The Flyers have some young, developing stars. Couturier, 25, is about to move through the velvet ropes to the NHL’s VIP room. Provorov can be a franchise-defining defenseman. There is something about some talent playing with the Phantoms, if that matters.
But that was Jake Guentzel running up a four-spot for Pittsburgh Sunday, and he’s 23. And that was Matt Murray in goal, two Stanley Cups already on his record, one series closer to a third. He’s 23. So the Flyers don’t even have Pennsylvania covered when it comes to trafficking in young stars.
Ah, but that’s what they demanded, the howlers, the detractors. Stop firing coaches. Stop buying free agents. Stop trying to win Stanley Cups and instead try to win spots on All-Rookie teams.
“We’re going to keep building here,” Giroux said, “and we’re going to come off strong next year.” OK. Good. Try that. Maybe there are no to NHL success. Maybe the right mix just comes together at the right time, and the players stay healthy, and the bracket turns favorable, and the pucks roll the right way. Whatever the Flyers were doing before they became so tolerant of mediocrity wasn’t yielding them sips from that silver punch bowl either. But the difference was, it was a whole lot less acceptable. And it was right to be a whole lot less acceptable. It was right at the time. It will always be right. secrets