Long break might make difference down stretch

VOORHEES, N.J. >> Feeling good about themselves again as they came home for a game against the Montreal Canadiens earlier this week, the Flyers could look at what they had just accomplished and conclude they were firmly on the right path to the playoffs.

Of course, they thought that several other times during this weird season, too.

Twitter critics may think that all this team had done was manage to stay on the same curious, circuitous path that had characterized their whole season.

It began in October with a win in Prague and another win in their real home opener, but immediately tumbled into a fourgame losing streak with three of the losses coming on a road trip through western Canada.

Their collective confidence soared again when they reeled

off a seven-game stretch in early-mid November without a regulation loss. But then came a three-game skid during another road trip, this one through Colorado, Minnesota and Winnipeg in mid-December.

No worries, for a fourgame winning streak was right around the corner, leading into a joyous Noel ... and then dropping right into a four-game losing streak amid a 1-4-1 postChristmas road trip that took them to the West Coast and into the New Year.

Ah, but Auld Lang Syne and all that, as a return home brought with it wins over Washington and Boston sandwiched around a 1-0 loss to Tampa Bay amid a stretch of games against the NHL’s best, then a third win in that stretch in St. Louis against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

So little wonder the Flyers were feeling good when they returned from there to play host to the sub-.500 Habs Thursday night ... who promptly whipped them 4-1.

Not that it was anything to shake their confidence or anything. Nor was it anything out of the ordinary.

“I think we didn’t play the way we wanted to against Montreal, but we were playing some good hockey before that,” Scott Laughton reasoned after a Saturday morning Skate Zone session. “I think we have to be more consistent in our game through, I’d say a 10-game segment, maybe. We’ve done a pretty good job of late playing against those top teams, then obviously not in our game two nights ago. But I don’t think we need a re-set, just more of putting our feet on the pedal and continuing to push.”

Actually, it’s almost time for the Flyers to apply the hand brakes. But first they offered a hint of real change. It came Saturday night with a 4-1 win over the L.A. Kings, if for no other reason than it showed that they didn’t allow the Montreal hangover to extend into the next game.

Anyway, if Laughton’s 10game segment began with this win over the lowly Kings, it’s going to take a while for it to play out. That’s because the Flyers have a 10-day break after a follow-up home game Tuesday against the Penguins. After that, they don’t play again until 10 days later, Jan. 31, taking on the Penguins again, this time in Pittsburgh.

The Flyers aren’t even allowed to officially hit the ice together until the day before that Penguins game, a Thursday, Jan. 30 afternoon practice at the Skate Zone. That long break is due to the upcoming All-Star weekend festivities, followed by a weeklong break as mandated a few years back in a Collective Bargaining Agreement supplement between the league and the players association.

If that seems rather odd, well, it is the NHL, after all.

“I don’t know how that got into the game, really,” head coach Alain Vigneault said. “It makes the rest of the schedule so condensed . ... When we got back from St. Louis, it was a two-hour flight and then you lose an hour (with the time change), so it’s really a three-hour flight, and we’re getting in bed at 3 in the morning. It’s not the same energy level (after that), but you want to put a good product on the ice.”

So Vigneault’s argument is that if a tiring schedule and trip to St. Louis perhaps played into a lousy loss against Montreal, then what’s nine consecutive days off the ice going to do to them?

He awaits the answer. “It’s always nice to get a few extra days in a row where you can relax and recover from injuries and little nagging things and kind of recharge the battery for the rest of the year,” Sean Couturier said. “My first four or five years, we would have stretches during the year where we’d have three or four days off between games . ... You don’t see that anymore.

“Every two days you play. But at least you get a break to rest, recover and I guess, get a mental re-set, too. You can kind of get away from the rink and mentally refocus.”

Perhaps that’s the kind of break that can lead to the

Flyers really breaking out of their problematic pattern of following winning runs with losing skids.

Or maybe this win over the Kings is a sign that they could be on the way toward doing just that.

Either way, Vigeanult realizes he can’t do anything about this long spell off the ice for his team, outside of suggesting to his players to find a patch of ice to at least have some productive fun during their extended vacations.

“I can (suggest it) and I will,” Vigneault said. “For us right now we’re going to look at (the long break) in a positive fashion, in that people are going to get a chance to recover, get re-energized. We’re going to come back and have one quick practice (Thursday) and then play (in Pittsburgh) and (then) we’ll have Colorado waiting here to play us. So it is what it is. But hopefully the players use the break to re-energize.

“They can still find a way to maybe touch the ice once or twice in that break and do a little conditioning.”

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NOTES >> Speaking of good signs, Nolan Patrick (migraines) was looking good on the ice in Voorhees Saturday with a club skating coach after his teammates practiced, as he’s been doing much of the past two weeks . ... Defenseman Justin Braun returned Saturday from an injury absence, so the Phantoms’ Mark Friedman returned to the Lehigh Valley.