The Reporter (Lansdale, PA)

Flyers seek ‘mature’ sense of calm

Five-game homestand begins tonight against Coyotes

- By Rob Parent rparent@21st-centurymed­ia.com @ReluctantS­E on Twitter

VOORHEES, N.J. >> Claude Giroux is urging his Flyers teammates to keep the act going. You know, the whole acting like a grown-up thing.

Coming off a four-game road trip that began with speculatio­n about the stability of head coach Dave Hakstol’s job and ended Monday with a 5-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes for the third win on a trip that netted the Flyers seven points, Giroux pointed out that for the first time this season the club had displayed some “maturity” in its game.

That’s something that should be old hat for the Flyers by now.

“It’s not about being immature,” Giroux clarified. “When I say playing mature, it’s just being profession­al. I’m not saying we weren’t doing that earlier in the season and that’s why we were losing. What I’m saying is if we want to be successful this season and in the future, we just have to be a mature team and be able to shrug things off.”

Despite a core group of forwards that have played together for several years and a veteran goalie in net — at least he was until some kid knocked him out during the road trip — that mature ability to get back up when down was something the Flyers were having difficulty doing.

When you allow the other guys to score first in 10 of your first 11 games, no wonder things were a little frantic.

“When the other team scores the first goal or it’s not going well, I think we start trying a little harder, and we stop thinking about our game instead of just going out and have fun playing the game,” said the wisened, 30-yearold Giroux. “We start pressing, we start changing what we’re doing, because we want to come back

and tie the game right away. We just have to let the game come to us.”

“Sometimes when you try to do too much you get frustrated, and the plays aren’t there,” added Giroux’s mature, 25-year-old linemate Sean Couturier. “You just keep trying to force things and that’s when you get away from the good things. I thought we did a good job (on the trip) to refocus, relax and just get set.

“The season is still young,” Couturier added. “We got seven out of eight points but we have to keep going and climb in the standings.”

The Flyers played largely the same way those first 11 games, which is, they didn’t play well enough. Top line stalwarts Giroux and Couturier weren’t clicking like before, though secondline center Nolan Patrick showed signs of coming into his own as a blooming star.

The mostly youthful defense was a big problem, which in turn helped produce problemati­c goaltendin­g. To make matters worse veteran guru Brian Elliott was accidental­ly waylaid Sunday during a practice drill by an energetic youth named Travis Konecny, forcing Elliott out for the game in Phoenix. And, of course, backup goalie Michal Neuvirth got healthy just in time to go on the road ... and get hurt again.

So third goalie Cal Pickard had to go for a second straight night in Glendale, Ariz., and he oversaw a win over an upstart Coyotes team that came in having won their previous five games. The Rick Tocchetcoa­ched Coyotes come into Wells Fargo Center Thursday looking to make amends against the Flyers, who are commencing a five-game homestand and are in the process of making up for the way they played for most of the month of October.

In 10 of those games, they played from behind.

 ?? DARRYL WEBB – THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Flyers’ top-line forwards Travis Konecny, left, and Claude Giroux congratula­te Sean Couturier after he scored against the Coyotes Monday in Glendale, Ariz.
DARRYL WEBB – THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Flyers’ top-line forwards Travis Konecny, left, and Claude Giroux congratula­te Sean Couturier after he scored against the Coyotes Monday in Glendale, Ariz.

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