At a tough time, a tougher response

PHILADELPHIA » The threegame road trip was supposed to be just one of those inconveniences in the NHL schedule, the kind every team must endure a couple times a season. For the Flyers, it would become the worst kind of torment. The. Worst. “It’s been tough,” general manager Chuck Fletcher said. “It’s been a rough week.”

There were three losses. There were more injuries. There was a suspension to a critical, young player, Joel Farabee. There was loss of status in the standings. And there was the sting of the news that Oskar Lindblom, who’d been one of the Flyers’ best players and a reason to believe a rebuilding process was about to pay off, would have been stricken with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone disease.

“Certainly from a team perspective, it didn’t go the way we wanted,” Fletcher said. “I think the Oskar situation is pretty scary and sobering. And I kind of put that on a different level than wins or losses in hockey.

“But we have some work ahead of us this week.”

Lindblom’s challenge was at its own level, a catastrophe, something that would always transcend any hockey game. Yet that’s why the Anaheim Ducks, not just the Flyers, stood to tap their sticks on the ice in solidarity as the fans in the Wells Fargo

Center Tuesday reacted to a video-board tribute to the 23-year-old left wing. They understood. Everyone understood.

Yet that was Lindblom at a morning skate Tuesday, in a practice jersey if not as a participant, working the room, enjoying the support of his teammates. So just as the Flyers would help him through something, he would do what he could to help them get things right, too. It’s how teams work. Everything is connected at some level.

The connection between Lindblom’s illness, the teamwide sorrow and the struggle to win could not have been dismissed last week. Nor could the connection between Lindblom’s visit to the room Tuesday be eliminated as a contributing factor to a 4-1 victory hours later.

They all wanted the best for each other.

“I don’t see the road trip, obviously, as the way we wanted it to go,” Alain Vigneault said. “We went through a very challenging and personal situation, one that we’re going to go through here for the next month. In that, though, we have work do to and it’s important that we all do it.

“I really believe Oskar would want us to do our jobs the right way. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to stay focused. We’re going to improve.”

After a dull start Tuesday, the Flyers were focused and together, showing enough improvement to nudge their record to 18-11-5. Claude Giroux scored 55 seconds into the second period and just 3:19 later David Kase scored his first NHL goal, with his parents having traveled from the Czech Republic for the occasion, as their other son, Ondrej, would be playing for the Ducks. And whenever Anaheim stirred, Carter Hart had an answer, making 40 saves.

That kind of night. Suddenly, everything was appearing to clear, with the Flyers looking more like the team that thrived in November than the one that had been wandering through December.

“I feel like we are finding ourselves,” Giroux said. “We’re playing on the same page and we did a good job of scoring that first goal.”

So another awful week was over, for a franchise that has endured too many. Along the way, they Flyers had lost Scott Laughton and Tyler Pitlick to injury, and Lindblom to his illness. Michael Raffl continued to recover from a broken finger, and Travis Konecny didn’t play a shift due to a concussion.

But Konecny was back Tuesday and assisted on Giroux’s goal. And with a thorough victory in a chippy game, the Flyers were back, too.

“We have three of the next four games at home,” Fletcher said, before the game. “And I think the guys are excited about righting the ship here.”

One victory over the nextto-last team in the Pacific Division will not be sufficient for the all-clear. But the morning visit from Lindblom, the in-game tribute and the way the Flyers began to frolic all seemed to be intertwined.

“I can tell you it was great to see Oskar today,” said Fletcher. “And his teammates care deeply about him. As an organization, we will do everything we can to help him. But there was some pretty good energy in the room today. I think that was in large part to see Oskar.”

Being around the Flyers seemed to be soothing to Oskar Lindblom … and viceversa.

“It was a tough road trip,” said Jake Voracek, whose unassisted third-period goal helped ease some tension. “We were down a lot of bodies. But tonight, we found a way.”

Buffalo will arrive Thursday in an Eastern Conference match of some early-season significance. After a trip to Ottawa, the Rangers will visit. And then it will be a sixgame road trip around the West and capped by a visit to Carolina.

Whatever happens, it’s not likely to be as horrifying as the trip the Flyers Tuesday were glad to leave behind.

“I’ve looked at those games,” Vigneault said. “I’ve analyzed them. We did a lot more good things than we did negative things. This is a good group, a tight group. We’re being challenged. We’re being tested. But we’re together.”

In the toughest times, that should show. After their toughest road trip, it showed for the Flyers.

To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery