Fall flop setting the stage for Hakstol heat
Let history repeat PHILADELPHIA >> itself.
Essentially, that’s the game plan Dave Hakstol has to have to hold onto his job.
Just more than a year ago, his Flyers were face-down in the half-frozen South Philly water after a 3-0 home loss Dec. 2 to the Boston Bruins. It was their 10th consecutive defeat, and the boos at Wells Fargo Center were drowned out only by the chanted demand to “FIRE HAKSTOL!” Let history repeat itself. The WFC is supposedly refurbished, the Flyers’ marketing department desperately hires an ugly mascot, but too many things are still the same as those “FIRE HAKSTOL!” chants are heard again. This after a soulless 6-1 defeat Saturday to the otherwise stinky New York Islanders. This despite it being only the third consecutive Flyers loss, and coming in late October 2018 as opposed to early December 2017.
The feeling is chillingly similar, however, to that Bruins loss, which led to much press box and fan speculation as to not if Hakstol would be let go, but when. Most bets were that he wouldn’t last through the short Western Canada road trip that was to follow that Bruins loss.
Flyers boss Ron Hextall would certainly not admit it, but Hakstol’s job was likely salvaged by consecutive and solid victories in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, which turned into a six-game winning streak, which over the long haul ran out to a 16-5-1 streak that put the Flyers in a fairly solid playoff position for the stretch drive.
History being what it is, they made the postseason for the second time in Hakstol’s tenture ... and promptly flopped against their historic tormentors the Pittsburgh Penguins. Ah, but that’s history. Now the Flyers are a year older, Ron Hextall is a year more frustrated and the scrutiny on Hakstol is cutting deeper than ever.
Just ask the boss.
“I’m a pretty patient guy,” Hextall told reporters Tuesday, “but things need to start going better here.”
Since then, the Flyers lost two games by a cume of 9-1. How long Hextall remains patient is a very open question. And since Hakstol is in the fourth year of his contract with apparently no guarantee of getting an extension, or even a pat on the back, the question of whether he’s going to continue as coach is also open-ended.
It might also hinge on the upcoming four-game road trip through California and the Phoenix-area desert. It’s a dry heat out there, even at this time of year. But the sweat has built again for the Flyers’ head coach.
“It’s not really fair,” struggling defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere said. “He’s kind of a scapegoat, obviously. Every guy in this locker room knows it’s down to the players. So it’s up to us to dig ourselves out of this hole.”
Flyers young and old looked as lost as ever against the Islanders Saturday. Hakstol picked this day to give allegedly recovered injury victim Michal Neuvirth his first start in net. What a job that was for the goalie, who was left so unprotected by the league’s worst defense that he should have counted himself lucky later to still be somewhat healthy.
He should do that every day, anyway.
“We’ve got to be better,” Neuvirth said. “It’s the confidence, you know. Once we get down, we get (down) on ourselves. It’s tough to get up . ... It’s not fun. Right now we’re not doing our jobs. We need to be better. When you win one or you win two, things change. It’s all about confidence.”
The confidence would probably improve some if the Flyers weren’t allowing 4.18 goals-pergame.
The confidence would probably improve some if the Flyers were scoring better than their current clip of 3 per game.
The confidence would probably improve some if the Flyers’ power play wasn’t 1 for its last 20 chances.
The confidence would probably improve some if the Flyers stopped allowing the other guys to score first, which has been the case in 10 of their 11 games this season.
“We’ve got too much going on in-between our ears right now,” Hakstol said. “I see that in our game. So, that’s my job, to clear some of that up and out so we can go out and play the game with a clear head. It’s really hard to play the game when you have too much going on (in the head).”
Note that this isn’t usually such a tough problem in hockey.
“There’s no easy formula,” Hakstol said. “It’s not the first time in the game where a team has struggled. And it’s not the first time any of us are faced with this challenge. We got to clear it up and we got to do better.
“That’s a good group of guys in there. They care. They’re frickin’ miserable right now.”
Amid their self-examination, the Flyers can see they have a top line (Sean Couturier, Claude Giroux and whoever is picked to play with them on any given night) that can’t remember how to score. They have middle lines suffering from the absence of the injured James van Riemsdyk, and the presence of checking line forwards (take your pick) who aren’t checking anybody. And on this day, second-line studs Nolan Patrick and Jake Voracek were each a minus-4.
“We’re cheating for pucks,” Scott Laughton said. “We’re cheating all over the zone. We’re hoping the puck gets outside the zone so that we can get going, myself included. We’ve got to move pucks quicker.”
Maybe the forwards can take solace in the obvious fact that they haven’t played as badly as the defense. From Gostisbehere to his fumbling former partner Ivan Provorov to frequent $5 milion a year healthy scratch Andrew MacDonald, the Flyers’ defense has flat-out been brutal.
Oh, and the various collection of goalies in and out of the lineup are only trying to not embarrass themselves behind that defense.
Ah, but a mid-Autumn road trip awaits. It can only get warmer from here, yes?
“We have to play better,” Provorov said. “I don’t think anybody’s happy. We’ve got to play better and we have to figure out what the hell’s going on.”