Same old cliched mistakes haunting Flyers
VOORHEES, N.J. >> The good feelings of the holiday season dissipated during a lost three-game road trip to La-La Land last week, so now with winter finally arriving, the Flyers have decided to go into their shells and use the defensive weapon that always seems readily available to players feeling the heat in the hockey interview room. Cliches. It’s that time of year. “I don’t think we were smart enough with pucks,” Wayne Simmonds lamented Monday about the Flyers’ three losses on a postChristmas, three-game trip through Anaheim, San Jose and Los Angeles. “That’s what cost us in all three games. Just turnovers; not making smart plays coming out of our end.”
If such a malady sounds familiar, well, check out the hackneyed sounds of promised recovery...
“We have some ground to make up,” Brayden Schenn said after an extra-lengthy Monday practice at the Skate Zone. “We’re certainly capable of doing it. We just have to play better.
“That’s something we talked about this morning; (be) a team focusing on good starts and not always chasing the game. It’s not easy doing that. I think we have to worry about one game at a time. Obviously, that’s a pretty cliched answer, but you can’t look at the big picture. We have to worry about turning this losing streak around, starting off with a win at home here.”
That won’t be easy to do, either, since that first opponent in this welcome-back scenario at Wells Fargo Center Tuesday night will be the Montreal Canadiens. The team that began the season looking almost unbeatable.
Yet the Canadiens only enter this game as the runner-up team in the Atlantic Division (behind streaking Florida and that hot kid named Jaromir Jagr) at 22-15-3. Further, the Habs had won just two of 11 games going into the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day in Foxborough, Mass. ... and promptly buried the Bruins 5-1 there.
“It’s going to be a tough test with Montreal,” Schenn said. “We have to be ready for that because it’s never easy playing at home after a California road trip.”
Yeah, you have to work all that laid-back talk out of your system, then remember how to play hockey again.
“We were in a lot better shape than we’re in right now,” said Simmonds, recalling how the Flyers last played (and won) a game at home Dec. 21, beating the Blues to improve to 15-12-7 and pull to within two points of an Eastern Conference wild-card position. Three laidback losses later ... they’re buried with the bottom feeders again, now seven points out of a playoff spot.
“That’s what happens when you don’t play three good games,” Simmonds added. “It’s a quick turn. We have to stop it now. There’s no more time to lose more points here.”
To an interviewed man Monday, the Flyers made much of the consoling thought that they didn’t lose by many out on the West Coast. It was a pair of 4-2 losses to the Ducks and Sharks, then 2-1 to the Kings Saturday night when a third-period comeback fell short.
“Obviously, it’s not the position we want to be in,” said Claude Giroux, who centered a top line with Jake Voracek and Simmonds late in that Kings game. “We’re aware if we want to come back to where we want to be, we have to play better. All those three games we were in the a way.
“I think we got away from the good things we were doing before Christmas. Some mistakes cost us. I think we have to go back to the way we were playing. The second half of the game against L.A. was a lot better. But we need to do that for 60 minutes.”
●●● NOTES >> Expect coach Dave Hakstol to start with a top line of GirouxVoracek-Simmonds, which seemed a worthwhile experiment for thencoach Craig Berube last season and lasted only a short time. ... All the extra work, lengthening practice a good half-hour, was on the penalty kill. The Flyers, ranking in the bottom-five in both power play and penalty kill in the NHL, really have been killed by their PK of late. “It’s a big part of the game,” Mark Streit said. “The last few games we have (allowed power play goals). We need to get back on the same page; get better at it.” ... Streit, who returned from his long injury absence (groin surgery) against the Sharks, said he’s looking to keep getting better. “The first game in San Jose I was really rusty,” he said. “It was good to be back out there, but I felt like I missed six weeks. I felt better the last game (against the Kings). ... I just want to progress every game and get better at the little things.”
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