Shortly after the middle of Tuesday night’s game, Kevin Hayes broke his bat in half like an angry baseball player destroying his bat after a strikeout.
The frustration felt like déjà vu. Hayes broke his dick into pieces on Monday. Nowadays, Flyers are probably experiencing more kindling than normal.
The frustration – both of the club and its fans – reached a palpable level on Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center when the troubled Flyers’ march reached a new level. The Flyers suffered a 4-3 defeat at the hands of the Devils.
A couple of goals from Sean Couturier in the third period brought the score closer, but the Flyers stayed away from the tie.
When the second period bell rang, the Flyers (15-12-4) heard high-pitched boos from the 2,882 fans present.
The expressed discontent was justified.
“We have a lot of confidence in our group,” said Claude Giroux after the game. “We still think we’re going to make it to the playoffs. We need to be a little more consistent in our game. It starts with me. You can’t play a good game and then a bad game and keep going. We need to put some games together here.”
The Devils (12-14-4) are 1-2-0 against the Flyers this season.
• With a press conference on Wednesday at 1 pm ET, general manager Chuck Fletcher will deliver his typical speech on the state of the team around the middle of the season.
It will not be a brilliant address.
In many important areas, the Flyers have regressed since last season, which saw the team win its first series of playoffs since 2012 and reach a game in the Eastern Conference final.
This is where the Flyers are in 31 games compared to the first 31 games of last season:
2019-20
- Record: 17-9-5 (39 points)
- Goals per game: 3.03
- Allowed goals per game: 2.68
- Power play: 17.9%
- Death penalty: 85.1%
- Shots per game: 32.5
- Shots allowed per game: 28.8
2020-21
- Record: 15-12-4 (34 points)
- Goals per game: 3.10
- Allowed goals per game: 3.52
- Power play: 19.1%
- Death penalty: 74.5%
- Shots per game: 28.4
- Shots allowed per game: 29.4
As worrying as that, the Flyers have also regressed over the course of the season. It would be one thing if they were starting to find their identity after a slow start.
That was not the case.
In March, the Flyers maintained the lead at halftime only four times. With thirteen games on their list of 17 games in March, the Flyers are 4-8-1 and yielded 57 goals (4.38 per game). They allowed 52 goals in their first 18 games in which they were 11-4-3 before the March slide.
After allowing 2.77 goals per game last season, tied for the seventh lowest number in the NHL, the Flyers are allowing 3.52 goals per game this season. Only senators are giving up more than 3.82.
“We know that we have not been good enough, we are very aware of that,” said Alain Vigneault before the game. “We know we need to improve. Our goal is to get to the playoffs first, this is our first goal and we are working on it. To work on this, we have to take care of business tonight and that is what we intend to do.”
The Flyers are not, and the head coach may be asking his GM for help as soon as the assessment heats up before the April 12 deadline.
It can be safely assumed that the Flyers will not be buying as a candidate for the Stanley Cup. Thirty-one games in the regular season of 56 games and the Flyers are still out of the playoffs in the busy East Division. Is it really worth risking a big sacrifice today to maybe make it into the postseason?
Fletcher will be proactive in seeking help, but Flyers must be judicious in what they are willing to give up.
• The Flyers scored a goal in the final minute of the first and second periods. Travis Zajac paid tribute from the second period to New Jersey, which sounded like boo birds.
“I think in general, as a five-man unit, we are not working as well as we did last year,” said Ivan Provorov. “We were playing a lot closer, a lot tighter, we were killing moves and we were able to recover the puck earlier and spend less time in our zone. Lately, we haven’t been playing the same way, so I think that’s why there were some collapses and many more goals. “
• Carter Hart arrived with good numbers in his young career against the Devils, but any record doesn’t seem to matter much with the Flyers now.
The 22-year-old made 28 saves in 32 shots. He can be better and the Flyers were porous in front of him. Have you heard this story before?
New Jersey goalkeeper Mackenzie Blackwood faced the Flyers for the first time this season. The 24-year-old entered 2-0-1 with an average of 1.63 goals conceded and 0.955 percentage of defenses in his career against the Flyers.
His impressive game against the Flyers continued with him converting 30 saves.
• The Flyers were left behind 2-1 in the first half. In March, they were defeated by 20-9 in the first period.
Difficult to win like that.
Michael McLeod gave New Jersey a 1-0 lead in the middle of the frame and Kyle Palmieri regained the advantage on a power play marker with six seconds to go. The wait at Travis Sanheim was highly questionable, but the Devils took advantage.
They were also the best team clearly defined to start the game when the Flyers declared ad nauseam that they need to build from a good performance.
With inconsistent starts, you can see why they allowed three or more goals in all but one game this month.
“It is my job to work with these players,” said Vigneault after the game. “They are good players, they care, they want to win. Obviously, we have a consistency problem at the moment and it is my job to find the right buttons to push – and that is what I will continue to do. Of course, I have not found out yet, but I’m going to keep working, I have no doubt that these guys were the best intentions, but it looked like we didn’t have much in the tank. “
• Joel Farabee scored his 14th goal in 30 games to put the Flyers on the board in the first period. His marker came in power play, which went from 1 to 3.
On the other side of the Flyers’ special team units, the penalty was 3 in 4. The Flyers committed four penalties before the half of the game.
• The Flyers are off on Wednesday and receive the Rangers on Thursday (19h ET / NBCSP).
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