The Flyers took yesterday off after staggering through a 2-4-1 record during their stretch of seven games in 10 days, which ended with Sunday night's 4-3 loss in Detroit. The team will reconvene in Voorhees today and start getting ready for a lighter week that will see them play the Sabres on Thursday and the Penguins on Saturday afternoon.
One of main orders of business this week and moving forward will be to try to improve the power play. For all the talk about how much the Flyers need a crease-clearing defenseman -- truly effective ones are few and far between in today's NHL -- I think the forwards on the PK have played just as big of a role in the recent penalty killing meltdowns, and the goalies (Sergei Bobrovsky in each of the last three games) haven't come up with a few makeable saves or else left out preventable rebounds.
In other words, it's not one single thing that has been hurting the club's penalty kill or causing backbreaking even strength goals. If it was, the situation would be more easily corrected. The execution needs to get better all the way around. That's not to say the club could not use some personnel upgrades in certain areas.
The third period got away from them in both games over the weekend. The team is clearly giving up way too many goals, especially in their afternoon games where the Flyers routinely yield five-plus goals.
On the flip side, if they had been able to play stronger third periods in each of the last two games, we would probably have been looking at the team gaining at least gotten two or three points out of the weekend. It's not as if the Rangers and Red Wings controlled every aspect or all three periods of the two games. There are some bright spots the club can build from.
One such bright spot has been the play of rookie forward Brayden Schenn. Now that he's healthy and has gained some offensive confidence, Schenn has racked up 8 goals and 11 points since the Winter Classic. Likewise, Wayne Simmonds has stepped up to tally 8 goals over that span. Only Scott Hartnell (9) has scored more since the calendar flipped to 2012.
However, as Kimmo Timonen noted after the Rangers game, the team needs to get everyone contributing. Over the second half of the season and especially in the playoffs, the most successful teams are the ones that have a variety of different heroes stepping up both offensively and defensively.
That hasn't been the case for the Flyers in weeks. With the exception of the Nashville and (to a lesser extent) the Toronto games, the team has not been able to get strong games from multiple forward lines and defense pairings on the same night.
The team needs veterans such as Jaromir Jagr and Danny Briere to get going again up front, and for the defensive quartet of Timonen, Braydon Coburn, Matt Carle and Andrej Meszaros to collectively step up the way it did in December. If they don't, it won't matter in the slightest what trade(s) the team makes at the deadline.
The two rookies who competed in the Skills Competition over the NHL's All-Star Weekend have also scuffled a bit since the break. Read has been unable to finish potential momentum-changing scoring chances in the last couple weeks. He has two points (1G, 1A) in the eight games since returning from All-Star Weekend.
Couturier was in a nice groove prior to the break but has struggled pretty much in every area since the All-Star break. The 19-year-old has been part of the PK struggle, posted just one point and been placed back on the fourth line and has been on the ice for several opposition even-strength goals since the ASB.
No matter how you slice it, the Flyers have a lot of work to do this week. No trade is going to magically fix this team. The answers have to start coming from within.
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It is no surprise that Zac Rinaldo got a two-game suspension for the charging penalty in the Detroit game. First of all, whenever the NHL announces a formal hearing for a player, a suspension always follows. Secondly, Rinaldo just drew double fines for two plays in the New Jersey game last week, and you knew the league wasn't going to cut him a break on another review.
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