It feels a bit strange to have a Saturday without a Flyers game. Excluding the All-Star Game weekend, the Winter Classic Alumni Game on New Years Eve day and Christmas Eve, the Flyers have been in action on every Saturday but one (Nov. 12) this season. Two of the aforementioned open dates for the team were league-wide off-days.
The Flyers took a total off-day yesterday, with no practice at the SkateZone. They will have a normal practice today before departing for tomorrow night's game in Washington. The Capitals are in danger of missing the playoffs unless they get their act together, and they lost ugly (5-0) to the Devils last night.
Philadelphia desperately needs to put its run of slow starts behind them and score the first goal of the game tomorrow night. It has grown tiresome to have to keep trotting out -- and adding to -- this statistic: The Flyers enter tomorrow's game having given up the game's first goal in nine straight matches and in 12 of the last 13, and has only established a lead within the first 10 minutes of a game once in in their last 36 games.
Perceptions can change in a hurry in hockey, especially this time of year. If the Flyers win tomorrow, they will have won three of four games (and back-to-back games for the first time since Jan. 10 and 12). A few more consecutive good games of goaltending from Ilya Bryzgalov, and all the of the sudden, the people will be saying the team is back on the right track.
In reality, things this time of year are very much game-to-game. They have to be, when the schedule is so tightly packed, every point is hard to come by and the vast majority of games are played against teams that likely to make the playoffs or which are clawing for the eighth and final playoff berth. Crunch time is upon is.
Here's a look at what awaits the Flyers starting tomorrow:
* 15 games over the remainder of the month
* No more back-to-back idle nights until March 27-28
* 13 games against playoffs teams or clubs currently within 5 points of a playoff spot
* A game against the Red Wings on Tuesday (Mark Howe jersey retirement night)
* A home-and-home set with the Devils
* A 3-in-4/ 4-in-6 scenario with the middle two games being Saturday and Sunday afternoon games against the Bruins (road) and Penguins (home).
* Concluding the month with the start of another 3-in-4/ 4-in-6 set, including back-to-back weekend games against Ottawa (home matinee) and Pittsburgh (road) and then ending with the final game of the season series against the Rangers (road).
Of course, the Flyers are in the same boat as every other NHL team. The stretch drive is a haul for everyone, and that's why the game-to-game outlook is the only way not to get overwhelmed by the heavy lifting a team needs to do before it even gets to the war of attrition that is the Stanley Cup playoffs.
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I have lost count of the number of people who have messaged me here, on Twitter or by email over the last few weeks with the same question: What is wrong with Danny Briere?
There is no simple explanation for why Briere is having the weakest season of his Flyers career and has been mired in a drought that has seen him go without a goal in the last 18 games. Over his last 24 games, he has 3 goals (all of which came in a single game against Ottawa) and just 4 goals in the last 27 games.
Briere is the NHL's leading playoff goal scorer since the 2004-05 lockout. But the playoffs alone are not an elixir. I do not think for one second that Briere is trying to "hold back for the playoffs."
Rather, his confidence is down right now, and he's been inconsistent in getting to scoring areas. A classic Briere goal is for him to hide out from the traffic (often behind the net or near the circle) and then materialize in the slot or near the post to claim the puck and jam the puck home. There really haven't been many scoring chances like that for Danny in the last few months.
Part of the issue, in my opinion, has been the revolving door of linemates that Briere has had on the second line this season. Previously, he had a year-plus of stability with Scott Hartnell and Ville Leino as his semi-permanent linemates. With Leino now in Buffalo (and even more lost without Briere than Danny has been without him) and Hartnell a fixture now on Claude Giroux's line, Briere has struggled to find chemistry with most everyone who has been tried on his line.
Thinking about the dynamic of the Hartnell-Briere-Leino line, there was one bang-and-crash winger (Hartnell) and another one (Leino) who loved to carry the puck and hold onto it until finding an open teammate or shooting the puck looking for a rebound. While one would think that someone such as Wayne Simmonds could take over the Hartnell role and Jakub Voracek could be a bigger and stronger version of Leino, neither player has really clicked with Briere in the same way his previous linemates did.
Likewise, Brayden Schenn and James van Riemsdyk only showed flashes of chemistry with Briere (injuries to all three players probably played a part in that). Jaromir Jagr seems to work better with Briere at 4-on-4 than they did in their brief time together as 5-on-4 linemates. Neither Matt Read nor Max Talbot have done much on the Briere line, either.
From the sheer number of names mentioned, it looks as if constant tinkering has been part of the problem in his line. Whereas the Claude Giroux unit with Hartnell and Jagr has been together virtually the entire season (minus Jagr's brief sojourn with Briere during the first two games of the recent western road trip), no one but Simmonds has stayed with Briere for an extended period of time this season. Instant chemistry is rare -- more commonly, it takes time for a line to click.
Beyond this, however, I strongly suspect that Briere has had physical problems this season that he has not talked about publicly, but which have severely hampered his effectiveness.
He's had a couple of upper-body issues, a "bruised hand" (which certainly looked more like a broken index finger from a slash), plus a concussion. Those are just the ones that have been reported by the team.
I think the same thing is going on with Kimmo Timonen. He is clearly banged up and has looked worn down since the All-Star break. That happened to him last year as well. Peter Laviolette has been severely scaling back Timonen's ice time in recent games -- the acquisitions of Nicklas Grossman and Pavel Kubina have been a big help in that regard -- but Timonen still needs to be the club's best defenseman.
If the Flyers are to navigate the stretch run and go anywhere in the playoffs, both Briere and Timonen will need to work through whatever their physical issues are and elevate their games again. With each passing game and week, the team needs more and more for the two veterans to recover their games.
There were some signs of Briere coming around during the recent road trip. He was more involved in the play around the net, and was creating a few opportunities for himself and for linemates. It's a start.
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