Flyers general manager and hockey operations president Chuck Fletcher held a state-of-the-team and injury update press conference on Tuesday at the FTC. Topics included the team's current six-game winless streak, troubling underlying numbers, scoring struggles at 5-on-5 and especially on the power play as well as the job security level at present for the coaching staff.

Fletcher's bottom line is that he doesn't feel the roster he planned over the summer has been sufficiently intact -- four games with Ryan Ellis in the lineup, two games with Kevin Hayes in the lineup, just one game where all among Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen and Hayes were in the lineup on the same night -- to assess. He said repeatedly that the team showed significant progress from last year over the first 10 games of this season and then has regressed in a variety of areas over the last 10.

Personally, my concern here is that the Flyers really can't afford to keep waiting on Ellis to make a healthy return to the lineup and then hoping he stays healthy the rest of the season. They also can't afford to hope the alarming scoring woes -- team-wide, and with multiple primary and secondary scoring sources mired in deep slumps with low-ebb self-confidence -- resolve on their own. As Jason Myretetus and I discussed on Tuesday's Flyers Daily podcast, it's not just results that have been lacking recently; the underlying process has been way off of late, too.

Fletcher did not deny what the root causes have been. But he also did not have any guidance to offer in terms of what contingency plans could be. However, he did say that the hope before the season was and still is -- that the older players brought in on one-year contracts would provide stopgap depth while young players (he specifically mentioned Morgan Frost and Cam York) would hopefully hit a groove in the AHL with the Phantoms and then take on contributing NHL roles over the latter half of the season if all went well.

Right now, though, the team's large-scale struggles after a good first week of November plus the relentless wave of injuries have already put the entire season at a dangerous crossroads. A magical and immediate turnaround without pieces being added, quite frankly, does not seem likely.

Fletcher did say that he thinks some structural adjustments need to be made, and have been discussed. I have a hunch (no more, no less) of what that could mean -- basically going with a 1-2-2 to try to staunch the recent bleeding at 5-on-5. I don't know what the plan is to right the ship on the power play.

Following is a transcript of Fletcher's press conference, courtesy of the Flyers' Allie Samuelsson.

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Can you first give us injury updates and when you expect like Brassard and Hayes to play? Will they be available for Wednesday?

Well, we’re hopeful on Kevin. I haven't spoken to him. He's still on the ice. We'll see how he feels. He really wants to play. He's made tremendous progress the last week. He told me yesterday this is the best he's felt in over a year. It's real positive. We're hopeful for tomorrow, but we'll see probably how he feels tomorrow morning.

Not Derek Brassard?

Derek's got a bit of a hip issue. He skated for a bit today and felt some tweaking in his lower body. I think we got a little bit of time here after tomorrow. We don't play until Sunday. Hopefully, he's day to day and not week to week, but he's not quite ready.

Any specifics on Ryan Ellis? You said week to week. Is it like three weeks, four weeks? Do you have any update on that? And also Wade Allison?

With Ellis, he's made good progress. He's undergone some treatment about a week ago that requires him to kind of lay low for about a week. He's going to resume his rehab tomorrow. He feels good. Feels like he's making progress. In terms of return to play, we'll see how he feels tomorrow and in the next few days after rehab. We’re still week to week. I can't imagine he’d play next week, but again, he's making progress. He's been battling this that Washington game in preseason.

With Wade Allison, Wade is skating, skating hard. I think it’s a possibility he'll play this weekend in Lehigh Valley, but we'll see. Again, it's a tough injury. Made a lot of progress. Skating hard, pushing it, and we'll just continue to see how his ankle responds.

Nate Thompson is undergoing surgery today at the Steadman Clinic, Dr. Millett. He’ll miss a significant amount of time. I'll wait until Jimmy speaks to the surgeon to see the exact prognosis, but clearly, he'll be out of substantial amount of time.

Patrick Brown, I think he’ll see the hand specialist tomorrow. All going well, he'll be able to resume skating. The question for him, obviously, it'll be the ability to hold the stick, pain a little bit, ability to shoot and pass and all that. Hopefully he can play sometime next week. I don't know that he's a candidate for Sunday or Monday. We play five in seven. Hopefully there's a possibility he can get back next week. That'll be more comfort, ability, again, to hold the stick and things like that. Everything's healing great, just may need a little bit more time.

20 games into the season, is it getting difficult to stay patient with all the injuries? Or is it maybe a little easier to stay patient knowing you guys get players back?

Look, we're not where we want to be the last 10 games, the last six in particular. We haven't won. 2-6-2 in the last 10. There are parts of our game that have really taken a step backwards from the first 10. To me, those are two separate issues. There's no question if Kevin Hayes can play tomorrow, he makes our team better. When Brassard gets back and Ellis gets back, they make our team better. Having said that, we need to play better with what we have, too. Everybody deals with injuries and illness, so we need to get better. I look at the first 10 games, we were 6-2-2. Goaltending was great. PK was good. Power play was 14th in the league, I think 21%. We weren't perfect. We didn't have the puck enough for me. We're chasing a little bit that way, but we were defending well. Everything we talked about this summer, goaltending, defending, PK, competing, having the puck a little bit more. We were making progress in all those areas. The last ten, we slipped back. There's no question. Now the onus is on our group to get it back. When injured players come back, it makes it easier. We can't kid ourselves. We have to get better.

This offseason, you took an aggressive approach. Making it obvious, you wanted to believe this team could win now. Will that aggressiveness extend into the season in terms of making changes, whether it be trades, personnel coaching or what not?

I'd really like to see what we have before we start making changes. I don't feel I've been able to see that to this point in time. We're always looking. I'm talking to teams every day. If there's ways to make us better, we'll look at it. Right now, if you just look at how we played the first 10 games versus the last 10 games, clearly, one segment was way better than the other. We've shown the ability to play better than how we are right now. That's the most important thing. We got to get back and get playing better. Then from there, we'll get a sense of what we really are and then we can make those decisions.

You mentioned that you're kind of splitting it between the first 10 games and the last 10 games. Even in the first 10 games, you have the shots on goal, differentials, things like that. They weren't that great. You said you guys didn't have a puck enough. How concerned are you about the five-on-five process in particular in terms of getting outshot, getting out chance and whatnot?

There's no question that has to get better. It starts with our transition game and our entries. Our forecheck hasn't been as effective, particularly the last 10 games. When you don't have the puck, you end up defending too much. When you defend too much, you don’t defend as well. It's a process there. The coaches and the players are working on it. We're working on some systemic things to change how we play a little bit. Changing the lines around to try to find different chemistry. Look, it's a process, but the first 10 to me was still quite a bit better than the last 10. There is no question. The last 10, things have slipped. We didn't have the puck nearly enough. We didn't defend quite as well as a result probably of having to defend all the time. There's certainly an ability to get better and the first 10, I think we showed a lot of promising signs.

In regard to Morgan Frost, when Brassard and Hayes are back, do you think Morgan is better suited as a fourth line center here, or getting more playing time with the Phantoms?

That'll depend. You can add a couple guys back but does anybody else can hurt in the interim? A key question for me is our health, A, but, also B, what's best for Morgan. He's played well right now. One thing I liked about Morgan earlier this year in Lehigh Valley, he started a little slow, but the points came. His penalty killing was tremendous. There are parts of his game that he's sort of added to his game in terms of defending a little bit, winning a few more one-on-one battles, but the PK is a big part of it. We're going to see have to see how the coaches use him here and see what his ice time is like. To me, going down is certainly an option if that's the best thing for him.

If he can help our team and continue to get the minutes he needs, then I'm all for keeping him here. It'll be a day-to-day thing. With Brassard out and Brassard not playing tomorrow, he's going to get a chance it looks like to center a couple of good players tomorrow. That's a great opportunity for him. You look at that and adding a Kevin Hayes and how we can now distribute the talent a little bit differently through our roster. Hopefully help some of our scoring woes by having a little bit more scoring depth. Kevin will be a big part of that, but so is Morgan Frost.


On a different topic, how do you evaluate the job of AV and the coaches so far?

Well, I think it's just like the rest of our team. Again, we talked about this summer; a lot of the things we wanted to correct was how we defended in-zone, defending against rush, giving up fewer odd man rushes, our PK, our overall goals against and goaltending. All of those areas were better in the first 10. We're still defending pretty well against the rush, I guess with the exception of last game. We haven't given up as many odd man rushes as last year. PK has been better. Goaltending has obviously been good. There's still been some areas of improvement, but the last 10 we slipped in a lot of areas.

I think it's coaching, players, all of us. We are all in this together. We have to continue to push. On the one point here that I think is pretty obvious too, it can go both ways. I think the last 10 games, we played seven Top 10 teams. This is the toughest part of our schedule. On the one hand, clearly, we have some work to do if you want to compete with the top teams in the league. On the other hand, this is the toughest stretch we're going through and when you go through the end of next week in terms of compression of the schedule and the quality of the teams we're playing. It's tough and we're not playing well right now. It makes it a double-edged sword.

I'd like to get some guys back here. Let's get through the next little stretch. Let's try to win a game and let's see what we have. In saying that, the coaches were here all day yesterday. Players had a spirited practice today as you saw. The mood on the ice is still great. The guys still believe we can win, but it's on us now to find a way to win a game starting tomorrow.

Have you had a chance to address the team sort of like a pep talk or do you feel like that's not necessary?

I don’t know about pep talks, but certainly I'm meeting with a lot of players individually. The coaches are meeting with a lot of players. Right now, there's a lot of frustration. I think when you're not scoring, I think we scored 11 five-on-five goals in the last 10 games, some guys are pressing. They're struggling.

Often times when your power play struggles, it builds frustration in the game, and it can creep into other areas. Skill guys want to score. Look at a guy like Coots, I think he's scored one goal in the last 10 games. To me, he’s had all kinds of chances that are not going in. On the one hand, it's not good enough, but on the other hand, you’ve got to be careful. These guys, they're going through a tough time. They're trying. They want to score. They want to do better. They want to have the puck more, but clearly, right now the confidence is down a bit. That's why it was great to see the energy in the practice today.

I'm sure Kevin Hayes being out there was a big part of it. It's good to see that energy and that belief. There's no easy way out. We just got to go out find a way to win a game and hopefully, the confidence comes. The goals come and we can start getting back to where we want to be.


Chuck, you mentioned a little bit earlier about the power play. Power play is 28th this year. 3 for 40 in November. 18th last year. What gives you confidence that Michel Therrien and rest the coaching staff have the answers to fix this power play?

It's interesting. We haven't had a good power play since ’14-‘15. That’s the last time. I think it's six years, seven years. We've had a couple of 14th place finishes, 17th, 18th and 24th. We were 14th in the first 10 games. We were 29th in the last 10 games. Power play since I've been here has been an everyday question and clearly going back to ’14-’15, it has been an everyday question here. It's something personally, I think that way too much blame or even credit gets attached to the power play coach. I think there's certainly things we can do. When I look at our power play right now, the biggest thing to me is just our entries. We're really having a hard time entering. I think in-zone, we need to shoot the puck more.

There are certain things we need to do, but when you can't enter and successfully set up, you can't shoot the puck because you're not in there. We're spending a lot of our power play going back retrieving pucks and coming down. The biggest thing to me that we have to fix right now, coaching is a part of it. A lot of it is execution and mindset. We have to find a way to enter the zone more successfully. That's clearly something that's dropped off for me the last year or two. In-zone, there's up and down. I don't think we're getting enough shots, but yet the first 10 to me, there were signs of good things happening. In the last 10, nothing's happening.

We've got to get it going. Again, it's been an issue since I've been here every day, the power play. We talk about it internally. You guys ask about it. It's spent seven years, so it's something that probably goes above and beyond the coaching.

Just to clarify, it seems like you're implying you think power play is more of a personnel problem than a coaching problem.

I think absolutely. I think you could say that's the crux of it.

Obviously, it's hard to make trades. It's hard to make signings, but would you potentially look to target someone from outside the organization who could help that personnel problem with the power play?

Well, we can. It's not easy to find. There’s no question the most successful power plays in the league are teams that shoot the puck well from the flank. We don't have a lot of natural scorers from that area nor have we for a long time. It's certainly something we've looked to try to address in the draft the last few years going forward. Having said that, there's things you can do to make it better.

There’s no question you look at the elite power plays in this league, and there's one common theme in all of them. That's an area. We have some really good talented players, but I don't know that we have a lot of players that are natural goal scorers from the flank. A lot of teams don't. Some teams do and the teams that do obviously have very good power plays.

Carter Hart has turned his game around this year. What's the biggest difference you see in him? Is it something that you see in body language and a more confident player or something else?

Now, that's a hard question for me to answer. Clearly, last year he didn't play as well as he had in the past, like the rest of our team. We've been through it. Different circumstances I think impacted people differently. His track record to me showed that he's been a good goaltender at every level for most of his life.

Last year, he didn't play as well. He worked hard at it this summer. I think he had a plan. He and Kim Dillabaugh and this goalie coach back in Edmonton got together, they had a great plan. Carter has always worked hard. He put the time in, and he's played well. Personally, my expectation was that he was going to bounce back. He's playing as one of the better goaltenders in the league right now and that's great for us. It's a tough position, but he's a guy that we have a lot of faith in. You got to give him credit for the work he put in.

We've got a long way to go. We'll see. Going forward here, we're going to have to try to play better in front of him and have the puck a little bit more often because we're putting a lot of pressure on our goaltenders right now.

How much did the COVID situation affect the Phantoms? And is that getting back to normal up there?

The COVID issue, we've had one player in COVID protocol (Cam York) there to my knowledge unless something happened today. I will say this, I feel bad for Lappy. I think his team's just been absolutely decimated by injuries. We've had a couple up here like every team. They've been decimated, just decimated. I think six of their top eight or nine forwards have been out. It's been a tough road for him and for those players; kids like Tyson Forster, Laczynski, Allison, Ryan Fitzgerald. You can go on and on. Linus Sandin. Good hockey players that are all pushing and hoping to be here this year at some point. They've all had massive setbacks with injuries.

It’s been a real disappointing start of the year for them. COVID, I'd want to be careful to say here, just seems like it's everywhere right now again. But to my knowledge, we only have one player in the COVID protocols right now down there. We'll hope to do the best we can to keep that the case.

You've talked a lot today about the idea of kind of wanting to see the team as a whole before changes are made. The idea of getting guys like Kevin Hayes back and maybe Ryan Ellis. Is there a point though if things keep spiraling this direction that you would consider a coaching change in some regard? Or is that not in the cards?

The way I've always operated is you look at our group, and again, I broken it down into 10 game segments because I got the last 10 game segment this morning. I've been looking at it all morning, compared to the last one. The way we played the first 10 games, obviously, shot share, having the puck more often. There was clearly some areas we need to work on.

I do think that a player like Ryan Ellis, one player shouldn't be enough to sink our team, but Ryan Ellis is an elite puck mover. He’s elite in transition. He would allow us to put everybody in the right chair. I do think there's ways where that part of the game can get better. I saw enough from the first 10 games to know that we can be a good team. A good team in a tough division that has a lot of work to do. The last 10, we haven't played nearly as well. We have to improve internally. There's a lot of areas we have to get better in. We're working hard at it.

This is a week that is a critical week for our team. We have a very tough game tomorrow, but we get a couple of days off and we get three practice days. We get all kinds of time for video, and all kinds of time for guys to rest. We get a chance to integrate Hayes and possibly Brassard during this time. To me, this is a massive week to get our house in order and to push back because it's five and seven next week. The games are coming fast and furious and we're going to have to be a lot better. Clearly, we have to get better, and we have to start winning games. That’s just where our focus is.

You've got Cam York down in Lehigh. Is he an option that you could bring up? Is he an option that you could maybe look to an offensive guy, a power play guy?

Well, he's out right now, (with Covid), unfortunately. I think he'll be able to start skating by the weekend, I believe if all is going well. We'll have to see where he is, coming back from that. He's a guy that I'm not sure if he's lost weight or where's conditioning is at. Going into this year, I think I mentioned this earlier, the whole idea behind this was, at that point, we knew as Laczynski was out and we didn't know about Allison.

The whole idea was, let's go sign a Brassard, a Yandle and sign a Thompson. Sign these older players on one-year deals to give us some experience, to give us our coaches some versatility, but more importantly, to give us some depth. If our young players aren't ready or if we want to give them more time, we can. Then by the second half of the year if the young guys are ready, that's great. Now we got these young guys that are ready to play. Not just wear a jersey, but they're ready to step in and play.

Cam is exactly that. We wanted to protect our team. Make sure we had the experience. Make sure we had the depth, but also given these young guys an opportunity to play a lot and get their games to a higher level. When we did bring them up, they were confident. There was a little hesitation in from my end, bringing up Morgan Frost last week because he was really starting to go, and I kept thinking another two or three weeks would be great.

You get to a point; you have to reward the right player. We want to get Cam to that same point, but he had a little bit of a setback in terms of the health. We're hopeful that he'll bounce back quickly. Clearly, he's a guy in the future. Coming through the ranks, he's been great retrieving pucks, great in transition, and a guy that's been able to play on the powerplay. All of those areas are areas that we need help in. We anticipate he’ll be a big part of why we get better in those areas going forward.

Players put pressure on themselves for whatever reason. Do you put pressure on yourself when you see that things aren't going quite the way the way that they should?

Of course. As I've said, I'm responsible. Talk about head coaches, power play coaches and players and 'm the one ultimately responsible for everything. You feel responsible for everything, and you want to look for solutions. I do know right now; I truly believe our best hope for a quick turnaround is by internal improvement, by getting some guys back but also by having our guys that are here play better. I like the look of our lines today.

It's no secret a big part of our offensive woes is a lack of production in our bottom six. You had Kevin Hayes. I don't know what you call our third line. If our third line is Giroux, Frost and Atkinson, that’s a good third line. It’s giving us a chance to maybe produce a little bit more, be a little bit harder team to check. I think we have ways here to get better quickly.

We're going to have to because it's difficult to go to the outside and keep looking for help from the outside. We got to look to the inside. We have good enough players. We’re a good enough team and that's where our focus is.

Getting back to the Phantoms, Wisdom and Foerster. Do you think they'll play again this year? Are they done for the season?

Well, Wisdom’s only eligible to play in Kingston. He's not eligible to play in the American League. When he gets healthy, he's back skating with his club in Kingston. He's doing incredible. Believe me, he wants to play yesterday. He's doing great skating every day. The surgeon I believe would like him to wait at least one more week to play so he satisfies the timeframe that he wanted. He’s going to play in Kingston. I don't know if that'll give him enough time to be on Team Canada's radar for the World Juniors. The fact he hasn't played, but he's ready to rock and roll. He's excited and we're excited to see him play in the next week.


And Foerster?

Foerster’s got a long road ahead of him here.


Did he have surgery?

Yes, he did. I'm not sure the exact timeframe but it's months. I think the hope would be we can get him back healthy and get him some games before the end of the year. It's a terrible fluky play. He dove. It was a five-on-three power play. We had the power play. The puck was leaving the zone and he dove to try to keep the puck in. The shoulder dislocated, so it was just terrible. Terrible luck and a tough break for the kid. Long term, the shoulder should be stronger than ever. Obviously going to your point earlier, he's a big part of what we hope to have here in the future in terms of that ability to shoot the puck in the net.


For a portion of the fanbase that may be frustrated or maybe growing impatient after last season, what would your message to the fans about sticking with this team?

We are what we are right now. We got to get better. We recognize that. Nobody recognizes it more than we do. The coaches were here all day yesterday, looking at the power play and looking at how we can have the puck more often, our entries, our forecheck. We're looking at everything every day or line combinations, practice, load management, everything. We're looking at everything every day. I saw the energy in the group today and that's what still gives me hope.

I've been doing this for 30 years. You can see when players are frustrated and lack confidence and you can see when players don't believe. There's a big difference. We still believe. We got a lot of work to do and that's our mindset is at.

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