At midseason point, Phantoms’ coach Ian Laperriere still figuring out his group

The first half of the month of January has been a pretty dramatically up and down one for the Phantoms. They\'ve seen a very successful road trip to kick off the month, a three game winning streak, and legitimately competitive showings, skating right with some of the top teams in their Conference. But then they\'ve also really struggled to build momentum from those highest of highs, and seen time and again where they let their play slip to alarming degrees, and followed strong streaks up with uninspiring losses to some of the worst teams in the East.

And if there’s been frustration mounting for fans watching these games, it’s been felt by magnitudes by their head coach. All of this came to a head last week in their loss to Belleville.

\"I didn\'t like anything about our game,\" Laperriere said after the game. \"I liked our first period, but that\'s it. We didn\'t deserve to win, and they know that, they\'re not stupid, I\'ve got a smart group there. We\'re lucky Cal had his A-game, that\'s the only guy I liked tonight. Other than that, we stopped competing, we stopped winning those one-on-one battles in the red zones, and if you play like that most of the night, you won\'t like the result. I\'ll take the two points, don\'t get me wrong here, but I warned them, to go from the first period the way we played -- and we played well, I thought -- to the last 40, that\'s unacceptable. And that\'s on me, I\'ll take the blame, I\'ll make sure they\'re more ready for the next game, because if we do that against Rochester, we won\'t like the outcome.\"

It was a concerning effort from the team, to be sure, in part for the fact that it\'s not one that can be blamed solely on having a young team that\'s still learning how to win -- from top to bottom, rookies and veterans alike, the effort, the attention to detail just wasn\'t there. And, what was worse for their coach, there didn\'t seem to be any pushback when they went down, and their compete just went out the window.

\"[Belleville] didn\'t do anything different,\" he went on, \"we did, we stopped working, stopped winning those one-on-one battles that we were in the first there. Is it because we\'re up 2-1 and we thought the game was gonna end like that, or because we\'re frustrated we didn\'t finish in the first with 15 shots on net? I don\'t know. I\'m still getting to know that group, but it\'s my job to make sure they come out harder in the second period. I\'ve got to find a different button to press because obviously the one tonight didn\'t work.\"

Now, credit to them, the Phantoms bounced back pretty nicely for their weekend home-and-home series against Rochester (who top the standings of the Atlantic division). Coming away with a win in a shootout in the Friday game, and then a loss -- albeit a competitive one -- in the Saturday matchup. It was a step in the right direction from the process standpoint, something their coach was encouraged to see, but the bigger question remains -- where do they go from here?

Because their track record on the season leaves us more easily with the feeling that, instead of being able to continually build on good games and areas of improved play, that it\'s only a matter of time before the shoe drops again. And that\'s exactly what happened last night against Springfield -- after a decent first period, the team stopped competing, lost the game by a 5-1 margin, and left Laperriere to echo the very same statements in his post-game availability.

\"We kept turning the puck over,\" he lamented \"kept taking stupid penalties, not winning our one-on-ones... that\'s what you\'re gonna get. You\'re gonna get spanked 5-1 and some nights, like you know, the last game against Rochester, we couldn\'t kill penalties but I thought our 5-on-5 play was good, [but] tonight, nothing. Gave up a shorthanded goal right from the get go because we force a play that wasn\'t there, brutal, [on the] 5-on-3. Coach Q used to say if you don\'t score 5-on-3, you don\'t deserve to win the game, and we didn\'t last night. And it\'s tough to start like that, that\'s our 10th power play goal that we gave up, it\'s unacceptable.\"

It\'s an almost eerily similar sentiment on the types of mistakes that the team made -- struggles in puck management, with mental lapses -- and it all amounted to the same takeaway from Laperriere, that once again, \"no one played well.\" And not only that, but when he was asked if he saw any pushback from his team when they fell behind, his answer was clear and damning, \"Zero. Zero. I won\'t come up here and lie to you... for me, it\'s unacceptable. Because right now, we\'re in a tough spot, we need to win games, and there\'s no pushback, [and] that worries me. Because I\'m like \'what did I do wrong this week, that I didn\'t prepare the team right?\' So I\'ll look back and try to be better and hopefully those guys will too.\"

The rollercoaster ride continued through the remainder of the weekend -- whatever message Laperriere conveyed to his group after Friday\'s loss took some effect, as the team came out with a more complete (though not wholly complete) effort on Saturday against Bridgeport and did enough to secure a big win, but then instead of taking a second step forward to continue to build momentum, they backslid again and fell to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton by a 5-1 margin, closing things out on an undeniably sour note.

Now, to pull back for a moment here, it\'s worth remembering that these aren\'t exactly dire times, at least not yet. The team is 7-5 through the month of January with one game left to go, and they\'re in an overall decent position in that, in a division where six of eight teams get into the playoffs, unless the wheels fall off for them in truly spectacular fashion, to even keep rolling with this inconsistency would be enough to carry them pretty easily into the playoffs where whatever happens will happen.

But, at the same time, something has to give here. Because if it\'s the same bad habits that the team is slipping into over and over again, and the same messaging from the coaching staff that it\'s unacceptable while nothing changes, the longer this goes on without change, the more it looks like all of this is, in fact, acceptable.

This team should be better than this. They\'ve battled some injuries and have had their roster depleted by callups to the NHL at times, sure, but the raw talent from top to bottom on this roster is more than we\'ve seen at just about any time in Laperriere\'s tenure as head coach, and what\'s beginning to feel like an increasing inability to build momentum game over game is just bad for bussiness. It\'s bad for a team that came into this season having every intention of working to replicate the success they found in the playoffs last spring, and it\'s bad for the development of these young prospects who are going to be critical for the Flyers\' rebuild. Wins matter, and while they can\'t come at the expense of a good underlying process, neither is coming together with real consistency for the Phantoms right now. They still have a lot of season left to go, a lot of time to start to figure things out again, but they have to find that tipping point soon.

Talking Points