Saturday night, the Philadelphia Flyers desperately needed a victory against a lowly Columbus Blue Jackets club in order to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Instead, they were embarrassed, losing by a score of 6-2 at Nationwide Arena and extending their losing streak to seven games — their longest skid of the season.
The Flyers have now lost to four non-playoff teams over their ongoing rough patch — the Montreal Canadiens (second-to-last in the conference), Chicago Blackhawks (second-to-last in the entire NHL), the Buffalo Sabres (12th in the conference) and now Columbus.
All six Columbus goals were scored by defensemen, and goaltender Jet Greaves, in his fifth NHL start, made 37 saves to earn his second career win.
The Flyers, despite logging 39 shots on goal, looked lost for much of the game as the offense continued to sputter — a much too familiar occurrence during the most important stretch of the season.
“At times, it just seemed we were a step behind. Not sure if that’s the back-to-back situation, but we had some chances,” Flyers head coach John Tortorella said after the game Saturday night. “I think to get aggressive and have energy, you need something good to happen offensively. You can make good defensive plays, block shots, it just doesn’t give you the same type of energy.
“We had some good looks. Have a four-minute power play, we have a few chances there, we don’t get anything done, and you just have to start over. It just knocks you down.”
Out of a playoff spot for the first time since early December, the Flyers’ struggles against some of the league’s bottom-dwellers have them in serious jeopardy of missing out on the postseason completely.
The Flyers’ goaltending situation is perhaps their most glaring concern. Sam Ersson, who’s played admirably for much of the season after being thrust into a starting role since Carter Hart was granted a leave of absence, has struggled mightily over the last month. And without a proper backup on the roster, the Flyers are leaning on rookie netminder Ivan Fedotov, who just arrived to North America in late March after a complicated exit from his home country of Russia.
As bad as the goaltending has been, though, the Flyers have also averaged just 2.14 goals per game during this seven-game slump — the second-lowest mark in the NHL dating back to March 24.
“We just have not been able to execute. We’re having problems scoring goals and goals are going in easy on us. Can’t worry about what just happened. We’ll try to learn from it,” said Tortorella.
While the Flyers’ offense has seemingly vanished over their seven-game skid, some players have found a way to at least help put the team in position to find the back of the net. Noah Cates has been one of the Flyers’ better play-driving forwards at even strength and is tied with Owen Tippett and Travis Sanheim for the team lead in 5-on-5 scoring since March 24. Meanwhile, Garnet Hathaway has quietly stepped up his play over the Flyers’ last seven outings, tying Travis Konecny for the team lead in assists at even strength and leading the club in 5-on-5 Corsi For percentage (64.67) over that span.
Elsewhere, though, there aren’t many silver linings. And until that changes, the Flyers’ playoff hopes will continue to fade.
“I don’t think a lot of people are playing their best hockey. I think there’s some guys that have found their way a little bit. Other guys are pressing,” said Tortorella.
“We can’t get discouraged. No one’s going to help us out of this. Being discouraged isn’t going to help it. We’ve just gotta try to stay positive, have a good practice day Monday, get on a flight and get back to work.”
The Flyers’ next opportunity to right the ship comes Tuesday night when they visit the Canadiens at Bell Centre.
Statistics courtesy of NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick.
