The Philadelphia Flyers limped out of the gate to face the Boston Bruins and almost immediately after they stepped onto the ice, they lost Thursday night’s matchup. This massive blunder has now caused some leaders on the team to speak out about their frustration at how the team is really sliding down the standings.
After the 6-3 loss to the Bruins, Flyers winger Travis Konecny spoke with the media and appeared extremely dejected. It’s not good practice to really dive into a player’s body language while speaking with reporters, since that feels like something a little too far-fetched on most days. But, to see one of the top players on this team look like someone just ran over his dog and then backed up to make sure they got his cat as well, is just another sign of how the Flyers’ last few weeks have gone.
Travis Konecny voices annoyance at Flyers’ embarrassing losses
Even after his last 48 hours have included four goals and five points in two games, Konecny was disheartened by the two substantial losses for the Flyers as they continue their skid.
“I mean, it’s frustrating because I’ve been through this so many times. I just want to make the playoffs. That’s kind of all I look at right now,” Konecny said. “Just try to get points for the team. We need to figure something out.”
The Flyers winger was then asked if there are any silver linings he could take from the performance in Boston. There were a bunch of shots thrown at the net, lots of physicality shown on the second half of a back-to-back as they head into the weekend.
“Yeah, I mean, try to take the positives whenever you can. I think I’m going to look in the mirror and I think it starts — you know, me and Dvorak, we’ve been playing good. We’ve been scoring goals but we’re also giving up too. If you ask me or him, you know, if we can limit those, then that would really help the team. I bet all the leaders would say the same thing — it starts at the top, we have to figure it out and get ready to play on Saturday.”
Konecny then stressed that there were players in the Flyers locker room who did speak to the team after the game and that all the leaders agree that it truly starts with them, at the top.
Twenty-four hours before the Flyers lost in Boston, it was an underwhelming 5-3 defeat to the Blue Jackets in Columbus. And then one step further back, the Flyers hosted the New York Islanders and didn’t even get to score one single goal as they suffered a 4-0 loss that really starting the downwards swing. If they ended up getting two points against the Islanders, it would’ve put them back in playoff contention and closer to the spot that they held in the standings for almost the entire season up to this point. But the egg was laid in a shutout loss.
And all of this comes after they had a surprisingly great road trip out west featuring wins over some of the NHL’s best teams in the Golden Knights and Avalanche. Despite that being just over a week ago, it might as well be trying to recall games from 1987 with the way that the Flyers played in these three consecutive losses.
As Konecny said, it really feels more up to the players than anything. Flyers general manager Danny Briere has already said that they’re not going to trade for short-term fixes and there’s no incoming top prospect to rescue the team midseason. Unless they decide to pull the trigger on the extremely rare midseason “hockey trade” as they move one of their several wingers for some help elsewhere that really puts the team on a better path — the path really feels like they’re just going to keep the status quo and see how it goes.
It is going to be an interesting next few games for the Flyers. In the three matchups they have before the Olympic break next month, they’re hosting the Los Angeles Kings, Washington Capitals, and Ottawa Senators at the Xfinity Mobile Arena. All three teams are lower in the standings and performing worse than they originally expected at the start of the season — all three games are going to be collisions between two teams who want to crawl on top of each other and potentially rescue what little they have left of their seasons.
We’ll just see if Konecny and his fellow Flyers veterans have enough left to go on their break with some dignity remaining.
