The Flyers crossed the midway point of their first home stand of the year last night, and if there’s one thing that’s for certain, it didn’t go the way they would have wanted. Coming off of two close losses to the Maple Leafs in their home-and-home series, the Flyers came into last night’s game against the Stars looking to build on their good work and get themselves back on track, and hopefully get themselves back in the win column. Instead, they came out and played one of their most disjointed, one of their most lifeless, games of the season.
And in the face of all of this, John Tortorella didn’t pull any punches, “We played shitty.”
This is about as succinct of an assessment of the game as you could find, and it’s definitely not wrong. The Flyers were struggling to connect on routine passes to set up chances in the offensive zone, they were making low percentage, dangerous passes and that was leading time and again to ugly turnovers. And against a team with a transition game as solid as the Stars’, against a team that’s so efficient in making you pay for mistakes just like that, that’s just giving away too many great chances for free.
Now, this would certainly be an easy game to come away from narrativizing. Fatigue is catching up to them. Frustration is setting in after a long enough time of the results not coming for them. This team found a way to disappoint in their Ed Snider legacy night and are an embarrassment to the franchise. The list could go on and on, and become more unhinged as we go. But whatever the narrative leveled is, Tortorella isn’t buying that either.
“I don’t think it was frustration,” he said when asked specifically about this angle, “I thought the room was good, we had good meetings. I don’t think it was that. I just think it’s a game that we just didn’t play well. And we get scored on right away, a team that can lock you down. Give them credit, they’re a good hockey club. But I don’t think it’s frustration, and throughout the game and in between periods, it’s something we talked about. We’ve got to dig ourselves out of this ourselves and we have to do it not being frustrated and pointing fingers, whatever it may be, is just try to get back to playing within our concept. It’s what we have to do. We have to have practice tomorrow, and get ready to play our next game, try to wipe this one clean. Because we haven’t got the results, but we have played some really good hockey. Tonight, we sucked.”
Last night might have been something of an anomaly, with the Flyers straying far from their standard of play and making just huge mistakes that you normally won’t catch them making, and that’s the type of game that defies logic and explaining, in some ways. “I wish I could have a thought and answer for you when you play a game like this,” Tortorella went on, “but I don’t and I’m not going to pretend to give you one. We weren’t good for whatever reason, I have no idea. I know structurally — and [these are] some of the things we’ll talk about — but as far as the mental part, I have no idea. We’re going to push it aside and have a good practice tomorrow and play Anaheim.”
In some ways, this is just what this team is. They’re certainly not as bad as what they showed last night, to be sure, but not yet good enough to avoid backsliding in major ways, to avoid continually killing their own momentum. But the beauty of a long season is that their are opportunities aplenty to rebound properly and learn some lessons. As Tortorella said, their focus now is shifting to today’s practice, and what they can control as they head into tomorrow’s matchup with the Ducks. The next test still lies ahead.