Tuesday night’s 4-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators was shocking.

When Flyers goaltender Anthony Stolarz lost track of the puck on what turned out to be Ottawa’s second goal, there was a small shock. The third goal went in and the life was sucked out of a somewhat raucous – though sparse – Wells Fargo Center crowd. The final goal went in and the loud groans and smashing of the delete keys in press row were deafening. The shock that set in when the final horn sounded was compounded in the locker room.

Jordan Weal sat at his locker staring through the press corps with a mix of frustration, anger, and exasperation on his face. Travis Konecny was just pissed. Guys exited the room with an indescribable disgust, a far cry from the excitement and jubilation seen after the Flyers went up 3-1 in the second period. The team was shellshocked and their postgame remarks echoed the same sentiment: we don’t know how this happened again.

While plenty of media members got sucked into the post-Hextall narrative, there was something much more telling that came after Tuesday’s loss. It reaffirmed what I’ve thought for much of the season: the Flyers’ locker room is fractured. 

I’ve often wondered aloud in my discussions with Anthony during games whether or not the young nucleus of the team is listening to the veteran core. Not hearing what’s being said, but actually listening to the message and working to implement it. Throughout this season, there have been moments where young players on the team make the same mistake time and time again. Are they not coachable? Is the coach’s message – and by extent the veteran core of Giroux, Voracek, and Simmonds – not getting through? Perhaps they’ve tuned out the core. So much has been made of the team’s propensity for getting in their own heads, with coach Dave Hakstol having previously mentioned the team’s need to focus on the ice and less on the other side of the glass.

Tuesday night’s postgame availability marked a more pointed shot back at the young players on the team. It came from a member of the team’s core – a core who some fans consider to be a disappointing one to say the least: Jake Voracek. When asked what happened in the final ten minutes of the game, he responded, “As soon as they got that second goal we kind of got scared. You can’t do that. Every single team is going to jump on it and gain the momentum and that’s what they did. It’s only a one goal game and we’ve been in that situation so many times, I still don’t know what happened. I can’t believe we lost that game.”

Hearing a senior member of this team mention the word “scared” to describe the on-ice play was something I pursued further:

Crossing Broad: When you say that the team played scared, got a little bit scared after the second goal, is that lack of focus? Or is that just getting in your own heads as a team collectively?

Voracek: I don’t think it’s lack of focus. I think it’s just the way things are going right now. Everything we touch… it just… doesn’t work. Like I said, nobody gives a… damn of the position we are in. Every single guy in the locker room has to find a way to go out there, no matter what the score is, no matter what time it is during the game, we have to find a way to contribute. It feels like we got scared. We started slamming pucks across the ice instead of just holding it and making a hard play. We were just whacking on it, it’s not a good thing.

He was then asked about whether or not the mistakes being made are those of a young team:

Voracek: I think it’s mistakes by a team that doesn’t have confidence, which we don’t have right now, and there’s nobody to blame but us.

…if you aren’t in the lineup, you have to earn that spot… nobody cares if somebody doesn’t have confidence. That’s your problem. As players we have to find a way to gain confidence and contribute to the team. I know we have a lot of young guys, but we have a lot of older guys as well. I went through it so many times in my career, sometimes all it takes is one shot or one pass, but we have too many guys thinking too much right now, which is hurting us.”

Voracek isn’t wrong. Young players on this team have made so many of the same mistakes that one has to wonder whether or not they’re biding time until a change – coaching or the trade of a player – happens. I don’t know if I can throw all of the blame at the feet of the young core, either. In fact, veteran players on this team have committed some of the more egregious errors: failure to backcheck, cheating for a breakaway, making ill-advised passes in their defensive zone.

There have also been plenty of press availabilities featuring young guys like Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Sean Couturier in which they take the tough questions typically reserved for veteran leaders. (I’ll grant that Ghost and Coots are both twenty-five and some would consider them as part of a bridge between the veteran core and the youth movement.) Maybe it comes as a shock to some, but Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek, and Wayne Simmonds have each skipped on at least one occasion, leaving their teammates to answer the same questions regarding the same issues that occur in the same moments. Is that leadership? Could anyone blame the young players from tuning them out? Conversely, can you blame the vets for being fed up with answering the same questions about the same young guys making the same mistakes?

With every loss, the spotlight gets brighter on the coach – who many believe should’ve lost his job at numerous points over the last couple of seasons, the veteran core – who many believe should’ve been broken apart and sold off as part of another rebuild, and the young core – who some are already questioning the value of. If the last few media availabilities have been any indication, the fracture could grow until someone is finally traded. At that point, one has to wonder how the new GM – and potentially new coach – could put the locker room back together.

For more Flyers coverage, be sure to check out our pregame and intermission shows before and during home games via Facebook Live on the Crossing Broad Facebook page and Periscope via Anthony’s Twitter account. Also, listen to our Flyers podcast Snow the Goalie ([iTunes] [Google Play] [Stitcher] [RSS]), leave a 5 star review, and follow us on Twitter:@AntSanPhilly @JoyOnBroad

https://art19.com/shows/snow-the-goalie-a-flyers-podcast/episodes/d33a8b4f-d05e-446b-8387-bb25ed02c086