Out of Answers: Thoughts after Devils 4, Flyers 3
“Right now.”
Those are two simple words, uttered Tuesday following the Flyers’ 4-3 loss to the lowly New Jersey Devils by captain Claude Giroux.
It was in response to a question that was cutting through all the B.S. thrown at the media in these post game press conferences.
You know the answers – the ones where you lose but feel you are “trending in the right direction. The ones where you lose and you don’t feel the need to play desperate hockey yet, because it’s not yet time to panic. The ones where, like Tuesday, everyone was saying this is simply about a lack of consistency.
All of those answers sound nice in the vacuum of one individual loss, but when you lose nine of thirteen in March and your playoff chances continue to fade, and you can’t even beat a team like the stinking Devils on your home ice, at some point, these answers need to be considered unacceptable, right? And if so… when?
That’s when Giroux said, “Right now.”
Here’s the rest of his answer to that question:
“We know it’s a shortened season and we were able to play some good games. We played the Islanders at home and probably one of the best 60 minutes that we played, and we follow up with this effort? It’s very frustrating.”
Damn right it is.
It’s gotten so bad for the Flyers that people in other cities are really starting to take notice:
What has happened to the Flyers?
— Adrian Dater (@adater) March 24, 2021
Adrian is the long-time beat reporter in Denver covering the Colorado Avalanche since they Quebec Nordiques moved out west in 1995.
Stopped playing the #Sabres https://t.co/73PxJYb4Mr
— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington) March 24, 2021
Mike is the long-time columnist for the Buffalo News.
https://twitter.com/massjmcd67/status/1374539008274006021
These are some random Islander fans, who the Flyers weren’t even playing on Tuesday.
Heck, it’s been going on for a while now. Noted Flyers troll (and Crossing Broad hater) Mark Madden, who hosts a radio show on the Penguins radio station in Pittsburgh, compared the Flyers losing 9-0 to the Rangers last week to watching pornography.
And while that’s an image that I’m sure no one wanted today, it’s what these Flyers have wrought.
Right now, they are embarrassing. To themselves. To their city. To the sport.
Hell, the mascot that the organization markets more than its players might be seen at City Hall today applying to change his name to Pity.
There’s no other way to describe this team right now.
The buzz word after this one – uttered by coach Alain Vigneault, alternate captain Sean Couturier and of course Giroux was “consistency.”
However, that would be fine if every game was one good one, then one bad one. And while its true that some losses in this 13-game stretch that might bury this team were games in which the Flyers played well, it’s no longer a valid excuse – not that they played well against the Devils, mind you. Nope. It was more of the same problems – bad decisions, turnovers, poor defensive zone coverage, and, although I felt overall that Carter Hart had some positive steps in the way he played despite allowing four goals, he’s still not back to being the goalie who would come up with a huge save to erase one of those costly errors by his teammates.
This is the part that has become chronic, or, dare I say, consistent, at this point.
So, when you want to make the argument that the team plays like world beaters on Monday (despite the loss in overtime) and then comes out and plays like egg beaters the next night, ok, fine, that’s a lack of consistency.
But, when it’s the same mistakes over and over again, that’s also consistency. It’s like the Flyers keep having these seminal moments in the season where they reach a fork in the road, and rather than deciding which way to go, they instead just impale themselves on said fork.
So, tired of these answers, I asked this question to Vigneault:
“You’ve tried so many different things. Combinations. Tactics. Motivations. And yet, it seems every game we ask the same questions about bad decisions, turnovers and failed executions. Do you almost feel like you are running out of answers at this point?”
Because, like you, I am frustrated too. It’s not a fan thing about winning or losing for me. Instead it’s more about getting tired of writing about the same crap every night. So, yeah. I want answers too.
Here’s what he said:
“Not at all. It’s my job to work with these players. They are good players. They care. They want to win. Obviously, we’ve got a consistency issue at this time. It’s my job to find the right buttons to push. That’s what I’m going to continue to do. Obviously I haven’t found that yet, but I’m going to continue to work. There’s no doubt in my mind that these guys have the best intentions, but it seemed early on that we didn’t have a lot in the tank.”
I like Vigneault. I think he’s a very good coach. And I thank him for being open and honest with us all the time. But this answer left a lot to be desired.
He started off fine, but finished it with an excuse. The team is tired. They played five games in seven days.
Yeah, that sucks. But you know what, every team in the NHL is tired this year. The schedule is unforgiving because of the pandemic. If other teams can suck it up and play through it, so can the Flyers.
Oh… and there was that “consistency issue” again.
So, I asked the same question to Couturier and guess what? I got basically the same answer.
“No, I think it’s just making the play that’s ahead of us. I feel that we’re not doing that right now. We’re giving up too many pucks and too many chances that we give up. We literally give it to them. We just got to be smarter with the puck and without it also. Be in better position. I think it’s just little things. All 23 guys, the whole team, needs to (bear) down and grind it out. By doing those little things we’ll get back on the winning side of things.”
At least he didn’t say the word “consistency,” (although he did in an answer to a previous question). Instead though, he described it with a need to do the little things right. About making smarter plays and playing the system better. Bear down. Grind it out. Yep. that’s it.
Which is why I asked Giroux when this kind of play was no longer acceptable.
Which is when he said, “right now.”
Problem is, he should have said that about 10 days ago.
Now, the season is on the brink. Giroux did add, in another question, that the team still believes it’s a playoff team, and it remains just two points out of a spot, but that’s because the Bruins haven’t played in forever due to COVID protocols. The Flyers time is running short and the odds are running long.
Hopefully GM Chuck Fletcher has some answers at his press conference Wednesday. But at this point, I’m not even sure there’s anything that he can say that will turn this team around this season.
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Editor’s note: Anthony used the words “right now” about 15 times in this story, so I’m gonna sneak in a Van Hagar reference – Kinkead