The Flyers lost. This is nothing new. They haven’t won consecutive games in nearly a month and that continued with a sloppy, 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers.

They are simply playing out the string and if that’s the case, shouldn’t we all do the same?

What was a defense and goaltending problem in March has turned into an offensive problem in April. Going back to the game against Buffalo that was the most embarrassing loss of the season – a 6-1 defeat that ended the Sabres 18-game winless streak on the last day of March, the Flyers have now gone 13 straight games having not scored four goals.

In fact, in those 13 games, they have just 26 goals, an average of two per game. That’s not going to win you a lot of hockey games, and it’s no wonder the team is 4-6-3 in those games.

There’s really not much to talk about in this game – I’m being honest. And you know me, I can come up with 2,000 words to write about in almost any scenario.

But I feel like the Flyers have beaten us all into submission at this point, and this game was a definite tap out.

That’s because there wasn’t really anything of note that happened that you should really care about.

Here’s the rundown of things you’d probably want to know since, like most fans, you probably aren’t even watching any more:

  • Jackson Cates made his NHL debut replacing Nolan Patrick on the fourth line. Cates had a few nice shifts, and even had a couple scoring chances, but otherwise wasn’t that noticeable. He really didn’t make any glaring errors, so I’d chalk it up as a pretty normal NHL debut.
  • Wade Allison continues to play hard and with an edge on every shift. He actually got a chance to get off a shot from the circle – something that became his trademark at Western Michigan University and briefly in the AHL with the Phantoms, but hasn’t shown itself yet in the NHL. He’s been more of a net presence than anything else and he’s going to score a lot of goals from in close, but it’s nice to see him diversify his shots a little bit when he can.
  • Alex Lyon started in goal. If we’re being truthful, Lyon is no better than an emergency fill-in at the NHL level. He’s a very good AHL goalie, but he has too many holes at the NHL. Still, he was mostly solid in this game until the last Rangers goal by Filip Chytil which was ugly on many fronts, specifically for Lyon and Phil Myers:

  • Oskar Lindblom scored the lone Flyers goal as he continues to look better as this season has progressed. It’s been a tough year for Lindblom, after all he’s been through, but we’re starting to see why the Flyers believed in him enough to give him the contract they did. With another summer to workout and get his body back to where it needs to be, Lindblom should be a big part of this team moving forward.

Beyond that… there wasn’t anything else worth talking about. Sure, there were mistakes and criticisms to hand out, but at this point, they are the same old, same old. I’m tired of writing them and you’re tired of reading them.

Maybe more young players will get a chance for the Flyers and we’ll have something to talk about. Otherwise, these posts are likely to get shorter and shorter.

The tragic number for the Flyers is down to seven points. But that’s irrelevant. The glimmer of sunshine is the number nine. That’s how many more games we have to endure before we can officially bury this season in the far reaches of our memory banks.

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