Something Smells... Was that You? Thoughts after Devils 4, Flyers 1
The best bit of unintentional comedy for the 2020-21 Philadelphia Flyers hockey season occurred Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
It’s a shame there were less fans in the stands then there were in Hershey Park Arena the night Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points.
But there it was, in all it’s glory. The face of the franchise, on camera, trying to get the sparse crowd pumped up for a woebegone bunch of rag tag players, who were in the midst of their third-straight loss to one of the worst teams in hockey. And here’s what he did:
Gritty trying to fire up 1,000 fans by squeezing whoopee cushions into a microphone is the absolute perfect visual definition of the 2021 Flyers season.
— Anthony SanFilippo (@AntSanPhilly) May 2, 2021
It was practically unbelievable that the mascot would turn to this tactic at this point of the season.
For those of us in attendance, we couldn’t unsee what was right before our eyes. It was unbelievably laughable.
But, it had to be for just us, right? I mean, like the Wilt game, there will be no visual evidence to have for perpetuity. Other writers also said similar things as I did:
Gritty update: He's squeezing a whoopee cushion into a microphone.
— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) May 2, 2021
Gritty making fart noises with a whoopee cushion on ArenaVision… that's the 2020-21 highlight video apparently
— Kevin Cooney (@KevinCooney) May 2, 2021
But what of that video? Will this just be a story us media guys remember years from now and share with you as one of those “Big Fish” moments? Is this one of those things where we’re going to have to tell you to just trust us, it happened?
In a world of doubting Thomases today, there needs to be visual evidence, or it didn’t happen. So we put out the call. Someone, somewhere had to have this recorded. It wasn’t just our imagination.
That’s when Stephen, also known as @orangecrush83 on Twitter, came to all of our rescue.
— Stephen (@OrangeCrush83) May 2, 2021
Yep. That’s your Flyers season. Every time. Everywhere.
And it’s been so formulaic.
They lost to the Devils Saturday, 4-1. Joel Farabee scored in the waning minutes to prevent the embarrassment of being shut out by arguably the worst defensive team in the NHL. Before Saturday, the Devils had allowed three goals or more in 15 straight games.
But the Flyers looked like they didn’t even care. Like they were going through some hockey motions, and that’s about it.
It was an effort where it was absolutely fair to question their pride, so I did. I asked the coach and the captain. In different ways, but basically the same question – are enough guys playing with pride at this point, or are they just trying to get by until season’s end?
First, here was coach Alain Vigneault’s response:
“You can use a bunch of words. You can use frustration, you can use pride, you can use whatever. I think, for the most part, our guys are trying to do the right things and I’m trying to put them in a situation where they can be the most successful on the ice. Right now, obviously, were not a team that especially offensively isn’t executing real well. We have five more games. One more here coming up Monday, that’s our next game and we have to try to execute and play the right way.”
Looking at the part of the response that I emphasized above, it should be noted that Vigneault is a smart man who knows how to play the media game. So when he says “for the most part” he means it. He means that most guys are trying. They may not be succeeding, but they are trying.
But it also means there are probably a small number of players who he doesn’t believe are giving max effort. Because otherwise he wouldn’t say, “for the most part.” Vigneault’s not going to tie individual players to the tracks with the locomotive bearing down on them, but he’s going to let us all know his frustration is still there, even if he tries to keep it under wraps.
So, I shifted my focus to Claude Giroux, whose line with Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek just didn’t have it against the Devils. They were caught on the ice for three of the four Devils goals, and although they’ve been the one group, who along with Ivan Provorov this season who you can say play an honest game night in and night out, even though some were better than others, this wasn’t one to hang their hat on while others weren’t meeting the bar.
Still, I asked:
Q: Claude… you’re the kind of guy who tries to play every shift like it’s your last. Do you feel like there is not enough of that throughout the lineup?
A: “Yeah, that’s a tough question. The guys care in the locker room. I don’t think there is laziness on the team. Right now, it’s just one thing goes wrong and there’s always a second and third wrong thing that’s happening. I don’t think laziness is part of this.”
His response was telling. He took a second to think how he wanted to answer. He called it a tough question (again, my emphasis), because there’s an honest way to answer it, and the right way to answer it. And after weighing that decision in his own head for a couple seconds and creating a long enough pause by calling it a tough question, Giroux chose to answer it the right way.
That’s what good leaders do. No matter if there’s a reason to believe otherwise, you fall on the sword and don’t point fingers. Giroux did just that.
But, the pause and the revelation that it was a tough question was answering the question without answering it. Claude knows that. I knew that. And now you know it too.
There are players who just are not playing anywhere close to the level they need to be at. Kevin Hayes, for example, was back in the lineup after being benched for the last Devils game. You didn’t miss him. He was basically invisible. Or, as the Warden in The Shawshank Redemption might say:
You know what, I smell a theme. I’m gonna get out of here before it goes too far. (Maybe it already has).
You know what though… just five games to go.
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