It’s one thing to lose, it’s another to lose the way the Flyers did Thursday against Minnesota.

The Flyers find new ways to blow games all the time, but this one has to be troubling.

That’s because it was fueled by blatantly bad decision making by the players on the ice, and these aren’t the AHL guys who are filling in the lineup while veterans are hurt. No, these are core players or at least veteran players who are making boneheaded mistakes.

They can’t happen, even in a season that went off the rails months ago. Plays like this can’t become commonplace, or else the level of futility and frustration will go larger and larger into future seasons.

Don’t believe me? Listen to interim coach Mike Yeo. Knowing he is likely out of a job in a couple months anyway, Yeo doesn’t hold back after games anymore. He’s blunt and brutally honest.


I asked him if these kinds of mistakes are alarming considering who is making them. And here was his whole answer, a good one:

“Every player that’s here is an NHL player and every player that’s here has the ability to make those plays. So it’s alarming regardless of who’s making them, to be honest. This is what winning hockey is and winning hockey might be bearing down getting a puck out of your zone. Winning hockey might be taking a hit to advance the puck to make sure you get that puck deeper or at the same time even if you don’t want to keep it in front of you as opposed to turning it over. These are the things we’re showing on video and will continue to show but its gotta come from them.

“That’s what it comes down to right now, we can keep preaching it,  we can keep trying to motivate, we can keep pushing it and we will, believe me. I love this group I believe in this group but they have to grab hold of this and that’s how we’re gonna do it because if we don’t have complete engagement and complete buy-in to each other.  That’s what winning teams do and we’re putting ourselves in a position where we can maybe win games. Structurally we’ve improved, but you play the game to win and we’re not winning. So we gotta be better.”

That’s some juiciness there. Basically we’ve told them what they’re doing wrong countless times and they still make the same mistakes, at some point that’s got to fall at the feet of the players and not the coaches.

One of the biggest culprits this year has been Ivan Provorov, who has regressed so far that he’s not even getting the top minutes on the team anymore. Both Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen played more minutes than Provorov against the Wild.

And deservedly so. Provorov had a terrible game. He was way out of position on one goal:

There are other breakdowns on this play prior to Minnesota gaining entry, as they skated the puck free and easy for 200 feet, and you can tell by the Flyers’ gap that they were out of sorts when Kirill Kaprizov makes the pass to Mats Zuccarello. But watch the replay again. Especially the reverse angle after the goal. Claude Giroux realizes that Provorov has abandoned his post in an effort to poke check Kaprizov. Giroux makes a beeline for Provorov’s spot, but can’t get there in time to stop Hartman.

It’s a play that an NHL defenseman can not make – and yet Provorov did.

Then there was his direct turnover that led to the tying goal in the third period:

Ugly. Just ugly.

Yeo didn’t mince words about his struggling defenseman either.

“Well, Provy for sure he’s a better player than he’s shown tonight, no question. I think that he is probably like a lot of guys right now that we’re very disappointed and frustrated with the way that this season’s gone but you got a choice of how you handle things right now. We can either really get together here and battle through this and become a better team or you can be frustrated going into games not feeling right and next thing you know a mistake happens and things snowball, but we can pick each other up. (You have to say) ‘I made some mistakes, our whole team made mistakes and this is where we gotta bail each other out and that’s what good teams do.’ That team (Minnesota) made a lot of mistakes too but they kept fighting, they kept pushing for each other and then they found a way to win. We didn’t do that. As soon as adversity struck we crumbled.”

As a quick aside, Yeo and Scott Gordon, who served as interim coach before Alain Vigneault was fired, have been some of the most refreshing interviewees in a long time around here.

Vigneault wanted out of press conferences after two questions. Dave Hakstol never said anything. Even Craig Berube, as great as he was to talk to one-on-one, when you put him in front of a large group of reporters and TV cameras, would clam up. You have to go back to Peter Laviolette to find the last time the Flyers had a quotable coach at press conferences.

Anyway, back to Provorov – it sounds like Yeo is saying that Provorov is not bought in right now. That he’s kind of just out there, going through the motions, relying on his talent alone and not the team concept.

It’s truly concerning. It makes one wonder if Provorov, not Sanheim, ends up being the guy the Flyers look to unload in the offseason.

He wasn’t alone with the bad turnovers either. I mean, what the hell is Derick Brassard thinking here, especially with just six seconds to go in the period:

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1499547682448232450

Either tap that puck to Nick Seeler. Or turn to the wall and take a hit and protect it at your feet. Just. Don’t. Do. THAT!!

The final turnover wasn’t as egregious. Patrick Brown was simply trying to clear the puck from the Flyers’ zone in a tie game late in the third period. It just didn’t work.

For the record, that happened just 25 seconds after the goal following the Provorov turnover, so you can see where this team’s head is at.

The Flyers did score four goals – a steal and a breakaway by Scott Laughton, a nice cycling shift by the fourth line that resulted in a goal by Brown, a turn around snap shot by Travis Konecny, and a power play redirect by James van Riemsdyk off a Giroux shot.

But overall, it was a sloppily played hockey game on both sides, and Minnesota stuck together, played like a team, and pulled it out despite not having their best game.

The Flyers, did no such thing.

Latest rumor du jour

It looks like Colorado and the Flyers are ramping up efforts to re-engage conversation about a potential Giroux trade.

Among the 16 “scouts” in attendance at the Flyers-Wild game was Chris McFarland, who is the assistant general manager for the Avalanche. He was also at Tuesday’s game against Edmonton.

Meanwhile, the Flyers had pro scouts at each of the last two Avalanche games. Danny Briere was out scouting both the Avalanche and their AHL affiliate the Colorado Eagles a couple weeks ago.

The two sides begun talking about that time, but the conversation cooled after rumors of what the deal would entail started to leak out – and it seemed like the Flyers wanted to hold out for a bit more.

But it seems like there’s some more evaluating going on, and the two sides may re-engage those talks soon.

However, keep an eye on the Florida Panthers.

Briere went out to Hershey this week to see the Panthers AHL affiliate play the Bears, and this weekend the Checkers play two games in Allentown against the Phantoms, and you can bet the Flyers will have a cadre of folks there.

Who might they be looking at?

Considering the Flyers want a young, top-end, prospect talent in return for Giroux, how about Panthers 2018 first round pick, Grigori Denisenko?

The 21-year-old Russian is a right hand shot who plays on the left wing (like Giroux). He has nine goals and nine assists for 18 points in 30 games for Charlotte this season. He has eight games of NHL experience with Florida and has four assists. He played in the KHL for two full seasons and four playoff games as a 17-year-old for Yaroslavl Lokomotiv.

Giroux is likely to stay with the Flyers until at least March 17. That is when he will play his 1,000th NHL game, so expect two more weeks of speculation before a deal is consummated.

(Update: Denisenko is injured, so the Flyers definitely weren’t/aren’t scouting him in person. That said, he seems to be the type of player they would be interested in getting in return for Giroux. As such, I’ll stick with this as a thoughtful speculation on my part.)

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