Flyers

The Flyers are Last Place in the Metropolitan Division

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 23rd, 2024 · 9:36 AM EDT

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If you’re a pragmatic Flyers fan who thinks the team is still rebuilding, you weren’t expecting a Stanley Cup this year, but you also weren’t expecting this:

Final. #WSHvsPHI | @WellsFargo pic.twitter.com/mmBWBMpfzO

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 23, 2024

That’s five losses in a row, one in overtime and the last two at home. They came back from the four-game Western Canada + Seattle road swing and were totally clobbered by Vancouver, 3-0 on Saturday night, then thumped again by the Capitals Tuesday by a 4-1 scoreline. With one win and three points through six games, the Flyers are dead last in the Metro and have more points than only the Predators and Sharks.

Some quick stats to show how sluggish this start has been:

• 4.01 goals allowed per game, no empty net (worst in league)
• 2.17 goals scored per game (tied for 29th)
• 1.17 even strength goals per game (31st)
• 20% on the power play (middle of the pack)
• 7.6% shot percentage (28th)
• -9 shot on goal differential (22nd)
• 37 penalties (3rd most)
• 14.3 missed shots per game (middle of the pack)
• .866 goalie save percentage Ersson + Fedotov (21st)

Pretty bad. You’re not going to win a lot of games when the other team scores a bunch and you don’t score. They can’t seem to find an cohesiveness at even strength and they’re firing shots all over the place.

It’s been interesting listening to John Tortorella after these games. He’s sounded somewhat subdued, and no, you wouldn’t expect him to lose his shit in October, since there’s a lot of hockey left to play and he’s gotta pace himself, but maybe he’s mellowing out at the same time.

“I think the biggest key is there’s a frustration level, right? They want to play well,” the head coach said on Tuesday night. “They want to win a hockey game. They wanna score a goal in the home building. You can’t let the frustration turn into the cheating. You can’t forget about your structure as we’re going through this. It’s kind of doubled up because it’s the start of the year and we’re in this jam. So it’s even more pressure. But we just have to play the way we’re supposed to play within our structure. Hopefully we get some good things to happen and gain our confidence little by little… We struggled with structure as the game went on, almost through over-trying. Our forecheck we gave up some odd-man rushes that we really don’t give up. We have to keep our composure and get out there to Washington, get up in the morning and start again. The biggest thing for me is I don’t want us to lose our identity as far as checking forward. I don’t want us on our heels. But there’s a fine line of checking forward and cheating because you haven’t scored a goal. So that’s what I’m talking about with structure. It’s something we have to coach. We have to stick together and try to fight through this.”