Jake Voracek wants everyone to do a better job when watching hockey games.

Well, at least the media. I guess, as the people who have the ability to shape public perception – although that’s in doubt these days – he wants the media to pay attention to things other than the score sheet.

He’s right. Too much of what is written about the sport of hockey is based on numbers. Whether it’s the old school writers who focus on goals, assists, plus/minus, goals against average, save percentage, hits and blocked shots, or it’s the analytics-driven generation that touts Corsi, expected goals, high danger chances and zone entries, too much of what is written about this sport is driven purely by numbers.

So, when he was “demoted” from the top line after the last game in Columbus, many assumed it was for shoddy play. And when he posted three points Saturday in a 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils, the same scribes assumed he had a great game.

Voracek wants you to know it’s pretty much the opposite.

“I think the first 39 minutes I played like horse shit. You guys got to watch the game a little bit more, you know what I mean? It’s not only about points. The last three games, I thought I played good hockey,  it just didn’t go in. It doesn’t mean that if I’m not on the score sheet that I didn’t play well. So many times it’s happens. But [today] I was on the board and I had a good third period, but overall, in this game I wasn’t at the level I wanted to be. I think I was pressing a little bit too much the first 39 minutes. I think that’s when the experience comes in, you kind of use it in advantage in the third period.”

But if you’re the Flyers, you’ll take his “horseshit” performance, thank you very much.

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This summer, Russ and I had Flyers GM Ron Hextall on the Snow The Goalie podcast and asked him about the team’s identity.

Hextall admitted they didn’t have one yet and that they would be looking to find that identity this season.

Well, after seven games, they better hope the identity they have to start the season is not the identity they keep for the entire season because this identity is one of a bad, bad defensive team.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I did not see the 6-3 loss to Columbus last night live. I had a conflict and instead scheduled myself to watch it at the crack of dawn this morning. I made it through a period and a half and then just fast forwarded to the goals.

I mean, to be honest, with the exception of the game against Vegas last Saturday, what I’m seeing is quite repetitive.

This team’s defense is dreadful right now.

And it’s not just the defensemen, although they are part of it. It’s the forwards not helping out by not getting back into the zone or by turning the puck over and allowing for an odd man rush the other way, or not winning 50/50 puck battles that lead to goals.

It’s also goaltending, too. Yes, Brian Elliott’s numbers looked terrible to start the season, but he was pretty darn good in those first couple games. But then he started to get mediocre and eventually had to get pulled in the 6-5 shootout win over Florida Tuesday. Meanwhile Calvin Pickard, who was brought in because the Flyers apparently have no confidence in Anthony Stolarz at the NHL level, has had one OK start, one OK relief performance, and last night’s poor outing in which he let up six goals on 28 shots, only one of which he had no chance of stopping.

Let’s remember this guy was a fourth string goalie in Toronto before being waived.

Nevertheless, the mistakes are mounting. The Flyers have allowed 31 goals in just seven games for a 4.43 goals against average. Somehow that’s only the second-worst mark in the NHL as Detroit has allowed 33 goals in seven games (4.71 GAA) but the difference is the Red Wings also are the worst team in hockey right now at 0-5-2.

Frankly, only in that Vegas game – a 1-0 loss by the way – was there a collectively well-played defensive game. Every other game, including all three victories for the Flyers, was below the bar or much worse.

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Losing a hockey game in the final two minutes of regulation always hurts.

Losing a hockey game in the final two minutes when your most defensively responsible player commits a turnover that results in the game-winning goal, hurts even more.

Losing a hockey game to a long-time nemesis goalie who made one spectacular save after another after another, pretty much crushes the soul.

But losing a game when you played exactly the way you wanted to play and did all the things correctly that you wanted to improve, well, I’ll let coach Dave Hakstol tell you how that feels:

“We played a hell of a game today and it stinks walking away with nothing to show for it.”

The Flyers lost to the Vegas Golden Knights 1-0 in an entertaining, fast-paced, grind-it-out, flat-out fun hockey game, and although it was eye-candy for those of us whose only job is to be a spectator, it’s easy to understand the frustration that permeated the Flyers’ locker room after such a loss.

The primary reason the Flyers came up empty was Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who stopped all 26 shots he faced. You could see it from early on; he was dialed in. He made several incredible stops – two particularly on Claude Giroux.

I’m not going to dive in too deeply on Fleury, because Russ caught up with the Golden Knights’ netminder after the game as has all those details for us. 

The Flyers, though, should take solace that except for not being able to cash in against Fleury, they played exactly the kind of game that winning hockey teams play. They locked it down defensively in the neutral zone and really played solid team defense. When that defense broke down, Brian Elliott was there to make the needed save… right up until the very end. They played the game with a lot of speed. They created a bevy of scoring chances. They killed penalties with great pressure up ice, not really letting Vegas set up in the offensive zone.

The Flyers should take this as a blueprint for the way they need to play moving forward and carry that banner through the remaining 77 games. Because if they do, more often than not they’ll be earning points in the standings.

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Every once in a while, you’re faced with a former adversary. The teams change, the colors change, but the fire remains.

In the immediate aftermath of a 1-0 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, the Flyers were left searching for answers. Perhaps the best answer was a simple one from Vegas GM George McPhee who, in speaking directly to Crossing Broad, stated of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, “He stole it. He flat out stole it.”

Fleury has a history of going back-and-forth with Philadelphia from his days in Pittsburgh. The five goals he gave up in season opener was the most he’d given up to the Flyers in at least five years. When I told him his GM said on the elevator that it was a case of him stealing the game, he lit up. I asked how it felt to hear from his GM and whether it was important to him to bounce back like he did in this game coming into an arena where he’s had so many battles:

Marc-Andre Fleury: It’s a fun place to play. It’s always loud and the atmosphere is good. People are on you a bit.

Crossing Broad: Does winning a game against a former division rival, even though you’re in the Western Conference now, is there anything that stills sticks in your mind about being back in Philadelphia and going up against an old rival or does that kind of stuff go to the side once you switch teams and conferences?

Fleury: No, I mean, it’s still in my head a bit, right? For so many years they were the rival, always a big battle with them, like the Pennsylvania battle. I see fans that I saw when I was playing with Pittsburgh and they still yell at me. It’s fun. It’s a fun place to play.

Crossing Broad: It’s gotta feel good to rob Giroux, right? Is there anything special knowing the game was on his stick at the end there and you came up with another great save?

Fleury: He had a couple of chances, that breakaway and one at the end, he caught me leaning. You know, he’s got plenty of goals and assists on me throughout the years. It’s good I could give it back a bit.

Fleury reaches back to rob Giroux. pic.twitter.com/WFvFt3LXTf

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) October 13, 2018

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Warning: The old man in me is about to come out for a few minutes.

That’s because there is nothing that bothers me more in professional sports today than people who eschew criticism when it is warranted.

It’s the narrative of sports these days. We’ve created a culture where accountability is fleeting and mediocrity is lauded.

I guess this is the direct result of the generation of people who made the participation trophy a good thing at the youth sports level.

Why am I so crabby?

Because of the overt nature today of people to take an outcome of a sporting event and over-accentuate the positive of it. There are times when the negative can be over-accentuated as well, and that’s equally as wrong – but wins and losses in sports need to be put into context.

If a win in particularly good, then fine, it’s OK to say it. If a loss is particularly awful – such as the Flyers home-opening loss to the Sharks on Tuesday – then yes, it’s OK to slide the team’s performance under the microscope.

But when you have a game like Wednesday in Ottawa – a sloppy, uneven, pretty uninteresting game which the Flyers won 7-4 against the lowly Senators – to sit around and spew a steady stream of positivism is what really sticks in my craw.

I was all ready to sit here and say the things that everyone was saying last night right after the game. I was poised to start typing this story at 10:30 PM. I even had this lede to the story written:

When you have one of your most embarrassing performances of the season one night, coming back and earning a much-needed victory the next night is definitely a sigh of relief. And that’s what this was for the Flyers, for it was not a perfect game, it was not a pretty game, in fact it was riddled with inconsistency and choppiness and still had more than a handful of mistakes to be concerned about – not to mention a worrisome injury to a prominent player – but the team can take a big collective sigh after winning this game, because an outcome in the other direction would have set off the alarm bells with a gusto.

That, to me would have been a fair description. That to me would have been keeping things real with the fans of this hockey team.

Instead, we are given, as we too often are in today’s sports world, a narrative laden with saccharine that is dishonest and unaccountable.

It gives me agita. You true, blue Philadelphia area folk know what I mean.

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