By Peter Gleason
The Flyers are back on the treadmill as a less than mediocre team with their three-game winning streak a distant memory and with the Avalanche up tonight in Denver.
They are 14-16-6 after losing 4-2 on the road Monday night to the Arizona Coyotes, a Western Conference wannabe.
Something’s got to be done.
So, NJ.com asked Jeremy Roenick, a former Flyer who has scored 500 goals in a great playing career before becoming an NBC Sports hockey analyst, what he thinks the Flyers could do to improve:
“You’ve got a few things going on with that team. The secondary scoring has been a problem for the Flyers for a little while and I think the goaltending has been questionable even though Steve Mason has played well at times.
“But to me when you have a team that goes into certain buildings like the Flyers did before the Christmas break beating Toronto, Minnesota and Winnipeg … to beat those teams on the road and then all of a sudden lose games you think you have a chance, this becomes effort and attention to detail to the system. They’ve shown that they can win under (head coach Craig) Berube. They’ve shown they can do it, but when they’re not consistent, that’s on the players.
“I’ll tell you, losing a guy like Scott Hartnell was not good for the hockey team. Umberger has come in and not done anything for this team. It’s not been a good trade-off for the Flyers and Hartnell was one of those guys who will make people accountable. And then losing Kimmo Timonen, not having him in that lineup and not having his veteran leadership has really hurt them.
“I’ve thought that the Flyers were going to be in that trade market for some time now for a couple reasons — because of their secondary scoring and because of their defense. We’ll see what happens. I think you have a few of their forwards you can trade.”
Matt Read, Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn.
“You have three guys that will play really good hockey, and then you won’t see them for awhile,” he said. “And I like all three of them. It’s just their consistency. They can’t keep coming in and out of the scoresheet. You can’t just do it for 10 games and then go away for 10 games, do it for five games and then go away for 15 games. That doesn’t work for teams.
“It comes down to their attention to detail,” he said. “It comes down to their preparation. It comes down to their focus. And it comes down to their ability to grind through the different things that happen — whether you’re tired, whether you’re hurt, whether you’re sore, whether you don’t like a building, whether you don’t like the team that you’re playing against. So there are a lot of things that go into how you prepare into games.
“To me, making the playoffs is 50-50, and I will tell you the first three weeks of January probably will tell you for sure they’re not making it or they have a good shot of making it. These next three weeks after the Christmas break are crucial.”
