Flyers Files Observations: A World of Concern Early

We’re back for another edition of Flyers Files observations, my weekly look at the Philadelphia Flyers, what is trending, what is noteworthy, and my reactions.

The regular season has not gotten off to a good start. Not even close, in fact. And while the Flyers have been incrementally better with each passing game, and have managed some form of points in the standings, they don’t look anywhere close to the team that sparked excitement for the season with last season’s playoff run.

Here’s this week’s Flyers Files.

This week, we’re really boiling this down to one question and two main causes for this concerning question: why do the Flyers look so bad to start the season?

Overall, there is just an energy that is lacking. The thing that endeared this team to the city last season was their ability to go to work, to win battles, to get possession and turn it into something.

That’s the first main concern. This team doesn’t possess the puck near as much as they should. You can look to a game like Monday’s against Tampa and the 36-14 shot differential. Sure, things may have been slightly better because more shots were kept to the outside, and there were fewer high-danger chances that make it a nightmare for goalies.

But 14 shots? After 18 against Carolina? After 25 in New Jersey? After 19 in the season opener against Pittsburgh? That’s not going to cut it. And as much as you may see 36 shots and be able to analyze quality on the lower end of the scale, giving up that total after 40 against Carolina, after 44 in New Jersey and 38 against Pittsburgh is also not going to get it done.

Why does this keep happening? It really boils down to two key elements that need to be better: skating and passing.

Skating is the foundation of hockey. You move your feet, you have a better chance of making things happen. Move your feet to get into the battle, keep applying the pressure, and you might win a 50-50 puck. Move your feet to get into position faster, and you have a chance to make a play at either end of the ice. Move your feet through the neutral zone with speed, and you might catch the defense off-guard and turn that into a rush chance.

If you aren’t going to skate effectively, you are going to chase all night. There are plenty of examples where the Flyers are doing just that.

And then the passing. Speed is not boiled down to physical skating speed. Moving the puck with speed goes just as far. When you make a pass, it needs to be done with conviction, with an emphasis on getting it to its destination. And being able to string three, four, five passes together to get the puck up ice effectively needs to happen.

It’s like the Flyers are completely direction-less. They have no sense of urgency to do the simple things to be more effective, to take some pressure off the goaltending and give themselves a chance to attack.

It’s still early in the season, but the old adage is that while you can’t win the Stanley Cup or make the playoffs in the first week or two of October, you can lose it.

This is the head coach of the team. The head coach that was part of the team that got to the second round last season with certainly not the same level of talent as others, but a roster that worked hard, knew the mission, knew the odds, embraced it, and made it happen. Where did all of that go? How did that seemingly disappear overnight?

During the season opener, albeit just one game at the time, I recall saying to someone after the second period that it wasn’t about whether the team was going to open the most anticipated season they’ve had in years with a loss. It was the type of loss it was shaping up to be. You were supposed to be past getting embarrassed like this. You were supposed to be past not having the answers and watching this balloon into a lengthy losing streak. You were supposed to be past the doubt in the entire roster, the sense that you needed to rebuild the rebuild.

And the most dedicated optimist might still look at it that way, but it’s getting harder and harder to look past the 17-5 goal differential and 158-76 shot differential and not call it what it is. It’s as brutal a start to the season as you can imagine.

This is what teams look like right before meetings are had behind closed doors. This is what teams look like before some sort of significant change is dropped in with explosive effect.

It’s reverting right back to the previous decade-plus: three different general managers with their prints on the roster, eight different head coaches that can’t provide the answers, and a bevy of players that leave more questions than answers.

It’s only four games out of 84. It doesn’t have to be like this all season. But when you’ve looked this poor through 240-plus minutes of play, when the greatest weakness of the franchise for decades has turned out to be its only strength and saving grace in earning anything in the standings, it’s hard to see those problems just vanishing to thin air.

Instead, what has vanished is the good will that the team built last season. The magic of a late-season playoff run isn’t going to save you now. That’s over. And any hope for this season will be too if there’s not an extreme turnaround in short order.

Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN. Follow him on social media @Kevin_Durso.