What Needs to Change for the Flyers?

The Philadelphia Flyers are downright terrible. They went from being a team that shockingly made the playoffs last season to a team that has done a whole 360. Last night in their 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, it was their 7th loss in a row to start the season which is their worst start through 7 games in franchise history. The only bright spot with this team is the goaltending. Dan Vladar and Joseph Woll have been showing up when they’re called upon. Dan’s had a rougher start than Joseph but both of them have been put through the wringer. In each of their starts, they’ve both had to save close to 30 pucks if not more. It all comes down to one thing: the guys in front of the net have to be better. This team cannot just rely on Dan and Joseph every single game. These two can only do so much. Flyers fans know that this team is resilient and they want a win as much as the players do. So that leads to the question: what needs to be changed so the first win of the season can be achieved?

The easy answer to that question would be: everything. But it does come down to certain things. One of the main things is their defense. The Flyers defense has been turning over way too many pucks which has allowed the other teams to go towards either Vladar or Woll with a major scoring chance. There are also problems on the offense that need to be sorted out. For starters, they have managed to not score more than 2 goals a game. In every game so far this season, the team has fallen behind early. Even if they do get some scoring chances, they fail to capitalize on them. This isn’t aimed at just one player. Everyone needs to get better at getting possession of the puck and keeping it on their stick and getting more shots on net. A third thing that they need to get better on is faceoffs. As a team, they have a 53.6% faceoff percentage so far this season but they still struggle on the crucial faceoffs which usually take place late in the game. The fourth and final thing that they struggle on is the coaching. Rick Tocchet has a tactical way of how he coaches his players. Some of these players aren’t used to that and the players that are used to it aren't playing the right way for it to work the way it should.

 Hockey is a team sport. When one guy struggles, all of them struggle. If they want to win they have to believe in themselves just like Flyers fans do. They just have to take it one day at a time. The first win of the season will come. It’ll only be a matter of time. 

Photo Credits: Jenn G under the CC-BY-SA-2.0 License via Creative Commons