Three straight wins, a 16-5 goal margin and a boosting confidence. It is not long ago we discussed merely when Stevens should be fired, not if. Suddenly everything seems much brighter for the Flyers. What are your thoughts? Was it just a bad start and nothing to worry about now when the team is winning again or was the six game losing streak a symptom of something bigger and more concerning?

What's your take on the bad start, the last three games and the future for this team under Stevens' rule?

It would be nice to see some consistency and I still have concerns about our defense, but I think the Flyers have shown some positive signs and I think we are set up to put together some wins.

It helps that the Devils were without Rolston and Holik (not that Holik is an offensive force by any means) and that the Devils don't have much offensive firepower to begin with. I don't mean to say that to discredit their wins but I think Biron needed a little confidence boost and those Devils games were the perfect situation for him. Niitty owns the Thrashers and, to have such a lopsided win really puts any doubts this team had to rest. I think those three games were ideal situations for the Flyers to right the ship, which they overwhelmingly did.

It was just a bad start. Every team will get those. I think we're back on track. We took 2 games VS the Devils and 1 against Atlanta. Now, our team is producing well and I think we're on the road to a successful season.

I personally think it was a 'traditional' glitch the team went through. We were unlucky not to take maximum points at the Mellon and thought we played quite well there. Same applies for the Sharks series, the offense was there, but the D was asleep.

They seemed to got their act together and pulled a great win in Jersey where we don't travel well, and followed it up with another good win, albeit thanks to a smoke bomb and Jeff Carter's knee

Never saw the game in full from last night, but from the highlights and reports, another dominating win. We are looking like the team we saw through the Playoffs in terms of determination etc.

Gagne: A revelation since he's been back. The old Simon is back and I couldn't be happier!

Richards: Got back on track after a couple of average games at the start, and the 4 point game against the Devils was the turn around.

Carter: On track for a 82 point season, but there's a long way to go but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets at least 10-15 more points than last season.

Upshall: Love watching Scottie play. His energy and enthusiasm excites me in more ways than one and he's been probably my favourite player to watch so far this season.

However, the D still needs work done. I'm looking forward to having Jones back.

Every Team will have hot streaks and cold streaks at some point.

Yes IMO the cold streaks will return at some time( Injuries and Slumps)

But right now we are back on track. I think we can string together 3-4 wins in our next 5 games.

I wish we were playing the Rags instead of the Isles for a more accurate benchmark of how they are playing now. Yes, the 3 wins are a godsend and they couldn't have come at a better time. Like i said in another thread, that ATL game (AKA Stat/confidence booster game) was just what the doctor ordered to make them realize what they are capable of.

Again, as I said in another thread, their style of defense makes veins pop out from my forehead. I hate that collapsing mentality when facing opposing rushes. I would prefer them being more aggressive even if it does result in more GA.

I'm not at all satisfied with our defense and I guess I'll just have to hope things get better when Parent and Jones come back (however, i wont be holding my breath).

Lets not jinx it !

They've been playing much better, but I'm still worried about the inconsistency. This is exactly what we saw last season.

The bad start was exactly that.. A bad start. The three wins were definately comforting to fans, and confidence boosting for fans, and the team. My opinion of Stevens still hasn't changed. I think he's too soft on the players, but I don't work with him on a daily basis so I really don't know. I only see the John Stevens that does press conferences and interviews. Same as Ken Hitchcock. But I hear Hitchcock was a hard nosed coach. I'd rather see that style of coaching. The kind that holds players accountable for losing games and not performing as well as they should. Call me old fashoned. As far as fireing him, you really shouldn't fire a coach if he produces wins, and he's produced a few now. He also got a Calder for the farm team a few years ago. I'm glad the pendulum finally swung the other way and the team started to get the wins. Lets hope this keeps up. If he does get fired I won't be crying in my beer.

They're a streaky team. They're going to go on a tear at some points and they're going to slump at some points. It's a byproduct of having such a young team and a team that's so predicated on forward play.

We can only hope that when they do get hot, it coincides with a playoff run again.

This ^^^

I would like to think we are past our issues between the pipes. Knock on wood, we have had NHL level goal tending for the past few games.

I think they are back on track. Things were going great last season just didn't have enough steam.. now we are back to the old lines (didnt like Briere on wing), Biron is starting to look a lot better, hopefully D can shape up and the team as a whole not have too many injuries(and the guys that are injured come back and assimilate quickly).

Yes, they did lose the first few games but only the one against Colorado as actually a BAD game. All the rest were well (or atleast decently) played games and could have gone either way.

I think the Flyers are a force to be reckoned with.

why must we have a hard nosed coach?? the soft mentality seems to be working(ie: Stevens- Eastern Conference Finals, Charlie Manuel- WS)
lots of ppl dont like stevens because hes soft. SO WHAT!!! the only thing we care about is wins. the coaching staff should determine their style depending on the team. we have enough vets in the locker room (knuble, richards(he is the captain), kimmo) so that stevens can be relaxed or soft

lets also remeber that the only dman pairing that was the same since last year was the Kimmo - Coburn line and that wasnt even a pairing to start the season. the dmen seem to now have developed some chemistry and i look for big things from this young d group

Good post. I think a lot of people expected too much from the defense right off the bat. I think the d is getting better and will continue to do so.

It's too tough to say. The Flyers were playing a Devils team that was missing some key players and a terrible Atlanta team so it's hard to just say everything is fine, but I do think there were a ton of positive signs and they say certainly are a better team than what we saw during the first six games. Whether or not they continue to be streaky remains to be seen.

The difference is that Charlie Manuel holds his players accountable and he will get in their faces or go on a tirade when the situation warrants it. He knows exactly how to motivate his players whether the situation calls for a pat on the back or a kick in the butt.

couple of things to note:

Firstly the re-evaluation of our forward lines was crucial to the turn around. Lupul and Knuble where lost with Richards and Briere respectively. Since Richie went back to line 2 C this team has started looking much better on the ice up front. Now we have 3 legitimate snipers all firing (Gagne, Lupul, Carter) and two ogres cleaning up the trash (Hartnell and Knuble)

Secondly, the repairing of Coburn and Timonen which now means we get 25+ minutes of mistake free defenseman hockey. Sbisa and Vaananan have also played well together.

Finally, we were not that bad in some losses. out of 9 games we got points in 6 of them played a shocker VS the AVS which only leaves 2 games unaccounted for.

Conclusion, we cannot expect to win the eastern conference with no challenges. I think we can come 4th at best in the conference but may end up 5 or 6 quite easily.

Good post. I think Upshall has also played a big part too.

What's the latest word on Jones?

Via Yahoo via Roto Wire from tonight:

Going to have to congradulate the team on some wins. I am going to also say that it is NICE to hear Gagne's name when the horns are sounding. Have not even missed a step with Danny out. Shut-out victory against a "sub-par" Thrashers....Devils with out so and so.....and here we go again.

Now as a DIE HARD fan of the orange and black I can say that the there are two things about this team that has me worried and frankly it is pretty much the same old story.....Goalie or Defense take your pick. Yes we have "Net-Minders" on our team. Nitty and Biron are both streaky goalies. The have both shown flashes of great saves, and not even going to question the heart of both of these goalies. However, we do not have a "Dominating Goale" and the price of one is way more then what it should be. Hummm, you know come to think of it, an average goalie would look much better if the Defense in front of him has maybe, oh I do not know prevent so many shots a game, winning battles in tight and against the boards, oh and hey how about hitting somebody, yeah or even skating with the puck instead of gliding??? I would also like to point out that we are with out Parent and Jones. Both of which are pretty darn good D-Men and we are missing there size and skills in the pass and SPEED. SO to me the question is can we hang on until those come back? It does seem that we can put wins together now and we got the slow start off out backs. Plus we are #1 in the league in Goals For. Have you taken a look at the Goals against? How about shots a game for the opposition?

This being only my opinion. Taking into account that I am only an armchair coach/GM/Owner/Blah/Blah....

Love to see em win and hope they keep it up.

Go Flyers!!!


-SteelFlyers

If 8 out of a possible 10 points in the last 5 games isn't back on track, then I'm not sure what is. And that's flying across the country playing home and home against a strong Sharks team and then back to back with the Devils. Game 1 with the Sharks should've been a win, chalk up that loss to either Stevens for putting in Marty or Marty's poor play. Other than that, they played a good game. Shark game two could've gone either way. It was a shootout, they played pretty well. Devils game one, Flyers dominate 2nd and 3rd and get a convincing win. Devils game 2, another strong game with a win in overtime, which isn't an easy task against the defensive devils. Then a total domination of the Thrashers. Yes, the Thrash are bad, but they are an NHL team and the Flyers did dominate.

Other than the Avs game the Flyers have actually played some pretty good hockey, but just not a full 60 minutes which cost them games. If they play a full 60 minutes, they'll win a lot of games.

That's good news!

That's what some said last year too during the 10 game losing streak: The team is so young. I don't know the average age of this team compared to the average team age in the league, but looking at the roster you can see that the Flyers have plenty of guys born in the 70s (like seven and also a few born in the early 80s). It's not an inexperienced team. I don't really buy the "so young" explanation every time things go bad.

I hope it was just a bad start and I hope the team has learned from it's mistakes, but I have a feeling we will see the streaky Flyers again this season.

That was the problem last year too, wasn't it? Stevens were talking about "the 60 minute thing" all year...

Don't worry about it guys. The Flyers will be fine, and all will be right in this world when we make the playoffs with flying colors (Orange and black, of course.) We will be fine.


LETS GO FLYERS.

i think were getting back on track =] atleast i hope

No, last year I'd say there were many things that contributed to the streaky play. 1. Rookie coach 2. Totally revamped team 3. Young team 4. Many key injuries 5. the suspension factor.
This year I'd say thing like the 1 week layoff before the first regular season game, the "fun" phantoms/flyers game preceding the first regular season game, 1st game against a team that's playing their 4th, tough starting schedule and the team mentality.

The last 5 games their work ethic has improved a lot and it's been there the whole game. It took a while to get there but I don't think we'll see the inconsistencies we saw last year. I think the experience gained last year will show through this year.

These average age numbers are from last year and we have certainly come down due to the exits of Hatcher and Smith and the additions of Nodl, Sbisa, and Powe:

Detroit 31.8
Anaheim 30.3
Calgary 30.1
Atlanta 29.8
Carolina 29.8
Colorado 29.2
New Jersey 29.1
Dallas 29.0
Ottawa 28.9
Philadelphia 28.9
Minnesota 28.7
Los Angeles 28.7
Florida 28.7
Vancouver 28.4
San Jose 28.4
New York Is. 28.4
Nashville 28.3
Boston 28.3
Washington 28.1
St Louis 28.1
New York Ran 28.1
Pittsburgh 28.0
Montreal 27.8
Tampa Bay 27.7
Toronto 27.6
Buffalo 27.0
Edmonton 26.8
Chicago 26.7
Phoenix 26.5
Columbus 26.4

You're right in that it was the same explanation as last year, but I think young in this context as being inexperienced at playing together and lacking chemistry across the board. Some lines are gelling, but some aren't. And despite the relative ages of the guys on the team, which puts them right around the middle of the league, they've juggled some very young players into and out of the mix like Sbisa, Downie, Powe and now Nodl. Combine that with that horde of newcomers at the blueline and you see a lot of guys who haven't played together very much at all and who are still adjusting to the speed of the NHL. You also have a head coach who's technically only in his second full season with that title. Keep in mind that two of our starting six defensemen (Vaananen and Sbisa) weren't even in the NHL last year, and with the injuries to Jones and Parent they're both getting top-four minutes.

I'm not making excuses. I get just as frustrated with them when they hit these slumps. I was furious last year because I thought the team lacked heart. They proved me wrong with the Devils game at the end of the year and the first two rounds of the playoffs. Now, as uneasy as their streakiness makes me, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt for the most part. I think you're right though. We haven't seen the last of the streaky Flyers. Not by a long shot.

I do think a young team that lacks chemistry would benefit from a slow and steady goaltender, because Biron, to me, is a mirror of the team. He's hot and cold like they are. We can only hope that the team's hot streaks coincide with Biron's.

Stevens was not a rookie coach last year, he was a rookie the year before that. Still inexperienced compared to others, yes, but I don't like to use that as an excuse. Every NHL coach is supposed to know what he's doing, otherwise he can look for another job (and during that long losing streak last season, I had serious doubts about Stevens). About the "young team" explanation: look at the list Crosscheck42 posted based on the Flyers team last season. Columbus was a young team, Phoenix was a young team. Philly was in the middle. A bunch of young guys, sure, but also some very experienced players. I agree about the impact of the injuries, though, they certainly hurt the team.

Thank you for posting that list (I imagined someone would post something like it!). Interesting to see that the Flyers team indeed was not among the youngest teams.

I know we should be patient with Stevens and the Flyers, but all that patience is based on that he will actually accomplish something in the end, that he will win the Cup if only we give him the time. I´m not a patient man when it comes to results (although I should be, being a Flyers fan...), therefore I was very critical last season and thought that Stevens should be fired during that losing streak. He and the team impressed me in the playoffs, though.

My problem last year was that I had no feeling for where the team was heading, if it was a team that could challenge the top teams in the East and even go for the Cup or if it was a team that we should be satisfied with if it made the playoffs at all. Last year's rollercoaster ride made me confused, I felt like I didn't know what to expect every time the team hit the ice. I want that inconsistency and uncertainty gone. But I still have doubts that Stevens can achieve it.

Based on some really quick math from the Flyers roster page, the current average age for this year is 26.76923077. So, that puts us right around where Chicago was last season.

Our current average age is 25.5 years. That's including 22 skaters and 2 goalies. I'd say that's young.