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“We suck” says John Tortorella about current Flyers team

By Mike Gambill |
ELMONT, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 02: Head coach John Tortorella of the Philadelphia Flyers handles the bench against the New York Islanders at the UBS Arena on October 02, 2022 in Elmont, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
ELMONT, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 02: Head coach John Tortorella of the Philadelphia Flyers handles the bench against the New York Islanders at the UBS Arena on October 02, 2022 in Elmont, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Sometimes, less is better and if you know anything about the Flyers’ head coach John Tortorella, his short statements can speak volumes to fans, pundits and players alike. The Philadelphia Flyers have quickly gone this season from a great turnaround candidate into a hockey cesspool and they better find a way to rescue themselves or watch their season sink into the NHL abyss and join the “bottom feeder” club.

What’s going on with the Flyers right now?

Okay, any team in any sport can suddenly go from a hot streak to another streak of bad luck. Injuries to key players can drastically affect overall team performance and sometimes you can pass bad performances off simply as being “unlucky.”  However, when you drop four games in a row and give up nothing less than four goals in each of those games to your opponents, the fingers of blame need to be pointed right at your own self.

Over the past week, the Flyers gave up a 5-2 loss to Columbus, a 4-1 decision to Ottawa, a 5-1 loss to Dallas and again last night another harsh 5-4 overtime loss to those same Columbus Blue Jackets.  Only last night’s game was close and poor defense on a tic-tac-toe goal by Vladislav Gavrikov at 3:14 in OT ended what could have been and should have been  a comeback victory to stop the bleeding from recent losses.

Again, the Flyers have no one to blame but themselves over this recent losing streak and guess what? The Flyers are heading to Boston to play the red-hot Bruins in what should be a true gut-check game for Philadelphia.  Flyers’ head coach John Tortorella was interviewed during the game by ESPN and poignantly stated exactly what’s wrong with this franchise right now: “We suck.”  It’s pretty hard to follow up with that kind of statement when your own head coach tells the listeners at home what is wrong with the Philadelphia Flyers right now.

Statistically speaking, the Flyers sit at 18th in the NHL on special teams with a lowly 17.3% pwer play average and a 76.0% penalty kill. What this means is that less than 20% of the time the Flyers are scoring with a man advantage and they’re giving up goals on the penalty kill at a rate greater than 25%. Playoff-bound teams don’t do that; teams who are looking beneath them to see how far they can fall in the standings do.  Yes, the Flyers are still 7-6-3 but they’re 3-4-3 in the last ten games and those three overtime losses means this franchise needs to embrace a single word right now – finish.

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