Philadelphia Flyers
‘I’m Tired of Missing the Playoffs’: Travis Konecny Addresses the Flyers Continuing Slide
It has not been the best stretch for the Philadelphia Flyers, who recently went on a six-game losing streak, then earned five points in three games, and have since lost their last three.
The NHL season comes with ups and downs, highs and lows; all of the cliches. Good parts of the season are expected, as well as the negative. But this time of the season, the losing streaks begin to add up, and a team’s postseason hopes can either grow or slowly fade away.
The Flyers’ recent trend indicates the latter. Philadelphia was once well in a playoff spot. Now, during this recent stretch, the team finds themselves 7th in the Metropolitan, 14th in the Eastern Conference, and 24th in the League.
With three more games before the Olympic break, we could have a clearer vision of where this team is headed: the lottery or the postseason. However, you can sense where things may be headed.
Travis Konecny has really stepped up for the Flyers in the past couple of games. Since the Maple Leafs game (1/8), Konecny has 13 points in 11 games, eight of which are goals. Offense has been hard to come by for the Flyers, but the alternate captain has not been the issue.
Sure, he makes his mistakes, and some of which are costly. But Konecny has made up for them by consistently showing up on the score sheet. He wears the “A” because he is a leader on this team. You can see him leading on the ice.
Travis Konecny does not want to miss the playoffs again, and he voiced that after Thursday’s loss.
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“It’s frustrating. I have been through this so many times, I am tired of missing the playoffs,” Konecny told reporters after the game. “[The playoffs] is kind of all I look at right now. I just want to get points for the team. We have to figure something out.”
The Flyers last made the playoffs in 2019-20, the bubble season.
Since Konecny made his NHL Debut in 2016-17, the Flyers have made two playoff appearances. They were eliminated by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2017-18 Eastern Conference quarterfinals. In 2019-20, they made it to the Eastern Conference semi-finals after beating the Montreal Canadiens in the quarters, but were eliminated by the New York Islanders.
There were some small positives to take away from Thursday’s loss, like the shot total and physicality. Konecny said, “Try to take the positives whenever you can. I am going to look in the mirror. [Dvorak] and I, we’ve been playing good, we’ve been scoring goals, but we’ve also given up [goals] too. If you ask him or me, we’re going to say if we can limit those, then that really helps the team.”
The Flyers’ alternate captain followed up by saying, “I bet all of the leaders would say the same thing. It starts up top, and we have to figure it out.”
When asked what he could say, as a leader, to help get things back on track, the winger said, “There were some guys who spoke after the game. I think everyone knows where we are at. We just have to execute.”
Konecny continued by saying, “There are mistakes all over the ice, but if you ask any of the leaders, it starts with us. Their second goal (Zacha), I made a mistake there, and you know, you can’t be doing that game after game. I think we all have to look in the mirror.”
Konecny and the Flyers will look to get back on track on Saturday when they host the Los Angeles Kings at 12:30 p.m. EST.
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Konecny isn’t the only one sick and tired of the Flyers missing the playoffs year after year, yet the front office doesn’t seem to mine–I don’t see them adding any pieces to help the team either. It’s not often that I simply give up on watching games, yet in the past week I haven’t been able to stomach watching them. There’s only so much suffering a fan can take.
Hey. it’s only been 50 years since they won the cup; give them some more time to get it right.
I’m an out of market fan, so I don’t get to see a lot of the games, but what I do see, from the highlights and the odd game on Sportsnet, is right now, the team defence looks awful. They are just chasing the play and reacting. That’s not going to win you many games. The structure is just not there. You can see the confidence just sagging. Even if they can turn this around (and I believe they can), it’s still awfully hard to make up points in this league.
Well, TK, just waive your NMC and we would love to get your cap hit off the books! Also, would be great 4 tanking! The team should have done a proper rebuild anyway, if they had the balls! Strip the team down to its struts, kept Michkov, Martone, and Zavragin and stockpiled high end draft picks and prospects like SJ, Chi, Mtl….
The Flyers play poor defensively in their own zone, but it’s not due to lack of talent. It’s primarily due to lack of practicing the basics. There are two glaring problems in with their play in their own zone:
These bad habits have to change. No team can be competitive without these two fundamental skills.
TK to the Sharks for Misa and a high draft pick…Sharks have a better shot at the play-offs than the Flyers in the East.
Give TK his wish and sell while he is hot. Trade him before the Rangers trade Panarin for Misa, etc.
I do not think Grier is that dumb to take a rental in Panarin.
But you never know in sports.
Our friend Sheng over at SJHN reported that Panarin would be interested in an extension with the Sharks
https://sanjosehockeynow.com/san-jose-sharks-artemi-panarin-new-york-rangers-trade-extension/
Trade TK to a contender and get some draft picks. Trade Tippett also before he gets too deep into hibernation mode. Get some draft picks. Then fire Danny B and Brett Flahr and get a GM who knows how to draft to use those picks properly.
No doubt the Foerster injury and Errorson’s poor play have contributed to the downturn, but the problem goes deeper, and it’s the same problem they’ve had for a long while: they don’t have enough talented players, especially with scoring skill. So, to win they have had to play a highly structured, tight-checking defensive system that requires max effort from everyone. They did that for a while through the first part of the season. But it’s hard to sustain that kind of demanding effort over a long season, and they are petering out now. If they had better players, they wouldn’t have to play quite so hard, they could score some easier goals, some PP goals, and could get some wins without as much maximum effort every game.
It’s demoralizing as a fan, but here we are. Again. Where do they go from here? Trade for draft picks? Now you’re waiting more years for what might or might not develop from the crap-shoot draft. Try to acquire better players via trade? Better option, but it’s not easy to find good players on the trade market and what do we have to give in return? Yeah, Martone might be good, but I don’t see anything else on the way – maybe Bjarnason or Zavragin – but doesn’t seem like the Flyers are going to get out of this mediocre hell anytime soon.