The Flyers’ team meeting lasted roughly 15 minutes.
One minute for each game the Flyers played this season.
“We want to stick together,” 16-year NHL veteran defenseman Hal Gill said. “We talked about some things. We know it’s a long season and there is plenty of time for us to turn things around, but it’s got to be now. It’s got to be the next game. We need to find a way to get points and to keep moving forward. Like I said, we can’t sit there and pout. No one out there really cares about it but we in the locker room we care, and we have to find a way to turn it around.”
Following the Flyers' 3-0 loss to the Devils on Thursday (see story), Coach Craig Berube said he did not get involved in the team meeting. It was players only. Berube generally does not go into the dressing room after games, a rule, anyway.
“We talked about a lot of stuff, not really anything I’m going to share with you guys, but we talked about a lot of things,” Wayne Simmonds said.
Is that speech kind of getting to be the same every day or is it something new?
“No, we know what we did wrong, and we’re trying to address what we’re doing wrong,” he replied.
Said Andrej Meszaros, “It was good that we talked. We got to straighten some things up and we talked about it. We have to move forward. We have a lot of games left to turn this thing around.”
The Flyers keep saying that, but at some point you run out of games left to turn it around. You saw how difficult it was for the Flyers to even get a sniff of a playoff spot last season and they began the night already six points out of one this year.
“It’s frustrating,” Gill said. “We’re working hard to generate offense. In this league, there are good teams who take advantage of a one-goal lead and lock it down. We did that to them last game and they turned the tables on us.”
So did the fans with their boos throughout the game.
“Yeah, it’s hard to right the ship,” Gill said. “When things aren’t going your way it’s tough. The crowd’s on you and you want to turn things around. It’s hard to keep positive when you keep up but that’s the only thing you can do."
They’ve been saying similar things for a while now.
“I think we’re playing decently defensively. It’s just on the other side, we’re not creating much,” Simmonds said.
Against New Jersey, they didn’t create anything.
Postgame loose pucks
The Flyers' penalty kill is now 12 for 12 over the last three games as they held New Jersey scoreless on three chances. … Claude Giroux led all Flyers with 23:36 of ice time and tied for the team high in hits with five along with Michael Raffl. Giroux was also 11 for 16 (69 percent) on faceoffs.