What Flyers must do ‘over and over and over again' to dig out of hole

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Similar to when their 10-game losing streak was alarmingly growing, the Flyers are facing another gut check in this 2021-22 season.

Dealing with illness, injuries and now a four-game skid (0-3-1), the Flyers (13-15-6) are in dire need of a win Saturday when they host the Sharks (18-16-1).

Let's get into the essentials for the game:

  • When: 7 p.m. ET with Flyers Pregame Live at 6:30 p.m. ET
  • Where: Wells Fargo Center
  • Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
  • Live stream: NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com and the NBC Sports MyTeams app

• Interim head coach Mike Yeo and the Flyers had strung together a season-best seven-game point streak (5-0-2) before the club dropped its past three games in regulation. The Flyers have lost those last three games by a combined score of 16-6.

Frustration has started to boil considering the Flyers' circumstances of needing to climb the standings while being undermanned because of COVID protocols and injuries.

"You have nine, 10 guys out, six guys in protocol," Scott Laughton said after the Flyers' 6-2 loss Thursday to the Penguins. "It's a tough league to win that way."

Yeo has seen ups and downs in a spot like this before. In 2016-17, he took over the Blues at the beginning of February. St. Louis went on to win 22 of its final 32 games to make the playoffs. In Yeo's third game as bench boss, the Blues started a six-game winning streak. They followed it up with five consecutive losses. And then won five straight.

"I went through something similar when I took over in St. Louis a number of years ago where we started to get on a roll," Yeo said Friday. "I think we won five in a row and then we lost five in a row and then we got on a roll again after that."

There's no denying the Flyers haven't gotten a ton of breaks this season. But, if they want to salvage their season, the Flyers need to have an answer to adversity at least from time to time, whether it's within a game or a tough stretch.

"A lot of that confidence of sticking to your game has to be earned," Yeo said. "I don't think that we've earned that yet. I don't think that we've built a strong enough game where we can feel confident enough that we can keep climbing back, we can keep doing the right things and we don't have to panic and we don't have to get off the script.

"That's something that you have to earn and you earn that by doing it over and over and over again. You earn that by doing that as a first-line guy, doing that as a fourth-line guy, doing that as a first-D pairing, doing that as a third-D pairing.

"We have to establish our game, what Philadelphia Flyer hockey is, what it looks like, what it feels like. And then we're going to have to fight through these times where something might not go right — keep pushing, keep doing it. Then you'll see that you get some results and then you'll start to build confidence."

• The Flyers will again be without Claude Giroux, Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim, all of whom are in COVID protocol.

Nick Seeler and Jackson Cates exited COVID protocol Saturday and will reenter the lineup for Egor Zamula and Connor Bunnaman.

• A little over a week ago, the Sharks beat the Flyers, 3-2, in overtime. It was the first defeat of the Flyers' current four-game losing streak.

Martin Jones will face his former club tonight. In the offseason, the netminder had the final three years of his contract bought out by San Jose.

Projected lineup

 

Forwards

Joel Farabee-Scott Laughton-Cam Atkinson

James van Riemsdyk-Kevin Hayes-Max Willman

Oskar Lindblom-Morgan Frost-Gerry Mayhew

Jackson Cates-Patrick Brown-Zack MacEwen

Defensemen

Cam York-Justin Braun

Nick Seeler-Rasmus Ristolainen

Keith Yandle-Kevin Connauton

Goalies

Martin Jones

Carter Hart

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