What's Going Wrong In Philly?

Let's be honest, the Philadelphia Flyers are having a season that can best be described as 'challenging'. The Flyers are currently 25th in the league, 12th in the Eastern Conference and last in the Atlantic Division.

Since 1994, the Flyers have only failed to appear in the playoffs once, in the disastrous  06/07 season when the team's points total was the worst in franchise history (56 points if you're wondering). If we conveniently forget about that shocker, the Flyers actually have a respectable record in the post season, having only failed to make the playoffs 8 times since the team's creation in 1967.

So what's going on now? The Flyers are 17/21/3. Only the Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche have lost more games (in regulation). Let's look at some numbers.

These are definitely not numbers which set the world on fire. The Flyers do have goal scorers, quite a few, only 9 of the 31 rostered skaters haven't scored. There's been big scoring games too with the Flyers scoring 5 or more on quite a few occasions. What they don't have is consistency. Of the 7 games the team played in January, they only won 2. In addition to this, when they lose, they lose big and this inconsistency so far is costing the Flyers a playoff place.

It isn't impossible that the team could make up enough points (and hope that other results also go their way) to get that playoff place but as things stand, the Flyers are going to have an extended post season to try and shore up the back lines and develop that consistency which has seen the team find success in the past.