Flyers working to improve the technical points of their game

      PHILADELPHIA – It might have been different if everyone connected to the Flyers had seen this coming.

A historically bad start just wasn’t in the cards, or so it seemed.

From a technical standpoint, the coaching staff was still searching for answers as the slump approached game 10.

At the morning skate, coach Rick Tocchet was asked what has to change for the Flyers to be successful.

Tocchet believes his team can get back on the right track if it starts to play with some consistency. In other words, not two good shifts and then one bad one.

      “Stacking shifts,” Tocchet said. “Stacking things together. Like stuff we haven’t done this year.”

      Compounding the problem has been the absence of key injured players such as Travis Konecny, Cam York and Rasmus Ristolainen.

      Still, the players who are out there need to up the level of their games.

      “Everyone’s got to kind of play the game with a little more predictability,” Tocchet said. “I think we’re a little bit off. Last year was last year, we’ve got to our game a little bit quicker.”

      He can say that again. The Flyers have been outshot in nearly all their games and outchanced in the high scoring areas.

      “We have got to get back to the forecheck,” the coach said. “Our forecheck hasn’t been good. And we’re not supporting the puck.”

      Sean Couturier believes the Flyers have to return to the basics.

      “I think we have to simplify our game, bring more pucks to the net,” he said. “We have to find some dirty goals. It’s not going to be pretty but we have to simplify our game until we get better results.”

      Tocchet was encouraged by the effort in Tuesday night’s shootout loss to Seattle but then things slipped out in Detroit, another tough 2-1 defeat.

      “You drop back to kind of the norm for the season,” Tocchet said “It’s a hard league. We have some key pieces (Konecny, York, Ristolainen) out. And you have got to use depth pieces.”

      The coach cited the work of veteran defenseman Travis Sanheim, who played a season-high 31:04 in the Seattle game.

      “You’re over-playing some guys a little bit, like ‘Sanny’s’ playing a lot,” the coach noted. “We’re trying to get a little bit more momentum that way.”

      The Flyers need to get offense from more than just a handful of players, too. A number of players were still stuck on one or no goals heading into Saturday’s game against Ottawa.

      “We need some people at the key moments to make a play for us,” Tocchet said. “And we haven’t got it this year. So we got to continue to push that envelope. You can’t get frustrated, you can’t show guys your frustration.”

      In practice drills, the team has been emphasizing “small-ice” drills, working in tight places.

      “We have to continue to work on these little things like that, you know, to beat people,” Tocchet said. It’s something that we haven’t done well this year, hitting a stick instead of over the net, things like that is a skill that we have. We just have to keep pushing the pace on that.”

      Couturier has been through slumps before during his 15-year career. When could he sense those past teams were starting to turn things around?

      “You get an ugly win,” the captain said. “Sometimes it’s not even a game you deserve to play, you just grind the work, find a way to win.

    “We want to establish the right way of playing. I’ve been on teams where we lost 10 in a row and made the playoffs and we’ve won 10 in a row and didn’t make the playoffs. It’s still early but we’re looking for a spark to get us going.”