Tyson Foerster slid headfirst on the ice chasing a puck in a scoreless game and got tangled with Carolina's Jordan Martinook.
Martinook did to Forester what the Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes and the rest of the NHL have done to the Flyers.
Used him as a punching bag.
Bam! One shot to the left side of Foerster's face. Wham! A second shot to the left side of Foerster's face.
Foerster had little fight and neither did the Flyers.
The Hurricanes scored only
moments later — oh, there was no penalty called on the blows to the head — and went on Sunday night to beat the Flyers 4-1.
The winless Flyers.
After teasing Flyers fans last season that perhaps a rebuild was yielding a promising future after they won their first playoff series since 2020, coach Rick Tocchet's team is 0-5-2 and the only winless team in the Eastern Conference.
In the waning moments of the loss, pockets of fans that stuck around for another anemic loss chanted “Fire Tocchet! Fire Tocchet!” The rest, they simply booed the team off the ice.
“I think we go off the rails at certain points of the game,” Tocchet said. “I don't know if it's experience, pressure, I don't know.”
The Flyers weren't quite ready this season — especially after Anaheim matched Philadelphia's five-year, $90 million offer sheet to Leo Carlsson — to move into the Stanely Cup conversation.
But play this poorly?
Flyers general manager told reporters over the weekend in Boston that “it's not the time to panic because of a bad stretch.”
It's getting close.
The Flyers were crushed by Pittsburgh 7-0 on opening night and have been outscored 28-8 this season en route to the worst start in franchise history. The Flyers had twice before in 1999-00 and 2008-09 gone six straight winless games to open a season. Both of those teams rebounded to make the playoffs.
Since taking a 3-0 series lead in the opening round of the playoffs against Pittsburgh, the Flyers have lost 13 of 14 games — including a 4-0 sweep in the second round to the Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes' social media team even rubbed it in the Flyers' faces with a post Sunday night that read, “We've won more games in Philly in the last nine days than the Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies combined this month.”
“There's still a lot of hockey left,” Flyers captain Sean Couturier said. “Of course, if we don't figure this out soon, we'll be chasing and it's going to be too late. But yeah, there's no quitting.”
The Flyers are playing undermanned with forward Travis Konecny, defenseman Cam York, and defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen out with injuries. Even with all three healthy, the Flyers aren't suddenly going to turn the season around.
“We can't skill our way out of this one,” Couturier said. “We have a lot of talent, but we can't skill ourselves out of it. We're going to have to work and grind and it starts the next practice. We better figure it out.”
The Flyers signed forward Trevor Zegras to a four-year, $36.5 million extension after he had a career-high 26 goals and 67 points last season, the second-most on the team. He's been perhaps the biggest disappointment this season with just two points and no goals.
“What happened last year was pretty cool, and maybe you feel like it’s just going to keep happening, and you’ve made it,” Briere said in Boston. “But the reality is we’re a team that needs to have everybody working in the same direction. The way we’re built, the full team is important to have everybody. We don’t have a superstar that’s going to come out and score four or five goals in a game to win a game by himself."
Something has to change, and fast. The effort, the execution, the power play — maybe even the coach if Tocchet can't find the solutions.
Zegras said Sunday night the Flyers were “fully behind” Tocchet, who played parts of 11 seasons across two stints with the franchise and became one of their most beloved and gritty figures. That goodwill could be diminished as the losses pile up and the Flyers show little spirit in the blowout losses.
They have four losses by three or more goals.
“You start thinking about the long term, then you're really going to be in trouble,” Tocchet said. “You've got to try to win. How you win the next game.”
___
See AP’s full NHL coverage here
