Scuffling Flyers starting to replay the sad story of 2021-22

The Flyers’ star players began the season injured and other injuries are starting to pile on. The team is making strides yet can’t find a way to win. Are you feeling a sense of déjà vu?

Two days short of the anniversary of the beginning of last year’s 10-game losing streak, the 2022-23 Flyers are in the middle of their greatest test of the season as they try to prove they’re better than what they showed last year.

» READ MORE: Wade Allison placed on IR; Artem Anisimov and Patrick Brown assigned to the AHL for rehab stints

This year’s team has lost before. It has done so badly — losing 3-0 to the San Jose Sharks and 5-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs — and it has done so multiple times in a row — it dropped three straight to the Carolina Hurricanes, the New York Rangers, and the Maple Leafs between Oct. 29 and Nov. 2.

But now, the Flyers (7-6-3) are losing by more lopsided scores — suffering a three-goal loss to the Ottawa Senators immediately followed by a four-goal loss to the Dallas Stars — and they’re losing more in a row. The skid has now stretched to four games, the longest of the season.

To add insult to injury, the Flyers next face the Boston Bruins, who have an NHL-best 14-2-0 record.

It’s not just reminiscent of last year. It’s worse.

One of the main problems we identified last year was injuries. The Flyers started last season down two key players in Kevin Hayes (core injury) and Ryan Ellis (pelvic injury). They started without Ellis again this season, as well as first-liners Sean Couturier (back) and Cam Atkinson (upper body).

Having traded away captain Claude Giroux last March, the Flyers began the season with Hayes, Travis Konecny, James van Riemsdyk, Scott Laughton, and Joel Farabee as the “elite, veteran” forwards. Now, van Riemsdyk is also out with a broken finger.

» READ MORE: What went wrong? Analyzing the Flyers’ historically-bad 2021-22 season

Another key point was the injuries to depth players. This year, the Flyers lost Patrick Brown (back surgery) and Bobby Brink (hip surgery) in the offseason, Artem Anisimov (broken foot) in the preseason, and Wade Allison (oblique strain, hip pointer) three games ago.

Like last year, the special teams had a decent start to the season. That slipped in mid-November last year, much as it’s slipping now. After finishing with the league’s worst power play (12.6%) and seventh-worst penalty kill (75.7%) last season, the special teams units currently rank only 26th and 21st, respectively. They are just 1-for-11 on the power play during this four-game losing streak.

Carter Hart was a major reason the Flyers were hanging with teams, both at the start of last season and the start of this one. Last November, he went from consistently finishing games with save percentages in the .900s to dipping to the .800s. After posting an otherworldly .946 SV% and 1.97 goals-against average through his first eight starts this year, Hart has cooled off considerably with a .872 SV% over his last three games.

Last year’s Flyers were winning games early on that they frankly shouldn’t have won and losing games they should have won — much like this team, which has actually played better at five-on-five in recent games despite the current skid.

But the message coming out of the locker room is that things are different. They faced adversity last season and crumbled, but so far this season, they’ve got more mental toughness.

The team demonstrated that right off the bat in the season opener against the New Jersey Devils by accomplishing something they hadn’t done all of last season — coming back from a multi-goal deficit. After posting a league-worst nine comeback wins last season, the Flyers have five in 16 games already this season. On Tuesday night, they didn’t win but twice dug themselves out of two-goal holes to earn a point in a 5-4 overtime loss.

“You don’t want to go down two goals,” Hayes said. “But it’s nice to know there’s no quit in this room. And we all believe together that we can get out of the hole.”

Coach John Tortorella hasn’t been disappointed in the team’s effort despite the mistakes and the consecutive losses. He has both seen and heard the resilience among his group.

“You can hear it on the bench when we’re down by a couple that we still have plenty of time,” Tortorella said.

“You lean on that resilience.”

Through his 22 years of experience, Tortorella has learned that mental toughness is created through experiencing not only good times together but bad times as well. The team got a taste of the good early in the season, forward Noah Cates pointed out. Now, the Flyers are learning to deal with the bad.

Cates, 23, was only on the team for a short time last season after the end of his college career. The Flyers had already suffered through that early 10-game skid as well as a historic 13-game losing streak. While he was with the team, the Flyers won just four of 16 games to end the season.

» READ MORE: Cates brothers’ unbreakable bond has carried them from their Minnesota basement to the Flyers

This year, the locker room feels different to Cates.

“There’s a new focus,” Cates said. “There’s a new coaching staff with a new standard just like we talked about. And just kind of new hope for this team.”

It’s tough right now, but Cates is trusting the Flyers have the leadership to turn it around. But he couldn’t deny the importance of doing it quickly.

“It’s a huge road trip for us,” Cates said. “Big point [Tuesday], but moving forward, these next two games are really must-wins.”