The Flyers’ five-on-five play has improved, but the results have vanished. Can they stop the bleeding?

For the first 11 games of the season, the Flyers took up residency in their defensive zone and seldom left, calling on goalies Carter Hart and Felix Sandström to stand on their heads, shoulders, knees, and toes as they faced barrages of shots from opposing teams.

The Flyers allowed a staggering 36.5 shots against per game in that span, good for the third-highest total in the league, but let in only 28 goals, the second-lowest total. Thanks to strong goaltending, the Flyers were still winning games, even though they tallied only 28 goals (2.54 per game, 31st in the league). Their power play contributed eight of those goals. As a result, the Flyers started the season with a strong 6-3-2 record.

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Now, for the last week, the Flyers have come to learn that progress does not create immediate results, and that the hockey gods’ generosity only lasts for so long.

The Flyers have finally made improvements at five-on-five. According to Natural Stat Trick, they are averaging 30.25 shots in their last four games while playing at even strength (up from 19.9 over their first 11 games) while drastically cutting down their shots against (16 per game, down from 26.5).

For the first time this season, the Flyers are winning the puck possession game. They’ve broken 50% in each of their last four games in shot attempt rate for an average of 54.5% (ninth best in the league). Not only are the Flyers spending more time on the attack, they’re also creating better scoring opportunities than their opponents — the Flyers have generated a total of 42 high-danger scoring chances to their opponents’ 25 during that span.

“I think we’re just kind of supporting the puck, playing hard, making plays,” defenseman Ivan Provorov said Sunday after the Flyers’ 5-1loss to the Dallas Stars. “I think in the last, probably since the St. Louis game, I think we started making a lot more plays, whether it’s in the offensive zone, through the neutral zone, or our D zone, trying to get out clean.”

The bad news? The Flyers aren’t winning. They’ve gone 1-3-0 over the last four games, including three straight losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Ottawa Senators, and the Stars. They’ve peppered opposing goaltenders with 110 shots but scored just four goals, each of which came at five-on-five, through those three losses.

For a team led by coach John Tortorella, who infamously said that “most analytics are trash,” the underlying five-on-five numbers right now are mostly positive, even if the results aren’t there. Don’t tell Tortorella, but someone must be showing those numbers to winger Travis Konecny.

“If you look at the shots right now that we’re generating and opportunities, it’s way different than when we were winning at the start of the year and we probably shouldn’t have been,” Konecny said. “So that’s going to come. The stats have been positive with us, as far as the opportunities we are getting and it’s just a matter of not beating ourselves.”

Yes, the Flyers have had their issues throughout the past week. They suffered from self-inflicted wounds via turnovers against Columbus, took what Tortorella called “dumb penalties” against Ottawa that led to goals, and struggled on special teams against Dallas, allowing two power-play goals and a shorthanded goal.

The Flyers’ stagnant power play is one of the more glaring problems that emerged. They are 0-for-10 on the man advantage in their last four games. The power play wasn’t exactly tearing up the NHL to start the season (20%, 22nd in the league), but for a low-scoring team at five-on-five, it provided a valuable source of goals.

Tortorella said after the loss to the Stars that the power play is fixable — “we have some good players there” — and that he even saw flashes of resilience from the struggling unit on Sunday amid an 0-for-6 showing.

“I like the way they moved it when everybody’s booing the [crap] out of them after they let in a shorthanded goal,” Tortorella said. “They stayed within themselves. They played, ended up with some good scoring chances. Five-on-three, they had a couple of looks. So those are our guys. We have to try to help them and improve that, because I think that’s the only way we can stay in these games offensively is getting some goals kicked in by that power play.”

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Can the Flyers derive confidence from the progress they’ve made in their process? Can they find a spark on the power play? Can they put an end to their losing streak and stop things from spiraling out of control, a feat they failed to accomplish last season?

The Flyers will find the answers to those questions on their upcoming three-game road trip, which starts with a rematch against the Blue Jackets on Tuesday.

“This stretch is going to be huge for us to see where we’re really at and which way we’re going to go this year,” forward Scott Laughton said.

On Monday, the Flyers recalled forward Max Willman and loaned Tanner Laczynski to the Phantoms. Laczynski played 12 games (two assists) mostly on the Flyers’ fourth line. They also loaned center Patrick Brown (back) to the Phantoms on a conditioning assignment.