Flyers are mired in a seven-game losing streak but cannot look too far ahead

COLUMBUS, Ohio — One barrel at a time.

That’s all the Flyers can do. Take it one barrel at a time.

Behind the team is a giant seven-game-losing-streak-filled barrel, including losses on Friday and Saturday to the Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets, respectively. But their backs are turned and they are skating away from it. That barrel has to be out of sight and out of mind.

In front of them is another barrel, a much smaller version with just a Montreal Canadiens logo on it. Yes, there are other ones beyond that — three more, to be exact. But the Flyers must focus on the one right ahead, the one they can see clearly if they want to cross the desert and reach the Stanley Cup playoffs.

They must take it one barrel at a time. One period at a time. One shift at a time.

It’s something Nate Leaman knows all too well. The coach used the barrel story to help drive Team USA at the 2021 World Junior Championship. It may have been a short tournament, but the Americans faced adversity beginning with a 5-3 loss to Russia in the preliminary stage. They then faced a Finland squad that had knocked the U.S. out in the quarterfinals the year before. With much of that team still intact, including the coaching staff, they topped the Finns in the semifinals on a goal with 1 minute, 16 seconds left in regulation.

They had one more barrel to face, a Canadian squad that had been perfect with only four goals allowed in its first six games, back-to-back shutouts in the quarters and semis. But the Americans focused on the barrel in front of them; they forgot about the ones in the past — for themselves and the Canadians — and captured the United States’ fifth gold medal with a 2-0 win.

Like the World Juniors, the Flyers are now in a short tournament with four games left on their regular-season slate. Time is not on their side. But as Leaman knows — he served as an assistant coach at multiple tournaments for USA Hockey and twice ran the bench at World Juniors — the focus has to be on just the next game and what they can do on Tuesday night to come out on top.

“If they can reset and look forward and not look backward — and know this is a four-game season and say, ‘I just want to focus on these things this game. That’s all we’re thinking about is this game, these are the things we’re focusing on in this game, and it starts one shift at a time,’” said Leaman, who has been Providence College’s coach since 2012 following a nine-year stint at the helm of Union College.

“The big thing is, you don’t play the scoreboard. You’re trying to play the game because when you get toward the end of the season, you can feel maybe a little more quote-unquote, pressure if someone scores. You’ve just got to keep playing the game. Don’t play the scoreboard, play your best for 60 minutes, and let the cards fall where they may.”

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For Leaman, it was about his teams focusing on their keys for each game. It is what the Flyers must do if they want to get back into the postseason mix. At one time, the Flyers were a team that was playing hard, blocking shots left and right, forechecking, and using its speed and strong breakout game to control play while not only going toe-to-toe with some of the best teams in the league but winning.

Discounting the first two games of the seven-game losing streak, as they were against the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers — two games the Flyers played well in — the Flyers have struggled at both ends of the rink. They became a team that cannot execute in the offensive zone. The Flyers went from averaging 2.92 goals per game and allowing 3.05 against in the first 73 games to 1.80 goals for and 4.60 against in the last five. Woof.

“Playing aggressive, I think,” Scott Laughton said Saturday night when asked what the team can get back to. “Not giving guys time with the puck, making it hard on guys, blocking shots, doing the little things at this time of year that need to be done, and they’re not.”

Pulling from another guy who had success in New England, Leaman says it’s all about execution.

“Bill Belichick hit the nail on the head when he was with the Patriots all those years — when you get into these situations, it’s about execution. Don’t let anything else fool you, it’s about executing and if you can focus on the right things,” Leaman said “... I don’t think it’s magic. It’s about getting your mind in the right place, and focusing on the right things, and drowning out all the other distractions.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of people that want to hit the panic button for them, but if they can focus and get their mind in the right place ... I think good things can happen because they’ve obviously proven they’re a good team.”

Flyers coach John Tortorella has noted that the teams they are facing right now, the ones just playing for pride, are playing freely. They are playing without any pressure because, for them, a playoff spot is not on the line with every game, every period, and every shift.

“If they make a mistake, it’s no big deal,” Leaman said. “Philly feels like if we make a mistake, it could be the game. So you get a little more tentative and you get a little bit tighter. That’s where, if you can reframe it to: No, no these are the things we want to execute, these are one of the things we want to do. We’re going to make mistakes, it’s a game of mistakes. We’re going to make those mistakes, just keep playing and keep trying to focus on these things.”

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Tortorella had the same mantra throughout the season. “I see games that are just full of mistakes,” he said back in January. “I think you need to allow them to make mistakes and they’ve got to live through the mistakes,” he said in December. Yes, now those mistakes are magnified but, as he said in that same presser in December, “they’ve got to live through some of the experiences and go through some of the pitfalls and mistakes they make to learn, and that’s kind of incumbent upon them to find their way.”

Finding their way has to happen soon. But as Leaman noted, they just have to get one win — it’ll be the ugliest one, too, he said — but that could get the ball rolling. As Morgan Frost said Friday morning, “Sometimes, you’ve just got to take a breath.”

“I think the teams you see that do well are playing their best hockey right now,” Garnet Hathaway added on Saturday. “And they’re going to continue that until the playoffs. So that’s what we need to do. We need to play our best hockey. We can’t think about what happened, can’t look back, can’t change anything, so we’ve got to keep going.”

And focus on the next barrel.