Scuffling Flyers head west for annual holiday road trip looking to start a ‘new chapter’

Every year, for the final week of December, Disney on Ice kicks the Flyers out of the Wells Fargo Center, bringing a bit of magic from the Happiest Place on Earth to Philadelphia while forcing the team to finish the calendar year on the road. This time around, the Flyers will travel west from Thursday to Monday to take on the San Jose Sharks, the Los Angeles Kings, and the Anaheim Ducks.

Over their last several holiday road trips, defined as consecutive road games between Dec. 19 and Jan. 7, the Flyers have shown that they ought to stuff some of that magic taking up residency on Broad Street in their carry-on luggage.

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Since the 2015 season, the Flyers’ dreams of victory perish on this end-of-year excursion. They have a 7-21-6 record during this swing over the last seven seasons, only winning more than a single game on the trip once in that span (3-3-1 in 2015).

The Flyers’ three consecutive losses on the West Coast last year against the Sharks, Kings, and Ducks served as the beginning of their franchise-record 13-game losing streak. It also ushered in a spike of players entering COVID-19 protocols, as seven of them (including goalie Carter Hart, former captain Claude Giroux, and defenseman Ivan Provorov) missed at least one of the four games on the trip.

They went 1-2-1 during that spell, with their sole victory coming over the expansion Seattle Kraken. The Flyers will face the Kraken on the road as part of their western Canada trip in February this season.

This year, the Flyers boast a worse points percentage (.414, 11-17-7) going into this trip than they did last season (.517, 12-12-5) with an arguably less talented roster on paper without the likes of Giroux and winger Cam Atkinson (out for the season with a neck injury). Now, Hart (concussion) will miss at least part of the trip after he was placed on injured reserve on Wednesday morning, retroactive to Saturday. Coach John Tortorella said 23-year-old goalie Samuel Ersson will start on Thursday against the Sharks while Hart is expected to make the remaining two starts of the trip against the Kings and the Ducks if he clears protocols.

The biggest difference with the Flyers this time around, of course, is that Tortorella is at the helm. Is the Flyers’ newfound effort and resilience under Tortorella enough to be able to ward off the doom and gloom typically associated with the holiday swing? While Tortorella is focused on getting through one day at a time, his players view these next three games on the road as a chance to start anew.

“I think it’s going to be an important road trip,” Provorov said. “Even though we’re going, whatever, three hours time difference, I think we’ve still got to find a way to go out there, put our best foot forward starting a new chapter of the season and continue to get better.”

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The Flyers, who rank seventh out of eight teams in the Metropolitan Division and 28th in the overall league standings, will see a pair of teams on this trip that also reside at the bottom of the standings. The Sharks (11-19-6, seventh in the Pacific) have the league’s fourth-lowest points total and the Ducks (9-22-4, eighth in the Pacific) the second-lowest. Meanwhile, the Kings (20-12-6) are second in the Pacific and are tied for the sixth-best points total in the NHL with 46.

But the prospect of approaching the trip as a fresh start still could be challenging if Hart (2.89 goals against average, .911 save percentage) misses more time than Tortorella expects. The 24-year-old consistently has been one of the Flyers’ best players, ranking second in the league in expected goals against (87.77) and fifth in goals saved above expected (12.8), according to Money Puck.

Regardless, the Flyers skaters must rise to the occasion in the absence of Hart, even if it’s just for one game. A handful of them were putting together productive performances before the three-day holiday break.

Winger Travis Konecny established a three-game multipoint game streak (three goals, three assists) for the second time in his career. He is tied for second in the league in shorthanded points (four) and tied for fourth in the league in shorthanded goals (two), both career highs. Defenseman Cam York recorded an assist on Konecny’s shorthanded goal against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday. In his eight games since his recall on Dec. 8., York leads Flyers defensemen with five points (one goal, four assists).

Center Scott Laughton has five points (three goals, two assists) in his last five games. Defenseman Travis Sanheim has eight points (three goals, five assists) in his last 13. Finally, Morgan Frost is on a career-high point streak with four points in four games (three goals, one assist). He has four goals and four assists in his last seven.

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Others on the team are looking for individual improvement. Provorov has no goals and just four assists in his last 22 games, and Tortorella said on Wednesday that his decision-making has been “inconsistent.” Forward Kevin Hayes has one assist in his last three games since he was a healthy scratch on Dec. 17 against the New York Rangers.

“I think there’s been times where some players are playing with confidence, the others are trying to find them,” Provorov said. “I think it kind of switches on and off, who has confidence and who doesn’t. And overall, as a team, we’ve just got to be able to put it all together, where the whole team of individuals has confidence, and then the team confidence will grow. That’s how you can put a bunch of wins in a row.”

Even if the Flyers lack space in their luggage for Disney magic, they had better pack their A-games if they want to stack together victories on the West Coast.