Flyers captain Claude Giroux ‘not worried’ about waiving no-move clause, concerned only about getting team out of current ‘hole’

At the core of Claude Giroux’s publicly shared hockey aspirations rests two desires — one, he’d like to remain a Flyer for the rest of his career as he approaches unrestricted free agency, and two, he’d like to win a Stanley Cup.

But at the quarter-pole of the season with the Flyers on a seven-game skid, those desires appear increasingly at conflict. Regardless, Giroux said he isn’t thinking about waiving his no-move clause, which could be the first step toward freeing him to play for a contender and fetching the organization draft capital to prompt a rebuilding.

“I’m not worried about that right now,” Giroux said. “I’m just worried about games coming up and we’re in a hole right now. Thinking about that stuff is not going to help the team get out of this. Still got a lot of confidence in this group. I really believe we win one here, we might win a few in a row here. Confidence is a big part of it right now.”

Confidence, Giroux said, will come when the team starts finding ways to score. In their last 11 games, the Flyers managed to score only 14 goals (1.64 per game). The only team worse since Nov. 11 is the New York Islanders, who played four fewer games in that stretch because of a COVID-19 outbreak.

“Sometimes you can have a bad game and then you have that one play and the puck finds the back of the net, and for some reason your confidence is back,” Giroux said. “It’s funny how it works, but right now, we’re not scoring goals. Goalies are playing great for us. We’ve just got to score goals.”

Giroux pinned “multiple” Flyers losses on the team’s inability to capitalize on the power play. The Flyers converted only 5.6% of their opportunities in their last 11, tied for second-to-last in the league with the Chicago Blackhawks.

In their last game, against the New York Rangers, Giroux was pleased with some of the chances created on the power play, but the team still came up without a goal each time.

“It starts with me,” Giroux said. “I’m the one that has the puck most of the time on the power play. So we’ve got to make better plays, have a mindset of getting the puck to the net a little bit more.”

The Flyers have two consecutive practice days before they embark upon a stretch of five games in seven nights, starting with a rematch against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday. Now, Giroux is embracing the chance to reset and not looking back — or too far ahead.

“We know in our locker room that we can turn this around,” Giroux said. “Next two games coming up here at home, that’s going to be huge for us. We’re playing good teams and we’ve got to come out and got to play hard and give ourselves a chance to win here.”

From defenseman Ryan Ellis’ lower-body injury to Kevin Hayes’ abdominal injuries, the Flyers have struggled to pin accurate timelines on their injured players’ returns.

With that in mind, coach Alain Vigneault was hesitant to disclose exactly how long the team expects winger Joel Farabee (upper body) to be out. Following practice Friday, Vigneault said Farabee is “somewhere in the vicinity of week-to-week” after Farabee exited Wednesday’s game against the Rangers in the first period and did not return.

Both Farabee and center Derick Brassard (lower-body strain) are expected to miss Sunday’s game against the Lightning. While Brassard did not practice with the team, he skated for roughly 15 minutes on his own earlier in the morning.

In the midst of the Flyers’ seemingly constant stream of injury misfortunes, at least one player is inching closer toward a return. Forward Patrick Brown practiced Friday with the team for the first time since jamming his thumb against the Flames on Nov. 16.

“He was farther ahead than I thought he would be,” Vigneault said. “I was told yesterday that he would do the first part of practice with us and then come off. And he did the whole practice. So that’s a positive sign for us.”

Although Brown is not back to 100 percent just yet, Vigneault said he’s hopeful that Brown will rejoin the lineup at some point next week.

Against the Rangers, Vigneault moved forward Morgan Frost from center to left wing and did so again in practice. On Friday, Frost skated on a line with Hayes at center and Travis Konecny at right wing. “I thought Morgan looked all right on the wing,” Vigneault said. “Today at practice, I thought he practiced real well. So hopefully tomorrow, he has another good one and gives us a good game on Sunday.”