Voracek not sweating scoring slump

A SLUMP in golf means more times at the tee and putting green.

Drop a few passes in football, and you find yourself staring at the massive spinning wheels of a JUGS machine.

Baseball players take extra batting practice, watch video to look for blips in their swing, do a hundred other little things. Or they are like former Phillie Matt Stairs, who when asked why he didn't take extra batting practice to break out of a slump, said, "Why practice a bad habit?''

That's not exactly Jakub Voracek's philosophy. But he wasn't on the ice an extra 30 minutes yesterday taking extra backhand shots on net or trying to roof forehand shots from up close.

Tuesday night's 5-2 loss to Columbus marked the 14th straight game in which Voracek has failed to score, discounting an empty-net goal that iced a 3-1 victory over the Capitals last week. And while he showed up cleanly shaven for the first time in 2015 Tuesday night, he claimed afterward it was more about finally utilizing a Christmas gift than it was about grasping for karma.

"Maybe if I was second or third year in the league I would be thinking about it more,'' he said after practice yesterday. "But right now we have been on a good run and winning games, which is far more important than me scoring in the game.''

Except for this: "If our line scores there [Tuesday], we would have won the game.''

Specifically, Voracek was referencing a chance he had in the third period and the Flyers trailing by a goal.

With plenty of net to shoot at, Voracek semi-fanned on a backhander, the puck dribbling toward the net harmlessly. Amid the Flyers' frenzied comeback from a 2-0, first-period hole, Voracek also found a rebound near his feet during a second-period power play. But sensing pressure that wasn't really there, he rushed the puck to his forehand and flipped it with little force into the glove of Columbus goaltender Curtis McElhinney.

"When you don't score, you tend to overwork things,'' he said. "Instead of keeping it simple, you try so hard that sometimes it's even worse.''

That's sure how it looks out there, not just for him, but linemate Claude Giroux. Voracek is still tied for second in the NHL with 60 points, but Giroux has slipped from third to eighth with 55.

The captain's goal-less streak is at nine. And it finally prompted some tinkering by Flyers coach Craig Berube Tuesday. After the first line failed to register a shot in the opening period, Berube dropped Brayden Schenn to the third line and his natural position of center, and pushed Michael Raffl up with the Flyers' two top scorers.

They accounted for five of the Flyers' 20 second-period shots, often creating a carryover that resulted in two late-period tying goals and all the momentum a home team could ask for entering the third period.

But you don't win games with momentum, with almosts, with near-efforts. As Voracek and his coach noted yesterday, this is the time of year when the ice shrinks, when games are often played, to quote the great Flyers captain Bob Clarke, "In a broom closet.''

"Teams don't give them a lot of room out there,'' Berube said. "They're going to get checked hard every night. They've got to understand that. They're going to have to go in traffic and get to the net if they want to produce.''

They did that more once the gritty Raffl joined them, and by the end of the game, they had eight shots. But Giroux had just one of those, and it is perhaps telling that both Flyers goals were scored in precisely the manner Berube described as his slump-busting technique.

It's not just about close checking, said Voracek. "Moves I've used to create space, to make plays, in the beginning of the season, teams have . . . caught on,'' he said. "So I need to do it differently.''

That sounds a little like practicing your way out of a slump. Voracek insists it is not, that the lack of goals "is more a story for you guys than it is for me.''

"I think everybody is different when going through scoring slumps,'' he said. "But me, I'm always thinking about the bright side. Always. I've been in this position so many times in my career.

"There are worse things in the world than me not scoring. Getting rid of cancer, hunger . . . I'm lucky enough to be part of this. I will score eventually. So will 'G.'

"We are too good of players not to make a difference.''

On Twitter: @samdonnellon

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