Trade Rumors: Flyers Sense Changes Coming
(from CSNPhilly.com)
By Tim Panaccio
CSNPhilly.com
December 13, 2009 - BOSTON – Wherever you go, when the subject of Flyers hockey comes up, the questions remain the same: What's wrong with this team?
"When you find the answer, let me know," Ian Laperriere said at TD Garden, after a Sunday Flyers practice. "Trust me, it can't be one thing or it would be sticking out like a sore thumb.
"On paper, we all knew that, this team is good. But paper is paper..."
The Flyers can't score goals.
Yet no one can account for how the club could string together a few, solid block-building games and then have a huge dropoff against New Jersey in a game where the Flyers absolutely needed to pick up some points in the Atlantic Division standings.
"We got to be better as individuals and the day guys don't realize that, we're screwed," Laperriere said. "Some guys think they are doing their job? I hope not. I do hope we're not thinking like that because everybody needs to be better for us to win."
Some of the players admit there is a feeling that if the Flyers don't collect some points from the Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins in the next two, back-to-back games, there could be a major trade in the works. The Flyers are 16 points behind the division leaders.
Do players sense a trade may be coming?
"I think so," Laperriere said. "But what you can do? The only thing that is going to stop this bleeding is winning. We know that. We have a great bunch of guys in this room but it's business. A winning business. And if you lose, change is coming. You don't want to see that.
"We need to win. We need to get confidence back. There's no lack of working hard here, but sometimes I think there is a difference between working hard and working smart... We need to get the confidence back to win... I didn't come here to lose."
Danny Briere said the players know they are running out of time before someone gets traded.
"If we don't wake up, we know it's going to happen," Briere said. "It's never fun to see what happened a week ago with the new coach. Up until [Saturday], I thought we played desperate hockey."
The Flyers played three games of desperate hockey against Montreal, the Islanders and Ottawa, then tanked against the Devils, in a game that should have meant that much more given where New Jersey is in the standings.
"We've had different things on different days, I guess, but [Saturday] night was unacceptable," Laviolette said. "Enough has been said. Hopefully, they take what happened and learn from it. We didn't play the game when the puck dropped. New Jersey played and we watched...in the first 20 minutes."
Blair Betts, who is still rehabbing a shoulder injury, said players are noticeably angry and upset.
"With the exception of [Saturday], I thought we've played well the past couple games," Betts said. "I think everyone will be ready to go. Everybody is pretty angry at what happened, as well as the coaching staff and management. I think you will see a different team [against Boston].
"With what's happened over the past week, with a new coaching staff coming in, it's disappointing and we all feel it. I don't think anybody predicted us to be in the spot we are now. I know there are a lot of games left to the season, but we got a pretty big hill to climb."
Laviolette made it clear he expects a different team to show up against the Bruins.
"We got embarrassed [against New Jersey] and it should have been tough to sleep for everybody," Laviolette said. "Really. It's hard to walk out of that game with a fluffy feeling. Everybody should be pissed off. Everybody should be upset. Now it's 'what do you do with it?' How do you learn from it and what do you put forth in the next game?
"[The Devils' game] was different from Ottawa where we didn't get the results we were looking for, but we competed. We're trying to take new things, make them comfortable and compete. If you take "compete" out, it doesn't matter what you do. You'll lose. And we did."
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net