Let’s all give a big congratulations to the Philadelphia Flyers, who are currently the only team in the league without a win this season! It takes a special kind of awful to spend the first 3 weeks of a season without a win, but the Flyers rose sunk to the challenge quite remarkably.
What can the Flyers do to stop the bleeding and actually win a game? The goaltenders can shoulder most of the blame. Martin Biron has a dismal 5.00 GAA and a .84 save percent and backup Antero Nittymaki isn’t doing much better with a 3.81 GAA and an .881 save percent. With sieves like that, it’s pretty damn difficult to win a game.
The defense isn’t without its share, however. They are giving up third and fourth chances in front of their own goal and the poor netminder has to try his damnedest to pick up the slack. Something’s got to give if your team is giving up four or five shots on goal every sequence.
The offense for the Flyers is trying very hard to keep up with the lack of defense by scoring 20 goals so far this season. That ranks within the top ten in the league, but compare it with the 28 goals scored against them, and you start to see the issue lies on the other side of the ice.
Philly’s next game is Friday against the New Jersey Devils. Their goalie, Martin Brodeur, is working on the all time shutout record, getting the 97th and 98th of his career already this season (He needs six more to tie Terry Sawchuk). Unless there is some miracle in net and on defense, expect the Broad Street losing streak to continue.
Eric Butler contributed to this article.