Be Afraid

I've been pretty busy recently, and there's no reason to beat a dead horse. This team is stumbling badly and are in imminent danger of dropping several spots for playoff standings.

A bad finish is by no means a guarantee of playoff failure (and vice versa), but the Flyers' play recently is very worrying. A month ago the Flyers looked like the class of the east, with the only real concerns for the playoffs being a disappointing power play and question marks in net.

Now the power play is downright awful and the team can't get a result, even when the goalies play well. Briere also has a sore groin, and those types of problems tend to linger for a while. This team is ripe for a first round exit at this rate.

Shootouts

The Flyers have also played a bunch of shootouts recently, losing all but one. Every Flyers fan knows they are bad at these, but just how bad?

3/17 v Atlanta - Boucher, 1-3

3/19 v Dallas - Bobrovsky, 5-6

3/22 v Washington - Boucher, 0-3 (perhaps the worst SO performance I've ever seen)

3/24 v Pittsburgh - Bobrovsky, 2-4

4/3 v New York - Bobrovsky, 0-2

That's a cumulative save percentage of 44.4% (8-18). Take away the Dallas game, and that percentage drops to 25%. Bear in mind that, since the shootout started, goalies make the save 67.5% of the time league-wide. The fact that the Flyers entered the playoffs last season by winning a shootout with Boucher over Henrik Lundquist is simply miraculous.