Any way you look at it, it's awful. The Flyers are 1-7-1 in their last 9. Only laughing stocks Buffalo, Carolina, and Edmonton, and injury-ravaged Columbus have worse records. The penalty kill is dead last. They have been dominated in their last 2 road division games against the Rangers and Islanders. The Flyers are in the bottom handful of teams in shot differential, 5v5 Corsi percentage, and team save percentage. The bottom line, is they are getting whipped.
Everyone knows the defense is not talented enough, but the problems have become much bigger. For one thing, their team defensive coverage is terrible. It seems opponents find countless passing seams to exploit and are quicker to every loose puck, and that's when someone is not completely unmarked in the slot. One could look at the Detroit loss and conclude maybe the rebounds and bounces simply didn't go in favor of the Flyers, but when it happens every night, it's not luck.
Second, the offense is completely reliant on the Giroux line. Giroux is generally doing his thing, Schenn is contributing right now, and Voracek continues to be spectacular. Every other line has disappeared. Lecavalier can't find a role. Umberger has been total deadweight. Couturier handles the puck like a hot potato and immediately looks to get rid of it. Simmonds has faded after his promising start. Then end result is that Giroux and Voracek have been on the ice for every single Flyers goal in the last 4 games.
Bad team defense and completely one dimensional scoring is a recipe for a last place team. The Flyers had a similarly bad start last year amongst the coaching change, but as I've already written, there's no excuse for such a start this year. Furthermore, there is no clear path for the Flyers to crawl out of this mess. I expect things to naturally rebound a little, but given the depth of the problems, hope for a playoff spot appears increasingly distant.
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