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Hayes: Maybe the Flyers are simply tired

Maybe the mystery surrounding the Flyers' recent collapse isn't much of a mystery at all.

Maybe they're just tired.

Beginning Dec. 28, the Flyers played 10 games in 19 days. The first three came in five days, outside of the Eastern time zone, against playoff teams.

That was, in part, due to the World Cup of Hockey and the new "bye week" producing a condensed schedule that has teams from Los Angeles to Tampa Bay complaining. The Flyers, off since Sunday, finish their bye week with a practice Friday night before they resume play Saturday when the Devils visit. As the team prepared to disperse, coach Dave Hakstol acknowledged that his club needed a mental and physical break. That could not have been more obvious.

After running off 10 wins in a row from Nov. 27 to Dec. 11 and vaulting into the playoff picture, the Flyers won just three of their next 13 and earned nine of a possible 26 points. They are 22-18-6, hanging by their fingernails on the playoff ledge. They approached the bye playing three games in four days – games marred by lazy, tired penalties and some awful goaltending.

Beginning Nov. 6, goalie Steve Mason started 26 of 30 games and played the lion's share of a 27th. He enjoyed a splendid stretch during the start of that run, most of it during the absence of Michal Neuvirth, whose most recent injury cost him seven weeks. However, Mason entered the bye utterly lost, muttering something about needing more ... practice time?

This, actually, is a revealing observation.

During an NHL season, a team that has "practice time" is not playing frequently, not traveling much, or both. A goalie who is getting "practice time" is a goalie who is being given regular breaks, either by the schedule, by a judicious boss, or both. It bears mentioning that Hakstol is only in his second season as an NHL coach.

Again, to some degree, all teams are affected by the condensed NHL schedule. Perhaps the Flyers are simply affected to a greater degree.

Why? Maybe it's because they're not a deep team and that they have been bitten by injury.

Maybe that is amplified because young players Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gostisbehere have not developed the durability to play so many games so close together in the dregs of the season. It takes experience to manage fatigue.

Konecny, a 19-year-old, 5-foot-9, 175-pound rookie wing, scored four goals and had 12 points in his first 20 games. He has three goals and nine points in his 25 games since, has played about two fewer shifts per game and was a healthy scratch in the middle of this skid.

Provorov, a 20-year-old rookie defenseman, was steady and heady in his first 32 games, but he hasn't scored a goal in the last 14 – or in the last 20, for that matter. Provorov leads the Flyers in ice time, too.

He averages about one more shift than Gostisbehere, a second-year offensive defenseman who has just three points and is minus-12 in his 13 games during the skid. Like Konecny, Ghost's sloppy play earned a healthy scratch. Ghost sat in Boston on Saturday two days after two mistakes had led to two Canucks goals (and two missed shifts).

Whatever the reason, the Flyers went from unstoppable to unwatchable overnight. Fatigue seems plausible. It would be neither unprecedented nor inexcusable.

Otherwise, what's happening now is just inexplicable.