Limping Flyers need a clean bill of health

PROLONGED SLUMPS are like a mystery illness. One opinion says the cure is intensity, another says it's habits, and you can even find some who say it's nothing that time and rest and some playoff adrenaline won't fix.

The patient in this case, your Philadelphia Flyers, can act panicky at times, lashing out at each other and at those who point out the obvious or discuss the treatments. General Manager Paul Holmgren tore into the team pretty good during a closed-door meeting Wednesday and yesterday a few noses seemed out of joint that it made it onto the pages of the Daily News.

Attempts by the media to discuss this with the usually cooperative Holmgren were not successful, and Flyers coach Peter Laviolette deflected such inquiries by saying he wanted to focus on tonight's game in Buffalo.

The problem, of course, is that it's hard to focus on what might happen in Buffalo tonight without addressing what did happen in Ottawa on Tuesday and what has happened now for a large chunk of the last 2 months. The Flyers have won just six of their last 19 games to lose a firm grip on the Eastern Conference's top seed, repeatedly blowing leads in that span and inexplicably approaching big games, measurement games, with the enthusiasm of a child about to receive a tetanus shot.

"Sometimes you sit back and it's like, well, if I cheat a little bit tonight, OK," Danny Briere was saying after practice yesterday. "You don't even realize you're doing it. When you have such a comfortable lead in the standings . . . It's different from when you need to win every single game, when every game is big. It's different. And that's what we have to turn around."

With U.S. Olympic goalie Ryan Miller ailing, they have a great opportunity to do that tonight. But stop me if you've heard that before. Last-place Ottawa was supposed to afford such an opportunity, keep the Flyers within striking distance of Washington, which can clinch the top spot with a win over Florida.

So, too, were the Thrashers, 5 days before.

In less than 2 months, the Flyers have gone from a balanced and hungry team no one wanted to play in the first round of the playoffs to a team you might want to blow a few games to meet. Of likely playoff-bound teams, only the Sabres and Lightning have allowed more goals than the Flyers.

The Flyers, of course, came into this season touting their deep and improved blueline, and received a gift from the heavens in the play of rookie goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.

"If you look at the stats in mid-December, we were top five in goals against and goals for," said Flyers defenseman Sean O'Donnell, one of this year's additions. "We can do it. And I think once we realized we can do it was like, 'OK, let's get to the playoffs.' "

Briere and O'Donnell are not bragging about such an attitude. Exorcising it was really the point of Holmgren's closed-door visit, which several players described as "intense."

"It probably wasn't the most comfortable place to be when it happened," said Briere. "He can be intimidating and that was the case once again."

But they are also up against the backdrop of last year, when the Flyers lost seven of eight before rallying with three wins in their final four games, including a 4-3 statement game against Detroit with a week to go. Like this year, they played themselves out of a more favorable seed in the playoffs. Unlike this year, they really had to win those final games.

The real danger here is that they don't, and that their first "ratchet" job - one of Laviolette's favorite words - won't occur until Game 1 of their first-round playoff.

"That first round sneaks up on you," said O'Donnell. "I would think there are more upsets in the first round than there are in the other ones because teams limp in and, boom, they're down 2-0 and they run into a hot goalie and then it's over."

It happened to Washington a year ago. It happened to New Jersey last year against the Flyers. The problem for the patient is when he thinks rest is enough, when he avoids treating the illness with more painful remedies. It's why tonight's game is not about points, nor tomorrow's against the Islanders either.

It's about losing the limp of the last 2 months.

It's about a cure.

"We need to play with a lot more intensity and a lot more determination," Laviolette said. "If we do that, we'll be all right." *

Send email to donnels@phillynews.com. For recent columns, go to

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