Flyers lose for many reasons

BOSTON - It wasn't goaltending that finally did in these Flyers. Not their own and not Boston's. A sweep as one-sided and as uncompetitive as this requires a system-wide failure.

The fog that descended on this team for the final month of the regular season lifted for just a couple of first-round games against Buffalo and descended again for the entire second round. The Flyers managed maybe a couple periods of really good hockey over these four games. Not nearly enough and not nearly acceptable.

They played soft. They played sloppy. They were outhustled and outworked and outhit. They simply failed to show up for two of the games, getting beaten by a combined 12-4 in Games 1 and 3. A year after their incredible comeback from three games to none down against this same team, there was no sign of the heart or the desperation or the intensity that distinguished the 2010 Flyers.

That was a team to remember. This is a team best forgotten.

As well as Tim Thomas played for the Bruins in this series, he really stole just one game for his team. And even then, in Game 2, the Flyers scored two quick goals in the first period. Thomas was terrific the rest of the way, allowing his team to come back and win in overtime. Otherwise, the Flyers didn't really test him all that much.

With their season at stake Friday night, they managed to get just 23 shots on goal against Thomas. They went over 14 minutes without a shot at one point. If their plan was to lull Thomas to sleep, it didn't work.

We'll never know whether Chris Pronger would have made a difference in this series. The big defenseman returned from a hand injury to lift the team to wins in two elimination games against the Sabres. Then he got hurt again in Game 1 and never returned.

Given the gap in effort, energy, and talent between these teams, it is doubtful Pronger would have been enough to turn this thing. But maybe his presence would have made it just that much harder for his teammates, especially the turnover-happy defensemen, to play as listlessly as they did. Maybe.

And we'll never know what might have been if coach Peter Laviolette hadn't been so quick to start the goalie-go-round spinning.

After Game 2 against Buffalo, I wrote that staying with rookie Sergei Bobrovsky was the only move that made sense. This is worth noting so the following does not appear to be an easy second guess of Laviolette. It was a first guess.

The thinking then was that Bobrovsky was the best candidate to get hot and carry the team for a long playoff run. The 22-year-old rookie was barely getting the feel of Stanley Cup playoff intensity when Laviolette went with Brian Boucher in Game 3. Since then, the whole goalie situation devolved into a farce.

The Flyers got through the first round with Boucher and Michael Leighton making starts. The second round was just a mess. Boucher looked like the career backup he has been. In Game 4, we saw that Bobrovsky might have been the better choice all along.

Again: The team wasn't nearly good enough in front of Boucher or Bobrovksy. But it's also hard to gauge the impact that wobbly goaltending has on a team's confidence. Just as great goaltending can erase mistakes and allow players to relax and takes some chances - witness the Bruins in all four of these games - shaky play in the net can undermine everyone.

The Flyers, who let the Bruins knock them around and take the puck right off their sticks all series, looked like a team playing without that sense of security.

No doubt in the days ahead we'll learn about various players getting surgery for the nagging injuries that plagued them throughout and that were kept secret by the paranoid organization. Captain Mike Richards, who didn't look right throughout the postseason, is a leading candidate.

Ultimately, the better team won this series. Boston absorbed the humiliation of blowing that 3-0 lead last May and made some smart changes. The Bruins added depth and toughness. Thomas returned to his spot as the starting goalie. That team played with determination and a nasty streak. The Flyers did not.

It is fair to ask whether this team needs some kind of change in its core group. Richards and Jeff Carter have been the two pieces everything else was built around. But it is clear that Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk are the real budding stars on this team.

Could Carter be trade bait for a legit No. 1 goalie? Is Richards really the right personality type to be the captain? Did this team's fade over the last two months indicate that it is tuning Laviolette out?

Tough questions. When you don't show up for the playoffs, they have to be asked.