Flyers – Canadian | Five things to know about the Flyers

The Canadiens host the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday evening at the Bell Centre. This is a team that was doing well, but is not doing so well now.

The fall

Until recently, the Flyers were part of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. But that’s no longer the case, and with only four games remaining on their schedule, the Flyers no longer really have the luxury of defeat. How did they get to this? First, by losing their last seven games, which is never a good idea. Then, by losing these matches in often spectacular fashion, with 5-1 and 4-1 and also with this rather embarrassing 6-2 in Columbus on Saturday, all indications which suggest that the chances of this team in view of the series are disappearing.

Fashion designer back?

Injured, Sean Couturier had to miss the team’s last two games, but he was able to take part in team training on Monday, and we will see if he will be able to play soon. Let’s face it, it’s not his season, he who is making a big comeback after missing the entire previous season due to a back injury (he is also the Flyers’ nominee in the ballot for the Bill Masterton Trophy). Recently, the captain was left out twice by coach John Tortorella, and he hasn’t collected a single point since March 14, a drought of seven straight games without being able to get a single point. His last goal dates back to February 10.

Ersson at full tilt

Since Carter Hart is no longer there for the reasons we know, the Flyers have decided to make Samuel Ersson their number one goalie, but we wonder if the young man will be able to survive this enormous workload. Ersson played 47 games this season, and the others had to settle for crumbs, including the newly arrived Ivan Fedotov (we’ll come back to that). The Swede, a third-round pick of the Flyers in the 2018 draft, had previously only played 12 games in the NHL, and his low save percentage of .889 perhaps suggests something resembling overwork. But coach John Tortorella has obviously decided to live or die with him, perhaps also because he has no better option.

Finally, Fedotov arrived

He is the goaltender that the Flyers drafted long ago, in 2015, with a distant seventh-round pick. It took him time, but at 27 years old, and after several seasons in the KHL, here he is finally. He took his first steps in the NHL last week after, among other things, compulsory military service in Russia at the time of the invasion in Ukraine. CSKA Moscow recently terminated his contract, and now the Russian goaltender will try to get noticed in the NHL. It’s already off to a good start, because at 6’7, you can still notice it quite easily.

Tortorella is in great spirits

The fiery coach will probably never write a book on the benefits of meditation, but these days, he is particularly boiling. Undoubtedly, defeats do not help, and in recent days Tortorella has declared, among other things, that his club was “soft”, that only one player had shown up during a match, while adding that some of his players have “no idea how to play hockey.” He also declared, at the end of the match on 1^er April against the New York Islanders, that his group’s second period had been “a shame for this uniform.” We guess that all this is not very good for the atmosphere.