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Unfocused Flyers need to face an iron fist

December 16, 2009 05:14 PM | Posted by   Mike Milbury  

The Philadelphia Flyers seemed poised to make a big push this year to threaten their cross-state rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Alex Ovechkin-led Capitals of Washington.

Right now the only thing the Flyers are threatening is to miss the playoffs.

Even after a gritty win against the Boston Bruins on Monday, the Flyers once again lost their discipline and a chance to break out as they got trounced by the Penguins in Pittsburgh.

With the Pens up 2-1, the Flyers were awarded a power play and a chance to tie it up. Instead, a series of errors on the forecheck - including poor positional play by the captain, Mike Richards, and an ill-advised pinch by Chris Pronger - led to a 2-on-1 break and a short-handed goal that for all intents and purposes closed the door on Philly.

No room for the Broad Street Bullies

Time after time, this has been the case for the talented, but underachieving club. The lack of discipline has displayed itself in all different forms. Poor penalties have been a serious bugaboo for Philadelphia, who can’t seem to grasp that the rules have changed since the lockout. There is no room for the Broad Street Bullies anymore. Punks and bullies find their way to the box, not the win column. And if the rumours are to be believed, the lack of discipline may extend to off-ice behaviour.

All in all, not a good situation. And it’s one and made worse by the injury to goaltender Ray Emery, who incredibly seems to have been no distraction or problem at all.

So what next for the Flyers?

Peter Laviolette has inherited a team that clearly has lost its focus and its discipline.

Players must buy in

Last week, the coach punished his players with extra skating even though they had won the night before. That's a start, but it will take more than that. Coaches are charged with the following duties: Conditioning, motivation, and discipline.

Conditioning is a simple matter of planning your practice and off-ice workouts and ignoring the usual moans and groans of players who almost always feel overworked.

Motivation is the art form of coaching and requires time and attention to personal relationships as well as giving meaningful roles to every player on the bench. It’s by far the coach's biggest challenge.

But it all fails without discipline which is a direct result of players believing in the system installed and giving up personal goals for the obvious greater goal of team success.

The process of instilling discipline starts with the coach and his pitch to the players. A clear and concise plan has to be presented and sold to the group. And it means bringing in your key players to the development process without giving them the keys to the car.

There can be no doubt as to who is in charge and there can be no doubt as to which rules are sacred and where there can be flexibility. And there has to be a price to pay for breaking the rules.

Long-term deals not helping

This is the task facing Laviolette and it’s not an easy one in the middle of the year. It’s compounded by a number of underachieving Flyers and a host of players with lucrative long-term contracts, which never help when it comes to motivation or discipline. Add Danny Briere to the growing list of players who have received lifetime contracts and suddenly been unable to meet the demands of the job on a regular basis.

It will take a strong if not iron fist to grab control of this group and it may require a demonstration by the general manager that he's had enough and that this time, players heads will roll. It's not a fun task, but results won't change without it.

For those of us who saw the promise in the Philadelphia Flyers, we can only hope that Laviolette can sort it out. It's always a more entertaining league with an aggressive, but focused group in Philadelphia.

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