Flyers: Unfathomably Bad

It's hard to believe a franchise that has always had a tradition of outworking the opponent has come to this: another embarrassing Flyers loss tonight (4-1 at home to Florida) followed by another players-only team meeting and more comments challenging the team's collective manhood -- tonight's quote from Ian Laperriere: "I'm mad, and hopefully my teammates are mad, too."

Since starting the season 12-5-1, the Flyers have a pitiful 3-13-1 record, and are just 2-7-1 since Peter Laviolette took over the coaching duties. They have the second-worst record in the entire league and are 7 points out of 8th place and the final playoff spot. They'd need to leapfrog 6 teams at this point to make the postseason. There are still a lot of games, but with points being doled out for losses in overtime and shootouts, it's that much tougher to pull away from a team, but also that much tougher to catch up.

This is a team that many people expected to seriously challenge for, if not win, the Stanley Cup. This type of effort is inexcusable. It's getting to the point where I can hardly watch any more. When the Panthers took a 3-0 lead 1:30 into the third period, I switched over to Monday Night Football (not that that game was any better).

This being Christmas week, I want to try and watch as many of my favorite holiday DVDs and videotapes as I can. Wednesday night, when the Flyers next take the ice (starting a 6-game road trip that includes what could turn out to be the worst New Year's Day Winter Classic in its three-year history), seems like as good a night as any to watch some of them.