Can The Gays Rally The Flyers?

This ridiculous Flyers season is rapidly drawing to a close -- more rapidly than usual, with the compressed post-Olympic schedule. The inconsistency that has dogged them all season, except for perhaps those four wins right before the Olympics, continues. Since the season resumed they're now 5-6-1, coming up with the occasional inspired effort (3-2 win over Chicago on a Chris Pronger goal in the final 3 seconds) followed by the inevitable lazy followup (3-1 loss at the NY Rangers the next day). And now it's taken a turn for the worse.

After losing starting goalie Ray Emery for so many games, and eventually the season, due to injury, they were basically saved by the surprisingly fine play of Michael Leighton. Then Leighton had to go and get the dreaded high ankle sprain on March 16th at Nashville, sidelining him for 8 to 10 weeks -- meaning he can only return if the Flyers make a long playoff run. The Flyers are down to Brian Boucher and heaven knows who from the minors to back him up.

Boucher ended up losing the Nashville game in the shootout, but won the next night at Dallas. The Flyers haven't won since, losing a home-and-home set to Atlanta over the weekend and at Ottawa Tuesday night. (More on that in a moment.) If that isn't bad enough, the team hasn't scored more than 3 goals in a game in their last 11 games, and just lost leading scorer Jeff Carter to a broken foot bone. He's expected to be out 3 to 4 weeks, and we're in the final 3 weeks of the regular season...


If all of that isn't bad enough, the 2-0 loss to Ottawa was lowlighted by the Senators' Anton Volchenkov burying the Flyers' Simon Gagne -- who's had concussion issues -- with a hit to the back that sent Gagne headfirst into the boards in the opening seconds of the third period. It was the second questionable hit by Volchenkov on a Flyer, with this one being much more dirty, and in neither case was a penalty called. The Flyers reacted to it poorly, allowing an odd-man rush on which the Senators scored to make it 2-0. Gagne then went after Volchenkov, and the resulting penalties left the Flyers shorthanded for 7 minutes. (You can watch it below; just ignore the blathering of the Ottawa announcers.)



The Flyers killed off the time but that took a huge chunk of the game away, especially with the trouble they're having scoring goals. Later, what seemed to be a Flyers goal was ruled "no goal" on the video review.

After the game there was lots of talk about the officiating, both on the ice and in the "war room" in Toronto where the video rulings are made. Granted, the referees last night were clueless and the NHL is by far the worst-officiated league. And the video replays were just inconclusive enough to understand why a goal couldn't be awarded -- the on-ice ruling was that no goal was scored, and replays have to be conclusive to overturn the ruling. However, they didn't lose because of the officials. Just ask Pronger and Mike Richards (as quoted in the Phila. Daily News):

"It's got nothing to do with the refs," Chris Pronger said. "We had a five-on-three we could have scored on. We had a number of power-play chances. It's certainly not the refs fault." And: "(W)e've got to play with a sense of desperation and desire. It wasn't enough to win."

And...

"It's frustrating," Richards said. "We did some bad things. We just seemed like we had a little bit of a lack of motivation, which shouldn't be there, and a lack of urgency. To go through a game like that, and not see everyone play their hardest, that's got to change."

This has been going on all season. This is why they changed coaches. Yet it continues. The Flyers still have a pretty good shot of making the playoffs, but a complete collapse isn't out of the question. Even if they hang on to a postseason berth, it will be one of the biggest shocks ever if they win more than a game or two in the first round. For a team with such high expectations at the start of the season, there's just no excuse.

So it's perfect timing that tomorrow night's game at home against the Minnesota Wild is the first-ever Gay Community Night! The Flyers have joined the 76ers and Phillies in having a group of LGBT fans sitting together. And I will be there. Clearly some gay fabulous-ity is needed to turn around the Flyers' season before it's too late.