5 THINGS: Flyers vs. Avalanche

Looking to end an eight-game winless skid, interim head coach Mike Yeo's Philadelphia Flyers (8-10-4) return to the ice on Monday to host Jared Bednar's Colorado Avalanche (12-7-6). Game time at the Wells Fargo Center is 7:00 p.m. ET ( NBCSP+, 93.3 WMMR).

On Monday, the Flyers announced that Alain Vigneault had been relieved of his duties as head coach, along with assistant coach Michel Therrien,
Press Release Here.
This is the first of two meetings this season between the inter-conference teams, and the lone game in Philadelphia. The clubs will rematch at Ball Arena in Denver on March 25.
The Flyers are coming off a 7-1 humiliation on home ice on Sunday night at the hands of the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
Carter Hart was chased from the game mid-way through the second period after allowing five goals on 15 shots. Martin Jones, who will get the start in net against Colorado, went the rest of the way. A Cam Atkinson power play deflection goal in the third period broke up a shutout bid by former Flyers netminder Brian Elliott.
Monday's match is the second in a series of five games in seven nights for the Flyers. The team will subsequently play road games against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday evening then travel west to play the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday and the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday.
The Avalanche will be playing the fourth game of a five-game eastern road trip (Dec. 1 to 8). The team, which will be in action for the fourth time in six nights, is 1-1-1 on the trip thus far.
On Saturday in Ottawa, the Avalanche trailed, 5-2, in the second period but rallied for three straight goals to claim one point. Devon Toews scored the tying goal with 1:20 remaining in regulation. A goal by Brady Tkachuk on the second shift of sudden death overtime brought a 5-4 victory to the Senators.
Jonas Johansson got the start in net for the Avs on Saturday but was pulled at 2:49 of the second period after yielding four goals on 15 shots. Twenty-one year old goaltender Justus Annunen came on in relief, making his NHL debut. The young Finn stopped 17 of 18 shots over the remainder of regulation before Tkachuk scored on Ottawa's first shot in overtime.
Here are five things to track in Monday's game:
1. "Playing for each other."
The Flyers held a player's only meeting after getting blown out by the Lightning on Sunday to fall to 0-6-2 in the last eight games.
"At the end of the day, we have to take a little pride in coming to the rink and battling. It's ultimately the players that are going to dig ourselves out of this. I think we had a good conversation after the game. Luckily, we have another opportunity [on Monday] to just play the right way. Play hard, play for each other," Atkinson said after the game.
Leaguewide, it is very common for players to say things during losing streaks that are similar to Atkinson's statement: preaching unity, not giving in to negative thoughts, etc. What's more telling than the words themselves is whether the team actually puts them into action.
Right now, the Flyers' are an exceptionally fragile team: struggling mightily to score, struggling to defend, and struggling to fight their way through adversity. When negative thinking and bad body language creep in, things tend to unravel quickly. Panicky decisions get made with the puck. Puck support and structure go by the wayside. Mistakes compound. Goalie play tends to get dragged down with the rest of what's going on, and opposing chances that were getting stopped before start to find their way into the net.
That;s the downward spiral that the Flyers have been on. They've entered games with a "Tonight, it'll be different" mentality but that crumbles quickly into "Here we go again" once in-game adversity hits.
After a 7-3-2 start to the season through Nov. 12, the team has seen the bottom drop out. Thus far, the remade roster has been failing the resiliency test. Injuries cannot be used as an excuse; not when you just got your doors blown off by a team missing two of its three top forwards and its superstar No. 1 goalie getting rested when you played them.
There's no other way to put it: Monday's game against Colorado is a gut-check test for the Flyers given what happened on Sunday and how sharply things have regressed -- in a variety of key areas of the game -- in recent weeks.
A team's best players need to be just that on a regular basis. Up and down the lineup, it's a stretch to say that there has been anyone at the top of his game on a regular basis over the last month. Much of the roster is having issues of late defensively as well as offensively.
Going forward, it's an absolute must for the Flyers to specifically get Sean Couturier and Ivan Provorov respectively playing to the level where they're matching or exceeding what their counterparts atop opponents' lineups are doing against the Flyers. But they have plenty of company.
2. Goals needed.... desperately.
The Flyers started the 2021-22 regular season by scoring 23 goals across the first five games (4, 6, 6, 2 and 5). Since that time, in the last 17 games, the Flyers have scored a grand total of 28 goals. They're not scoring at even strength or the power play.
There hasn't even been a one-game oasis. The Flyers have not had a single game in the last 17 where they've scored four-plus goals. They've only had three games where they've scored as many as three goals. The Flyers have been shut out three times, held to a single goal three times and mustered two goals in the other eight games.
Joel Farabee, who missed Sunday's game with a shoulder injury and is likely to be out several weeks, leads the team with four goals (4g, 0a) across the club's last 17 matches.
Claude Giroux's 13 points (3g, 10a) tops the overall scoring lead in the last 17 games. He's figured directly in 46.4 percent of all goals the Flyers have scored. But Giroux can't do it alone, and he'll always be more of a playmaker than goal-scorer. Giroux's two-goal game against Tampa Bay on Nov. 18 are his only tallies in the last 14 games.
Sean Couturier has seven points (3g, 4a) in the last 17 games. He is currently mired in a spell that has seen him go goalless in 12 games and post just two assists in that span. He'd started out the season with a dozen points in the first 10 games.
Travis Konecny is goalless in the last seven matches and has just one goal and one assist in the team's last 13 games. James van Riemsdyk has one point (1g, 0a) in the Flyers' last 13 games and is stuck on one power play goal and one even strength goal for the season. Oskar Lindblom is goalless with a single assist in his 21 games played this season.
Atkinson scored the Flyers' lone goal against Tampa Bay on Sunday but it was just his second goal since starting the season with six goals in the first five games.
Scott Laughton stepped up with a first period shorthanded goal and a game-tying assist in the third period of the Flyers' 5-2 loss in New Jersey on Nov. 28. But those are his only points in the last 10 games.
The Flyers defense corps has collectively chipped in just five goals for the entire season: three (two by Ivan Provorov, one by Rasmus Ristolainen) in the last 17 games. Travis Sanheim has twice flirted with double-digit goal seasons in the NHL (nine goals in 2018-19, eight goals in 69 games during the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season) but is goalless with three assists this season. Veteran offensive defenseman Keith Yandle is goalless with six assists.
In short, the situation is not one where fingers can rightly be pointed at one or two players who aren't carrying their weight. It's collective.
"Sometimes, or most of the time, it looks like we're trying to pass the puck into the net. We need to shoot the puck. That's where you get rebounds. I think we're trying to be a little too cute. We score all our goals in the dirty areas. We're not in position to try making those plays. The more shots, the more opportunities we're going to get. Sometimes when you get those opportunities, it goes off your shin pad, or off your skate, whatever it is," Atkinson said.
3. Inside the Numbers
Colorado has basically broken even (48 GF- 47 GA) in five-on-five play so far this season. However, they've been buoyed by their power play, bringing in a 22 percent success rate to rank in the top one-third of the NHL. Keep in mind, too, that superstar center Nathan MacKinnon missed 10 games due to injury.
Power play goal in the third period against Tampa aside, the Flyers have been in a much-publicized cavernous struggle on the man advantage. They will also need to be very careful to avoid power play turnovers against the Avalanche penalty killers. The speedy and opportunistic Avs have already racked up five shorthanded goals this season, including two by Valeri Nichushkin.

4. Behind Enemy Lines: Colorado Avalanche
The Avalanche have come away with points in eight of their last 10 games (7-2-1). They've broken even on the road so far this season (5-5-1).
Having MacKinnon (1g, 15a in 11 games) back in the lineup significantly adds to the difficulty of playing against the difficulty of playing against the Avalanche. His blazing speed and puck skills alone make him very hard to contain. He's racked up six assists in the three games since his return to the lineup.
Nazem Kadri (9g, 21a) is off to the best start of his NHL career. He's currently considered day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Kadri missed Saturday's game in Ottawa. Before that, he had seven points (3g, 4a) in the team's previous five games.
Young star offensive defenseman Cale Makar was a late scratch against the Senators with an upper-body injury. He is listed as day-to-day. Makar, who is already an elite point-producer and deadly when jumping into the attack, has 10 goals and 21 points in 18 games played this season.
The Avalanche are dealing with goalie injuries, which is why they turned to the Johansson/Annunen tandem on Saturday in Ottawa. Veteran Darcy Kuemper has been dealing with an upper-body and is considered day-to-day. Pavel Francouz, who appeared in 31 games last season for Colorado, has finally returned to the ice and has put in two rehab starts for the AHL's Colorado Eagles, including a shutout victory.
Young defenseman Bowen Byram, who has shown a lot of promise in his brief pro career to date, briefly returned to the lineup from a head injury but has been out each of the last two games.
Although the Flyers and Avalanche do not face off very often due to being in opposite conferences and the lack of inter-conference play last season in the pandemic-driven shortened schedule, Philly has seen its share of what the likes of MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen can do to opponents when all three are healthy.
Power forward Landeskog, the Avs captain, has roared out of the gates this season with 24 points (8g, 16a) in just 19 games played. The speedy Rantanen has 10 goals and nine assists in 18 games played to date.
5. Players to Watch: Aube-Kubel and Hayes
Claimed off waivers from the Flyers on Nov. 13, Nicolas Aube-Kubel has dressed in nine games for the Avalanche thus far. In that span, he's posted a pair of goals and four points (after scoring three goals and posting 13 points across his final 57 games as a Flyer in 2020-21 and the start of the current season). When he uses he north-south speed effectively to get in on the forecheck and play physically, Aube-Kubel can be effective,
Kevin Hayes is still trying to work his way into game condition and recover his timing after two separate abdominal muscle surgeries during the 2021 calendar year and a setback that took him back out of the lineup after a two-game return. Hayes returned on Dec. 1, struggling in the Flyers' 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. He skated 14:53 with two shots on goal in Sunday's loss to Tampa. Hayes started Sunday's game centering Morgan Frost and Travis Konecny but Giroux was later swapped onto the Hayes line, with Frost moving to Couturier's line.