The Flyers are 4-9-4 after last night's loss to the Wild, and Matvei Michkov is carrying far too much of the offense.
They dug themselves a hole again in a 4-2 loss. Minnesota led 2-0 by 4:37 of the first period, and Tyson Foerster and Denver Barkey scored in a game Philadelphia never really controlled.
That leaves the Flyers with 12 points, 29th in the NHL and 8th in the Metropolitan Division. Only seventeen games in, but the standings are already telling a story fans don't like.
The goal differential is where it gets ugly. Philadelphia has scored 37 and allowed 58, a -21 that says the problem is mostly at the other end of the ice.
Michkov is doing his part. He leads the team with 10 goals and 13 points in 17 games, and five of those goals came on the power play. You can read more about Michkov's streak heading into the Wild game, but the point is he can't score every goal himself.
Trevor Zegras has 14 points, tops on the roster, so the top of the lineup is producing. The support behind it is the issue.
Why the defensive numbers are the real problem
Look at the plus-minus column. Travis Sanheim is a -7, Noel Acciari is a -7, and Cam York is a -8 in just nine games.
Michkov himself is a -10 despite the goals. When your leading scorer is that far underwater, the Flyers are giving up chances faster than he can finish them.
That's a structural problem, not a bad week. A team that falls behind early, as it did again against Minnesota, can't keep winning games by chasing. Rick Tocchet has been tinkering, and the line shuffle that gave Zegras center time hasn't fixed the goals against.
Seventeen games is a small sample, and 4-4-2 over the last 10 shows this team isn't completely lost. But the road record is 1-5-1, and that is where the next test sits.
Thursday's game at the Rangers is the next chance to change the direction. New York is 7-2-0 at home but only 1-5-1 on the road, so the Flyers will face a team that is better at Madison Square Garden than anywhere else, and one that just beat the Blues 3-1.
If Philadelphia comes out flat again, it will be hard to argue the early-season hole is anything but the real thing.
