Crush Time

If the trade deadline were tomorrow, the Flyers would be buying and selling and trading and waiving faster than a stock broker at Christmas time.

But alas it isn't. And the Flyers are stuck with the players they have now. They have a total of eight games left to right a ship that is severely off course and headed for what looks like a first round exit (or possibly not making the playoffs at all).

If they Flyers want to have any chance of winning even one game this postseason they need to find their scoring touch and their starting goalie. Brian Boucher looked absolutely atrocious in last night's game against the Wild. He let in a very weak goal to make the score 3-2 early in the third and let in another softie to clinch the win for Minnesota in overtime. Maybe it's time to try Johan Backlund in net. The Flyers have lost four straight and six out of their last seven. Something needs to be done and putting Backlund in net against the Pens on Saturday may be the answer.

The Flyers have not been scoring with any regularity or consistency lately and it is another reason why they can't seem to buy themselves a win. Simon Gagne has been on fire lately, but the rest of the team has gone flat cold. Scott Hartnell is hurting the team more than he is helping them, and I won't even begin to discuss the great young defenseman formerly known as Braydon Coburn.

Coach Peter Laviolette looks like he has tried everything in his power to get this team back on track. He has called early game timeouts and he has rotated the line combinations again and again, but it's not up to him anymore. It needs to be the players who take matters into their own hands and change the way the team is playing.

We saw what happened last season when the Flyers stumbled into the playoffs--it didn't end well. In hockey, a team has a better chance of succeeding in the postseason if they're playing well going in (See the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins). If Philadelphia doesn't string a few wins together before the end of the regular season, their dreams of having an Orange Crush Wachovia Center may be, well, crushed.