There's a belief in the Flyers' locker room that the goals are going to come, but they're not right now and that's frustrating, as much as it was dejecting to hear boos smatter throughout the arena as seats emptied out.
The Flyers lost to the Washington Capitals, 4-1, Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center in their second straight loss since finally getting back to South Philly to play in front of the home crowd, and their fifth straight – across regulation and overtime – since the season-opening shootout win out in Vancouver going on two weeks ago.
Their power play reverted back into being a mess that got jumped for two Washington shorthanded goals from fumbling with the puck at the offensive blue line, and while the team overall has had its scoring chances, they've generally fallen into three categories: a shot wide of the net, a shot blocked, or a shot just not taken from one too many passes.
It took until the third period Tuesday night, when Travis Sanheim had a clean look straight at the net at 4-on-4, for the Flyers to finally score at home and for the fans to, briefly, have something to stand up for.
Then the Capitals went right back down the ice and answered. Dylan Strome stripped the puck away from Jamie Drysdale trying to protect it up by the point, and on the zone entry, John Carlson's shot took a fortunate bounce right by Sam Ersson to put Washington back up two.
There was no coming back from that – everyone in an orange jersey knew.
"You can just feel the bench," head coach John Tortorella said afterward.
In a season that looked like it was going to begin pushing the Flyers' future along, they're instead 1-4-1 to start.
Matvei Michkov, very much the face of the organization's grand ambitions, hasn't scored since he did it twice last week in Edmonton. The 19-year old has continued to show flashes of his high-end skill, but on lines that are tripping over themselves trying to force something to happen or getting caught out of position.
Jett Luchanko, who has gotten an NHL look much sooner than nearly everyone expected, has no points with the clock on his nine-game trial window ticking down.
Travis Konecny, the team's leading scorer last season, potted two in the second game of the season – a 6-3 loss at Calgary – and hasn't since.
Tyson Foerster only has one goal from the opener at Vancouver and was scratched from Tuesday night's lineup. Owen Tippett is scoreless, seemingly hitting everything but the net when he has the puck, and so is captain Sean Couturier. The same goes for Morgan Frost, who is minus-6 after Tuesday night's loss. Joel Farabee, who has also been quiet ever since his lone goal in the Calgary game, is minus-7.
And the Flyers know what that looks like. It's far from where they want to be.
To their credit, there were aspects of Tuesday night's game they held up decently with. Shots stayed even through the first period and they were never overwhelmed when play was at even strength. Sam Ersson continues to give the Flyers a chance whenever he has the start in goal, and they also held the Capitals 0-for-5 on the power play and Vancouver 0-for-2 a couple nights prior with a penalty kill that's immediately back to being up among the NHL's best (third as of Wednesday morning at an 88.5 percent success rate).
But they saw the zero up on the board both Saturday night and for much of Tuesday, and that can get to a team quick.
"When you're not scoring goals, that's what the focus is on, and you forget about the other stuff," Tortorella said during his postgame press conference after Tuesday night's loss, stressing that his players need to stick with their structure to work through this early rut. "If we just stay and play our game – it's not a safe game, it's a very aggressive game – we'll get our goals.
"We just can't – there's a fine line of playing aggressive, on your toes, and checking forward versus cheating and hoping, [sneaking] in behind a play. That's when things go the wrong way, back the other way. That's what we have to watch for here.
"We've got a group of men here that are going to figure this out. We just have to do it together and not lose ourselves through panic or frustration and forget about how we play."
There's not really any time for that anyway.
The Flyers are right back up Wednesday night, this time in Washington, as part of a home-and-home back-to-back with the Capitals, then they'll return to the Wells Fargo Center for another back-to-back against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday and the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday.
The schedule has become a grind already, especially now that the Flyers have become offensively starved this early.
It's frustrating.
But there is a belief: The goals are going to come...eventually.
"We know what we're capable of," Ersson, with his perspective from the crease, said from the locker room postgame. "Right now, it's not really bouncing our way. We're hitting a lot of posts, crossbars here and there. We're getting chances, we're gonna convert. It's just a question of when.
"When we do, we'll get the energy and we can roll on it."
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