Orange & Black / Philadelphia Flyers

Flyers general manager Ron Hextall spoke to the media following the game about the state of the team. Below is a full transcript, courtesy of the Flyers:

Do you feel caught between a rock and a hard place with how things have gone recently? To do something big could be an overreaction.

Great question. If you look at the way we’ve played from the start of the year, I’m pretty good with the way our team has played. Pretty good with the way our team has played the last nine games. I think tonight we ran out of energy. Obviously results lately are not very good. We deserve better, but we haven’t gotten better. Obviously we gotta find a way.

Ron you’ve been in this city a long time. Do you know how that sounds to fans when you’ve lost nine in a row and you’re saying you’ve played well?

Have you seen our games?

I have.

How do you think we’ve played?

Not well enough to win all of them.

Not all of them. If we were playing poorly, I would be the first to say we were playing poorly. We are not playing poorly. To look objectively at our team right now, and say, ‘Are we playing poorly?’ No. Are we shooting ourselves in the foot at times? Yes we are. Critical mistakes at critical times? Yes. It’s kind of what happens when the snow ball starts to go the wrong way and you start doing things that are unpredictable.

If you took the score away from the last nine games I’ve seen and told me we’re 0-9, I’d be like ‘come on.’ The point is we have to find ways to win. Nobody is looking for excuses around here. We are gonna battle though this. If we thought we were a really poor team, that’s totally different. Losing nine games in a row is unacceptable. Let’s be real. It’s not acceptable for many franchises and certainly not ours.

In saying that, as a manager, I've got be realistic with how our team’s playing. Let’s say the last nine games we were .500, 5-4, somewhere in there. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It’s what we deserve. Now again, we shot ourselves in the foot. But as a whole we’ve certainly played better than our record.

Does rectifying that fall on the players? Or is that something that you or the coaches have to get involved with to try and find a way?

That falls on all of us. We’re all in this together. Nobody’s jumping off any ships here. We’re in it together. Right now it’s hard to find a positive. I think one of the impressive things is this group hasn’t started pointing fingers at each other. That’s a sign of strong character. It’s a sign that we’re going to come out of this.

The mistakes, everybody in the world can see them, you can see them, the fans have seen them, but often is a least interpreted as loss of confidence and grinding on yourself because you’re not getting the results, are you worried about that part of at all?

Well, that’s what happens when you go all of the sudden start five, six, seven, eight games in a row without a win, you start to get frustrated. I think the frustration started showing there in the third period for us, but for the most part we’ve done a pretty good job of trying to move on from one game on to the next.

It’s not easy. You’ve been in a locker room when you’ve lost seven, eight, nine games in a row, and it’s ugly, right? But this group I give them credit they’ve stuck together, they’ve battled through it, if we weren’t battling right now we’d have a problem.

Do head coaches react differently in times like this?

In terms of what?

In terms of the way they act during a losing streak, in terms of how they deal with their players, in terms of any kinds of moves they may or may not make.

Of course, I mean every coach is different, every coach is his own man so of course they react differently.

The fans -- you hear it as much as I do -- you need physicality or some perception [of it]. Sam Morin is down and came up very briefly and is down again. What don’t you see in him that could help this team at least in terms of physicality?

Wel,l when I looked the other night we had a 20-, a 21-, two 22-, and a 24-year-old defenseman. That’s five of our six. That might be the youngest defense I’ve ever seen. And to say right now we need to get younger on defense, I'm not sure that’s a solution.

I think we missed AMac, he’s an older guy, he’s a glue guy, he’s a guy that makes the younger guys feel better. Radko Gudas is the same, the veteran presence.

I can’t explain it to you guys, but it makes a huge difference, so just to patch six kids in there and say "Go get 'em, guys," you’re looking for a disaster. You’re not helping those kids.

Last season you thought the team was good enough to make the playoffs. Do you still feel that way or does this make you reassess what type of team you have?

No, I still believe we’re a playoff team.

What needs to be done to make that happen?

We need to be better at some critical moments, but part of it is we need to continue to do what we’re doing. We’re doing a lot of good things. Again, tonight I don’t think was our best game. We’re feeling some fatigue. Probably a little bit of frustration. We gotta stick with it. We gotta stick together. We gotta win Saturday. That’s our focus right now. We gotta win Saturday.

You’ve been in closed door meetings before. Is this just a chance to sort of air that frustration? Sort of control the finger pointing before it gets started.

Was there a closed door meeting?

Yeah.

I didn’t know. I’ve been in a lot. I don’t know what was said. I wouldn’t tell you if I did, but I don’t know what was said. Closed door meetings are closed door meetings. Those are a good thing. Team being together, shut the door, let’s talk this out. Any grievances, air them. But I’m guessing it was probably a stick together meeting because these guys have done a good job sticking together.

Going back to the Calgary game, there’s been a lot of penalties. Shayne took it upon himself that particular game, but when you negate power plays like that with penalties, how do you clean that aspect up?

We gotta play a little bit smarter there. I think in the last eight games, we’ve given up seven more penalties then we’ve [drawn]. It doesn’t sound like much, but two minutes a game is quite a bit. Especially the way our special teams haven’t exactly been right on the last eight games. That’s a big difference. Those are the types of things we gotta clean up.

You say nine is unacceptable. Regardless of how close they are, is there a point where you say we gotta do something? Even if they are some overtime losses.

I try to make this team better every day. There’s something that can be done. That doesn’t change throughout the year.