AFTER A PERFECT 3-0-0 start - with wins against the defending Stanley Cup champs in Boston and the losing Cup finalist Vancouver - some were ready to etch the Flyers' names onto the 2012 Cup.
We hope they meant in pencil.
Now, after the first set of back-to-back losses, including a 5-2 drubbing by Washington and a sad and sleepy 4-2 defeat on Saturday to a St. Louis team on that had played overtime hockey in Carolina on Friday, some alarmists in South Philadelphia are already sweating.
Did anyone actually think the Flyers would skate until June without a losing streak?
"We're seven games in," captain Chris Pronger said yesterday, laughing. "I don't think anyone is pushing the panic button. We knew it was going to be a work in progress with this team. We weren't going to go 82-0."
Yes, the Flyers have looked good - and bad - during their first weeks. Few thought that this new-look team, with just nine players remaining from the squad that went to the Stanley Cup finals 16 months ago, would be able to look so complete, so fast.
And it's easy to look so complete when many of the teams you are playing against in the first 15 games of the season are in the process of searching for their own identity.
Pronger hit the nail on the head, though, when he said that the Flyers "need to find consistency."
Right now, the Flyers have kinks in their game that are easily treatable. They are not well-disciplined. They are tied for the second-most minor penalties in the NHL, having been whistled for 40 minors through just seven games. They spend an average of 18 minutes per game in the penalty box, third most.
The Flyers haven't done some of the little things that matter, like winning faceoffs. They topped St. Louis, winning 59 percent of the draws, to set a season-best. But they are still 24th in the league in faceoffs.
And they've been a bad home team. Granted, the Flyers haven't exactly had an easy home slate, with Vancouver, Los Angeles, Washington and St. Louis all coming to town in October. But they've collected just three out of a possible eight points at the Wells Fargo Center, where they will play five of their next seven games.
The Flyers have been outscored, 16-11, in four home games. They've been unstoppable on the road, going 3-0-0, outscoring opponents Ottawa, Boston and New Jersey by 12-3.
"We didn't have the same consistency that we did on the road," Pronger said. "That's a problem. As much as we are road warriors, we need to be homers."
