Sean Couturier

TAMPA, Fla. - The Flyers' latest loss - a 4-2 defeat to the scuffling Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday - was a microcosm of their forgettable season. They fell behind early and it proved fatal. They again came up short in a decisive third period. They continued to struggle on the road, dropping to a head-scratching 4-12 this season. The Flyers entered a quirky five-day schedule break after Monday's loss, a defeat that pushed them into 12th place in the Eastern Conference and further behind in the playoff race.

Ilya Bryzgalov has struggled recently, but coach Peter Laviolette doesn't pin the blame on the 32-year-old goaltender. "We definitely need to play better in front of Bryz," Laviolette said before the Flyers faced the New Jersey Devils on Friday night   - and before Bryzgalov gave one of his best performances of the season. The defense was better than it has been, and Bryzgalov was brilliant. He made 27 saves and allowed just one goal in three shootout attempts as the Flyers outlasted the Devils, 2-1. "He got us the two points," Max Talbot said.

NEWARK, N.J. - For Simon Gagne, adjusting to life off the ice in Philadelphia was the easy part. With his wife, Karine, and two children already familiar with the area, the Gagnes moved out of a local hotel and settled in South Jersey again. They're now trying to figure out how to get their nonessential belongings moved across the country from Los Angeles. The bigger battle, though, has been finding comfort on the ice since being traded back to the Flyers on Feb. 26. Gagne has played seven straight games but says he still is not "100 percent" in game-shape.

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, trying to get a couple of his struggling players untracked, has formed a version of the French Connection: Sean Couturier centering Danny Briere and Simon Gagne. At Tuesday's practice in Voorhees, Briere was dropped from the second to third line, while Matt Read replaced him on a unit with Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds. "I like it. We can speak French and get some strategy going without the other team knowing it," said a smiling Couturier. The new lines will face the Devils on Wednesday in New Jersey.

BOSTON - The Flyers did not allow any shots for nearly the first 11 minutes Saturday afternoon, but after that, their Meltdown in Beantown was painfully quick. They allowed three goals in a span of 2 minutes, 18 seconds of the first period en route to a 3-0 loss to the Boston Bruins at TD Garden. It was the Flyers' third straight defeat and it left them 11-14-1, their second-worst 26-game start, points-wise, in the last 20 seasons. "We're not happy with where we are, and it would be real easy to just point fingers and kind of quit at this point," forward Danny Briere said after coach Peter Laviolette held a 20-minute closed-door meeting with the players.

Even though his Flyers have not been over .500 this season and have had their share of major injuries, head coach Peter Laviolette has remained upbeat. Laviolette playfully chided reporters Thursday for their negative questions and wondered why he couldn't get some positive energy at his daily news conferences. Well, out of respect to the coach's Dr. Norman Vincent Peale plea, here are some positive observations you may not have known about the Flyers: The Flyers have won their last two road games.

Even Simon Gagne was surprised by his effectiveness in his emotional return to the Flyers on Wednesday night. It's not that Gagne doesn't believe in his ability to still be a productive player. But he wondered if he would be rusty from a long layoff and a long plane ride that didn't get him from Los Angeles to Philadelphia until the wee hours in the morning. "I was worried about the way I was going to feel, especially traveling the whole night and not sleeping a lot of hours," Gagne said Thursday at the Flyers' practice facility in Voorhees.

After taking a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, Simon Gagne missed the Flyers' morning skate Wednesday because he needed to catch up on sleep. Now he hopes to wake up the Flyers' offense. He got off to a good start, scoring a power-play goal, his first tally of the season, in the Flyers' 4-1 win over Washington. Acquired Tuesday from the Kings for a conditional fourth-round pick, the veteran winger began the night on a line with Sean Couturier and Max Talbot. Gagne received a rousing ovation, and he waved to the home crowd as a video of his career was shown on the scoreboard during a first-period stoppage.

PITTSBURGH - The Flyers and Penguins cannot do normal, or sedate. Starting last spring, and continuing until today, these two rivals have been incapable of playing a hockey game that does not resemble a coin spinning wildly on its edge, spinning and toppling in an unpredictable direction. And for all of this, we are glad. A dozen preposterously fun things happened Wednesday night at Consol Energy Center, and maybe more. "There were just so many crazy parts to the game," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said.