In an interview with Wayne Fish of The Bucks County Courier Times Flyers GM Paul Holmgren was asked straight-up whether or not the some of the Flyers – Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Joffrey Lupul – hard-partying ways may have contributed to the team’s early exit from the playoffs last season.
Fish: For the first time since the team moved its practice operations from Philadelphia to Voorhees, N.J., in 1982, a number of players, some in their early 20s, are living downtown. There are whispers that these players have easier access to the city’s nightlife. Any concern on your part about that arrangement?
Holmgren: “First of all, if you want to look for nightlife, action or whatever, you can find it whether you live in South Jersey, Delaware or Philadelphia. Am I concerned about it? Let me say this: The issue has been raised by (coach) John (Stevens) and myself with all the players.
“I think this all falls under the umbrella of discipline. It’s on-ice discipline – not overstaying-your-shift discipline – it’s off-ice discipline, it’s night before a game taking better care of ourselves. That’s a natural maturation process that a lot of our younger players are still going through. We’ve addressed that. So am I concerned about it? We’ll see how it goes this year. All our players have been talked to about it. Is it an issue? The fact that we’ve talked about it, I guess it is an issue.”
Fish: Did that “lecture” come from out of the blue or from a particular incident?
Holmgren: “If you look at our season, I don’t know if we were fatigued (at the end) but our record wasn’t what it needed to be going into the playoffs. In the Eastern finals, Pittsburgh and Carolina were the two teams playing. They were the best teams over the last 20 games (of the regular season). So did they take better care of themselves as a team? Why did they win and we stubbed our toe? We can’t win 82 games but, each loss, you can’t just say it’s one game. It’s unacceptable.”
There’s no doubt that a little extra talent is needed for this team to be successful, but crashing frat parties and hanging out with porn stars – two things that I highly endorse by the way – may only be obstacles on the road to the Stanley Cup.
Related posts:
Having a Papier-mâché goalie didn’t help.