Flyers Humiliated By Sabres 9-1

Just about the only thing that looked good last night was Buffalo's jerseys. They wore this season's third jersey -- an homage to their original unis that are one of the best the league has ever seen. Other than that, there was nothing to look at. The Flyers are what we thought they are -- thank you Dennis Green -- a collection of players rather than a team. Get used to it, Flyers fans -- there is absolutely no help on the way. What about Rathje and Jonsson, you say? Well, what about them? Rathje is a capable defenseman but is slow like Hatcher and is coming off a shot to deal with pain in his lower back and leg. Jonsson is a rookie defenseman who was brought in for his offense, not for his defense. None of this helps with the chemistry problem, anyway. Coach Hitchcock talked in the preseason about building chemistry and took the team to Annapolis to try to foster a team/us-vs-them atmosphere in the locker room. This clearly hasn't worked. What might, you ask? Well, why not talk to Hitchcock's boss about actually building a team? The Buffalo Sabres sport 14 players on their roster that they drafted and developed, against eight they acquired either in trades or via free agency. Add in that they have the longest tenured coach in the NHL in Lindy Ruff and you get what we saw last night. Every player on the roster is clearly on the same page. They move swiftly around the ice and no one player seems to have the puck for anything more than three strides. They get the puck, skate, then pass the puck along, and move again. You never see a Sabre standing in one spot waiting for the play to come to them -- they go and get it. They have a system that works for them and every player plays it. Compare that to the Flyers -- wait, I can't. I can't find any information on their web site, nor on the NHL's, about how any player was acquired. By my estimation, though, no fewer than 16 of the Flyers players have come to the team via free agency or trades. Throw in the fact that in Bobby Clarke's second run as GM of the team they have had six coaches (Terry Murray, 1994-95 through 1996-97; Wayne Cashman, 1997-98; Roger Neilson, 1997-98 to 1999-00; Craig Ramsay, 1999-00 to 2000-01; Bill Barber, 2000-01 through 2001-02; Ken Hitchcock 2002-03 to present) and that's not exactly a model for team building, now is it? It's going to be a long season in South Philadelphia. The only good news is that with the team almost up against the cap, there's really not much they can do to go out and get someone to help in the short term. Hopefully, Clarke will realize this and not make any disastrous stop-gap moves designed to get the team in the playoffs. See: Daily News See: Inquirer See: Yahoo/AP