Tortorella Goes Scorched Earth On Flyers After Fifth-Straight Loss… Except New Goalie Ivan Fedotov

The Philadelphia Flyers spent much of this season sitting in the third spot in the Metropolitan Division, but now they might be lucky to make the postseason.

The Flyers are in the Eastern Conference's second wildcard spot but are dealing with a five-game losing skid. Sure, that streak started against powerhouse teams like the Panthers and Bruins, but they also lost to basement dwellers in the Canadiens and Blackhawks.

On Monday night, the Flyers forced overtime with a late goal from Morgan Frost to force OT against the New York Islanders — another team that looks like late April vacations may be in order. However, the Isles were quick to snag two points thanks to a lousy turnover by Frost that Brock Nelson buried past reminder Ivan Fedotov, who was making his NHL debut.

At this point in the season, loser points aren't going to cut it, and Flyers bench boss John Tortorella ripped into his team.

Tortorella was asked about his team and answered in his own inimitable style.

"Soft," he said of his team's play. "One guy played; the goalie."

He's right. Fedotov was sent into the game in place of Sam Ersson who had given up two goals in the first period. I think in a perfect world, the Flyers would have given Fedotov some more time to get acclimated and maybe given him his first game action this weekend after a few days off, but that's not how it panned out.

But Fedotov looked solid, especially on his first big NHL test; a breakaway for Isles goal-scorer Matt Barzal.

Tortorella: Second Period ‘Embarrassing’ For Philadelphia Flyers Uniform

While Fedotov did enough to escape his coach's wrath on Monday night — though he did give up one goal in regulation and then the OT winner —the rest of the team wasn't so lucky.

"Not the whole game and not the whole group. There are certain people that they don't have a clue how to play or just don't have it in them to play in these type of situations. And this is why I'm glad we're playing, because we have to figure things out as far as what we're going to become as a team here.:"

While it looks like they're trying to squeeze some lemonade out of a few games' worth of lemons, Tortorella continued to bash the team's play in the second period. In fact, he thought it was so bad, that they didn't just embarrass themselves, they embarrassed the team's uniforms.

"That was embarrassing in the second period for the Philadelphia Flyer uniform the way we played. Embarrassing. High marks as far as how we came back in the third… some guys."

Of course, they wouldn't have had to do that had they not been so lousy in the second period.

The Flyers are back in action on Friday against the Sabres. Every game for the rest of the season is huge if the Flyers don't want to squander a season that proved to be a surprise success for a team most people thought would be at the bottom of the standings.