from Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer,

An anemic offense and poor special-teams play are the main reasons the Flyers are 1-5, matching the worst six-game start in franchise history.

The offense has scored a total of eight goals, an average of 1.33 per game, which is next-to-last in the NHL. The forwards have just five goals, and Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Matt Read, Jake Voracek, and Scott Hartnell - a major part of the team's core - are goalless. Hartnell will miss two to four weeks with an upper-body injury.

And while the Flyers' five-on-five play has shown encouraging signs lately, the power-play and penalty-killing units have struggled.

"The dumb penalties have to be eliminated altogether," said Craig Berube, who is incorporating his system on the fly after being named the coach last Monday. ". . . And we're not shooting enough on our power play."

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