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Thursday before practice, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren had a bit of a chit-chat with his struggling team.

And by chit-chat, we mean this…

Publicly and privately, the players say Holmgren lashed out about the team’s woeful recent slate of losses and its lack of competitiveness. He did so with a stick in hand, leading one player to say, he thought the GM was going to spear every player in the room. Holmgren was that angry.

That description of Holmgren’s tirade, courtesy CSNPhilly.com’s Tim Panaccio.

Philadelphia — five points out of the playoffs with just 20 games remaining — hosts New Jersey tonight. The Flyers lost to the Devils on Wednesday, prompting much speculation about the job security of both Holmgren and head coach Peter Laviolette.

Yesterday, Holmgren gave Laviolette a vote of confidence, putting the onus on the players to get the job done.

Said veteran defenseman Kimmo Timonen today: “Sometimes you need to hear what you do wrong and do right and what the expectations are from their end. But we’re the ones who play the game and we’re the ones on the ice, so we have to go out there and do our jobs.”