Why Jake Voracek doesn’t feel as much pressure to score

VOORHEES — A struggling hockey player can be like a starting pitcher in the midst of a baseball game.

Teammates tend to leave him alone…or in this case, ignore the elephant in the room.

Flyers right-winger Jake Voracek, who was in the NHL’s scoring race last year until the final week of the season, has only one goal this season.

“Jake’s a ferocious competitor. You don’t really say anything to guys like that,” Wayne Simmonds said. “He puts the most pressure on himself. You don’t really want to get more into his mind. He might be in his head himself.”

While that’s true, it’s happening less now than it did. The streak is still piling up for Voracek. He has no goals in his last seven games, one goal in his last 27 games dating back to last season and had only one even-strength goal in the Flyers’ final 49 games last season.

For the last four games, Voracek was taken off Claude Giroux’s line and put on a trio with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Chris VandeVelde.

But the Flyers have won three of those last four games, so Voracek, 26, isn’t putting as much pressure on himself.

“Oh, 100 percent,” said Voracek, who leads the team with 12 assists. “At the beginning of the season we were 4-2-2 and obviously there was some talks about it, but I didn’t care. When you start losing and you don’t score, you feel that pressure. It’s part of it. If you make some amount of money, people expect you to score, to show up on the score sheet every single night. If you don’t so it and the team’s losing, that’s when the pressure hits you.”

Voracek signed an eight-year, $66-million contract over the offseason that kicks in next July. He was feeling the pressure a lot more a couple weeks ago when the Flyers were losers of six consecutive games.

Recently, the Flyers have seen improvement in Voracek’s game even if the results haven’t quite been there.

“I think the whole team has played really solid team games and that’s the thing we’ve been trying to do with Jakey,” said Bellemare, the center of what is typically a defense-first line. “If we get the chance to feed him, we’re going to feed him obviously in the offensive zone. Otherwise, we try to be solid in the D-zone first and then see what comes next.”

Dave Hakstol said Voracek has been “playing well,” and the coach has been “seeing him be dominant with some of his speed and puck protection. You’re starting to see some of the results of his puck possession and playmaking.”

Voracek has had four assists in his last four games, all on the power play where he is still alongside Giroux.

“We haven’t been scoring and Hak changed it up and we won three out of four,” Voracek said. “There is no reason to change it (back). I know what kind of player I am. I feel like I’m coming around. Maybe the people don’t think so, but there is nothing I can do. All I can do is show up every night and play and hopefully the goals are going to start going in.”

He’s more concerned with the wins, though. His teammates know it and feel the same way when they go through lengthy droughts.

“You want to get those two points at the end of the night,” said Simmonds, who went without a goal for at least five games on four different occasions last season, “but when you are losing and you’re not producing, everyone else starts chattering about it and it starts getting louder and louder and louder the longer you go. Winning solves everything.”

Laperriere leading penalty kill

Bellemare wasn’t even aware that his team had killed off 19 straight penalties across the last seven games. He attributes the sudden uptick in efficiency to assistant coach Ian Laperriere.

“I think we are listening a little bit more to Lappy,” he said. “Our timing when we press and when we don’t press is a little bit better.”

At its lowest point this season, the Flyers’ penalty kill was ranked near dead last. Heading into Monday’s action, the Flyers raised to 15th in the league at 80.7 percent efficiency.

“Just the detail of preparation and a message of confidence and a message of being smart and aggressive as a group,” Hakstol added about what Laperriere brings. “I think those are some of the keys. He’s done a real good job of preparing the players and the players have done a good job of going out there and working hard together.”

Per team policy, Laperriere is not permitted to speak to the media because he’s an assistant coach.

Schultz practices

Nick Schultz, who was hit so hard Saturday against the New York Rangers that he fell down when he tried to get up, was on the ice for practice Monday and is considered “day-to-day.”

“I remember it all happening, everything that happened,” said the defenseman, who did not play the rest of the game.

“You just kind of go by how you feel and how your body is and if you feel all right and you kind of take it that way.”

Loose pucks

Both Ryan White (shoulder) and R.J. Umberger (foot) took part in practice Monday, but will not play Tuesday against the Ottawa Senators. … Vinny Lecavalier appears as if he’ll be a healthy scratch for an eighth straight game Tuesday.

Dave Isaac; (856) 486-2479; disaac@gannettnj.com .