PHILADELPHIA -- The Detroit Red Wings earned the right to feel good about themselves following a 4-1-1 run on the road that included some impressive victories.

What's happened since is alarming and puzzling.

They've been no-shows at the start of games. They've had too many defensive breakdowns and coverage miscues. The penalty kill, dominant most of the season, has deteriorated rapidly. One player (Justin Abdelkader) is doing most of their scoring.

The Red Wings reached rock bottom Saturday afternoon - they can only hope - in a 7-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center.

"Yeah, disappointing. That's a good word," captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "They were much better from the start. It's too many games now where the opposing team is faster, stronger from the start. We've addressed it, but you can't just talk about it. You've got to go out and show it. Enough is enough."

The Red Wings have lost 10 in a row in Philadelphia, getting outscored 44-17, since winning Games 1 and 2 of the 1997 Stanley Cup finals here.

The Red Wings are 2-4-0 since the trade deadline acquisitions of Erik Cole and Marek Zidlicky. They've done their part - Cole scored his first goal as a Red Wing on Saturday and has three assists. Zidlicky also has four points (two goals, two assists) in six games.

Too many others have been too tentative, especially at the drop of the puck. The Flyers outshot the Red Wings 15-4 and led 2-0 after one period on goals by Wayne Simmonds (5:22) and Nicklas Grossmann (17:07). Detroit has played catch-up too often during this slide.

"I think it's almost that we're hiding out there," Zetterberg said. "We're all afraid. We don't want the puck. If you have it you'd rather give it to someone else. And then all of a sudden we start playing. So we know that we can play. Somehow we want to wait 20 minutes before we get going. Where we are right now we can't do that."

Said Niklas Kronwall: "It's a little bit too much standing around, not really wanting the puck. We've got to get back to work here. That's the bottom line."

Two weeks ago the Red Wings were in good position to challenge Montreal and Tampa Bay for the Atlantic Division title. Now they're in danger of falling into fourth place behind surging Boston, which is just three points back.

Coach Mike Babcock isn't questioning the work ethic, just the execution. He also has noticed a lack of confidence.

"I never thought it was a lack of effort at all, but I thought it was a lack of execution and just details; early in the game I didn't think we wanted the puck very bad," Babcock said.

"You don't do it really well and you're not totally committed and you're not detail-oriented, you can't win in the league. They're professional athletes over there and they want to win. We didn't compete hard enough. They were way better than us."

The Red Wings pushed back in the second period, when Abdelkader scored his sixth goals in six games, his 19th of the season, to cut the deficit to 2-1 at 4:14. But the penalty kill, which allowed three goals, failed again when Brayden Schenn scored at 13:39.

Schenn scored again 11 seconds into the third period to make it 4-1, virtually sealing the outcome. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Matt Read and Zac Rinaldo added goals for the Flyers, who are well out of the playoff picture.

"I thought we took over in the second period and really had it going," Babcock said. "It was 2-1, we were dominating play but obviously didn't have enough stick-to-it-iveness, enough to get it done and there's no question our penalty kill hurt us. Then after that, we came unraveled. We just gave them goals."

Jimmy Howard, making his first career appearance in Philadelphia, allowed seven goals on 36 shots.

"In fairness to our goaltender, our goaltender had nothing to do with it," Babcock said. "We gave them four goals that were basically tap-ins, freebies. No sense looking at anyone but ourselves. We haven't been good enough. You come off it a little bit in this league and you can't win. I think that's evident. If this isn't an exclamation mark, I don't know what is.

"We get a chance in 20 hours to bounce back. We better get it regrouped, get ready to play."

Petr Mrazek will start in goal Sunday in Pittsburgh (12:30 p.m., NBC), against a team that might be missing stars Sidney Crosby (illness) and Evgeni Malkin (lower-body injury).

"Nothing is good enough right now," Kronwall said. "We've got to find a way to get back to what we are about. You go through times like this you really find out who you are as a team and it's about time we start winning again."

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