Dave Isaac

@davegisaac

NEW YORK — The cerebral general manager is a far cry from the goalie he was in a past life.

How many times would Ron Hextall the goalie have gone on postgame tirades with the way the Flyers have played recently?

He’s only done that once as a general manager, at least in plain sight. It came after a 2-0 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden in November of 2014, slamming a door and blasting the Flyers’ “(expletive) embarrassing” performance.

There have been several of those this season, but Hextall keeps his hands in his pockets and forces a smile as he has watched the Flyers struggle in nearly every facet of their game.

ISAAC: Flyers’ pain a side effect of Hextall’s patience

“No one here's giving up or anything like that,” Hextall said. “We go 10-0 and then we fall into this. You look at the overall record it's not where we expect to be, but we're in the mix and we're going to continue to fight.”

They’re in the mix for one playoff spot because that’s all that’s available in the tier they’re currently in. The difference between the two wild card spots in the Eastern Conference coming into Sunday night’s game was 10 points.

Still, the Flyers think they’re a “playoff team.”

“For sure,” alternate captain Mark Streit said. “We showed it. Earlier on in the season, we had a good streak there. It’s the same guys, it’s just about finding our game the way we want to play. Be a little smarter, more discipline and keep it simple out there. Everybody is making a push now, it’s going to be a tough run here, but we have the guys in the room and we have a lot of character on the team.”

Each of the last two seasons, Jake Voracek has predicted the magic number to be 95. Last year the Flyers cleared that by one point and snuck in with the final spot (Detroit had 93 points which was good enough for third in the Atlantic Division) and the year before that 96 points wasn’t enough. This season the Flyers are on pace for less than 90 points.

Unless something happens.

These days the Flyers react like a team that is done after the first mistake or goal against.

“It’s not that difficult (to correct),” Hextall said. “You get a break and all of a sudden you win a couple games and away you go. That’s why you gotta be careful. You’ve got to be careful in my position making decisions on short portions of your schedule. That’s why we play 82 games. The 10-0, should we have won all 10? No. The last 15, should we have lost as many as we’ve lost? No. I don’t think so, but that’s the way it is.”

Shot attempts suggest that the Flyers aren’t all that far off from where they need to be in their offensive game but there are other factors. Defensive play and, in Hextall’s words “critical mistakes at critical times” are still huge issues. And on top of it, Hextall can’t even make a small splash by calling someone up from the minors. There isn’t enough cap room and they’d potentially lose an asset to do it.

“Salary cap, roster, what if you waive a guy, he gets picked up and the guy you bring up doesn’t do well? There’s all kind of things that go into those decisions,” Hextall said, “but we see our team down there a lot and when we feel like someone down there can help us, that’s when we’ll make a move.”

Neuvirth’s shaky future

Performance issues in goal aside, the Flyers have some trouble when trying to decide who their goalie is going to be. Michal Neuvirth was taken out Saturday night “for precautionary reasons,” not for giving up three goals on 25 shots. Coach Dave Hakstol would have kept him in for the third if he could.

Neuvirth was healthy enough to back up Steve Mason Sunday night, but the lingering questions about his health make it hard for Hextall to evaluate his use even the rest of this season.

“Comfortable with? I’m not sure how to answer that question,” Hextall said. “There’s a history with Michal. I think I said that a month or month and a half ago; it’s part of the evaluation of any player. Hopefully Michal proves to us the rest of the year that he can stay healthy.”

Loose Pucks

Voracek and Claude Giroux were reunited on the Flyers’ top line. … Michael Del Zotto was the only change in the names on the lineup sheet. He was a healthy scratch and Brandon Manning figured back into the equation. … Monday will be an off day after the Flyers’ 12th of 18 sets of back-to-backs this season. No. 13 comes starting this Wednesday.

Dave Isaac; 856-486-2479;disaac@gannett.com