Flyers say they lacked intensity

There aren't film sessions awaiting the Philadelphia Flyers. Coach Ken Hitchcock has no plans to show his team clips of breakout passes or videos of odd-man rushes.
His team doesn't need that. It needs to work harder. And because the Flyers didn't work hard enough Sunday in their 3-0 spread loss to the Buffalo Sabres, they have a lot of sweaty moments ahead.
"This is far from over," Hitchcock said in HSBC Arena after Game Five of his Eastern Conference quarterfinal. "I can tell you right now as a coach there's no X's and O's that we're going to be speaking about in the next 48 hours. Tenacity controlled this game. They did the things to us that we did to them in Philadelphia. That gave them control of the game."
The Sabres are one victory away from eliminating Philadelphia, and the Flyers find themselves in that quandary because they stopped doing the things that got them back into a 2-2 tie in the series. In their victories in Games Three and Four, the Flyers matched or exceeded the Sabres' intensity.
Game Five's intensity scale was as one-sided as the score.
"It's kind of becoming a habit up here," Flyers center Peter Forsberg said. "We're not working hard enough. We're not getting enough chances. There's nothing to say about them winning. They were better."
The Sabres have scored the first goal in all five games, forcing Philly to scramble back. The Sabres refused to allow it Sunday, as the Flyers didn't get their first shot until almost 13 minutes had elapsed. They finished the first period with just three shots.
"The first period we weren't ready, that's for sure," said defenseman Joni Pitkanen.
Added Flyers forward R.J. Umberger: "It's in the back of our minds not to have a bad start that we're watching too much instead of just being relaxed and playing our game like we do in the second period."
The Flyers had the edge in hits, 24-23, but Hitchcock said the Flyers lost battles along the boards, the hits when two players go for the puck and only one comes up with it.
Buffalo has yet to lose to the Flyers at home, winning three times in the arena. In addition to not showing video, Hitchcock isn't going to spend time searching for positives from his road games.
"The positives will come by the way we play in Game Six because we're going to play really well in Game Six," Hitchcock said of Tuesday's matchup in Philadelphia. "That's going to be the positives. We know how we got beat today. Every player in that locker room knows how we got beat. We'll be a lot better in Game Six, and we'll be loaded and ready to go."