The Flyers are ending another season with more questions than answers

“It was the worst game that I was part of in 11 years,” Jake Voracek said after the Flyers’ Friday practice, referring to Thursday night’s loss in St. Louis.

Given the disappointments and inconsistencies surrounding this team over his last seven seasons here, that’s saying something.

It wasn’t just the 7-3 score on which the Flyers were on the wrong end. It’s how they went about it, or didn’t go about it: allowing the Blues to work the puck around them as if they were pylons, avoiding contact, looking like a team that in every way has quit on the season -- and seemingly on each other as well.

“Players under NHL contracts shouldn’t be this level bad,” said Voracek, who was pointless and missed the net on four of the six shots he took Thursday. "Let’s be honest: That was an NHL team playing against a triple-A team. We were shooting pucks away from one other. Guys without the puck didn’t want the puck. And when we got that puck, we were scared to do something.

“We can’t play like that. It [stinks] to be out of the playoffs, but there’s still something to play for. You’re playing for the Philadelphia Flyers.”

Is that enough to hold off the playoff-bound Carolina Hurricanes in Saturday night’s season finale at the Wells Fargo Center? Recent history offers a resounding no. The Flyers have been outscored 16-5 in the three losses that have followed their official elimination. As telling, and perhaps damning, is the 3-9-0 record they have put together since rallying to the brink of playoff relevancy.

Did the pressure of the hunt get to them?

“I think when we got to within three points of a playoff spot there was certainly a feel-good [atmosphere] in the room,” said interim coach Scott Gordon. “Everybody was going in the right direction. That loss in Toronto [7-6, March 15] took a lot of wind out of our sails. The way it happened. The timing of when it happened. It was obviously frustrating.”

The Flyers frittered away a three-goal lead in the last half of that game, making the sort of defensive-zone gaffes that marked their descent to the NHL cellar, and that has marked their recession from relevancy over the 12 games since.

It has likely also damaged Gordon’s chance to get the interim tag removed and return as their coach -- something he said he is aware of, but not consumed by.

“We had an opportunity against the Islanders, [a] tie game with four minutes to go,” said Gordon. “We had a 2-1 game against Montreal that we didn’t have enough to get over the edge. … From any energy standpoint, I’m sure there was an energy drain after what we had gone through over the last two months. And now we’re in a situation where we haven’t had anything to play for the last three games.”

Except, of course, for the sweater. And for each other. The Flyers claim to be a tight team off the ice. Why that hasn’t manifested itself into on-ice results -- for much of the time the core group featuring Voracek, Sean Couturier, and Claude Giroux has been together -- is something new general manager Chuck Fletcher will have to decipher if pro hockey’s version of Groundhog Day is to be halted.

“I’ve been asked that question the last several years -- it’s frustrating.” said Voracek, who has seen his point total shrink from 85 last season to 65 while his plus-minus sank from plus-10 to minus-16. "It’s easy to think we’re not good enough, but obviously we don’t think that way. We’ve had a lot of young guys come in over the last couple of years. And so I thought this was the year. From that standpoint, it was my most disappointing season in the NHL. Because I had way higher expectations.

“Last year we made the playoffs, G had a hundred points, I had a career year, Coots had a career year. It’s not going to happen every single year that guys are going to have career years. But I think if 17 or 18 guys have above-average years, then we can become a great team. We have to find that consistency from 17, 18, even 20 guys. I think that’s what we are missing. We have a few pieces going here, few pieces not. We have to find that consistency level for 70 to 75 games. You’re going to have those 10-12 games a year where you just don’t have it. But we have to get that consistency level from more guys way more often.”

Breakaways: Defenseman Philippe Myers was loaned to the Phantoms, presumably to aid their playoff run. Mark Friedman was recalled to replace him. … Nolan Patrick was not on the ice Friday and is not expected to play Saturday. His upper-body injury suffered in the game against Dallas makes it imprudent to risk any further injury in the season finale, said Gordon.