The winless Flyers are in complete disarray, and the clock is quickly ticking for them to turn it around

You have to go back 83 years to find the record.

Before the Flyers were even a twinkle in Ed Snider’s eye, the New York Rangers started the 1943-44 season with 14 losses and one tie. They were outscored 91-46 and, in a season that started in late October, didn’t win a game until Dec. 12, when they beat the Boston Bruins 6-4 at the third iteration of Madison Square Garden.

Back then it was the Original Six, and the Rangers, who went on to miss the playoffs for the second straight year, won just six of their 50 games.

» READ MORE: Flyers set franchise history with seventh winless game to start the season in 4-1 loss to Hurricanes

The fewest wins in an NHL season, with a minimum of 70 games, came in 1974-75, when the Washington Capitals won just eight of 80 games. Three head coaches did their darndest to correct things.

Now, after Sunday’s 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, the Flyers have lost seven straight to start the season, a new organizational low. Could more records in futility be in peril? Could April end with this team looking up at the franchise’s lowest single-season win total of 17 set in 1969-70 during its third season of existence?

If the Flyers want to avoid a historic season — and not the good kind of history — things need to change quickly.

Clichés surfaced on Sunday after the Flyers’ 4-1 loss to the visiting Carolina Hurricanes. “Just taking it a day at a time, a game at a time,” Christian Dvorak said before Sean Couturier took it further: “We got to take it one game at a time, even one shift at a time.” Trevor Zegras expressed a similar sentiment too.

That’s all the Flyers can do now: take it one game, one period, and one shift at a time to get out of the muck. But each shift seems to be worse than the previous one. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers have had 31 line combinations that have played at least a minute together this season. Some of that is injury-related, with Denver Barkey missing the start of the season and Travis Konecny now hurt, but it hints at a coach just looking for answers.

But could all that John Tortorella-esque juggling be why there has been so much trouble? A lack of consistent linemates can throw off chemistry and that innate feeling of knowing — and trusting — where your teammates will be at any given moment.

Unfortunately, a lack of chemistry isn’t the only sore spot. Issues persist within the five-man units. Defensemen cannot get the puck up the ice; their teammates either are not creating time and space, not moving to open lanes, or off doing their own thing. A prime example from Sunday came in the first period when Tyson Foerster turned the puck over and was not ready for the return pass by Oliver Bonk.

The defensemen are also throwing the puck away carelessly. On Sunday, David Jiříček delivered a piping hot pizza (a bad pass that gives the opposition a prime scoring chance) in the first period, allowing the Hurricanes to have sustained pressure in the Flyers’ zone. And then there was Bonk, playing his first NHL game of the season, who couldn’t get the puck up to Matvei Michkov — part of it was that it looked like the puck got caught up with the linesman, and part of it was that Michkov had his back to the play as he turned up the boards instead of opening up — before Andre Svechknikov went the other way and scored.

“It’s a 10-foot play that you have to make,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “And if we do miss that pass, everybody’s got to dig in for that mistake. You can’t multiply mistakes. I think it was the same thing last year in January — if you make a mistake, the second guy will make a mistake. At the end of the year, if you made a mistake, somebody would cover for you.

“We’re making duplicate mistakes. It’s evident for me. It’s tough to correct, other than working every day and making these guys understand to stay focused, that if you make a mistake, hang in there. Don’t go off the rails. We go off the rails at certain parts of the game. I don’t know if it’s experience, pressure, I don’t know.”

Dvorak and his linemates finally put together a good shift in the middle frame Sunday that led to his first goal of the season. The Flyers got the puck deep, and Barkey pressured the goalie as he went to play it. Foerster hustled around his man to get to the puck first after the turnover. Barkey protected the puck along the boards and fed Nick Seeler, who fired a shot on goal that Dvorak tipped in from in front of the net.

It showed the grinding, simple game Couturier mentioned the team needs to get back to. And while that trio came alive after the goal, and it may have sparked the bench, it all fell flat quickly too.

“Obviously, we know we’ve got to turn it around ASAP,” Dvorak said. “Got to try and not let it snowball here and focus on the next one. We showed at times tonight what we could do. We’ve got to be consistent with it, and that’s what we’ll have success with. We show that for 60 minutes, we’re going to increase our chances of winning.”

The Flyers are playing flat, disconnected hockey.

They are second in the NHL in giveaways (120). They are tied with the Calgary Flames for the fewest goals scored (eight) and have allowed the second-most goals against (28). They average the fewest shots on goal (20.0) while averaging the most against (35.1). They are allowing four more shots per game than the next worst team, Seattle, whom they host on Tuesday.

According to Natural Stat Trick, at five-on-five, they have the worst Corsi For percentage (37.96%), the worst scoring chances for percentage (32.18%), have allowed the most high-danger chances (77), and have the second-worst shooting percentage (4.76%).

The eye test isn’t any better. Passes are either not there or are being delivered off their mark. And the Flyers are getting knocked off pucks too easily or not pressuring the opposition enough. Michael Bunting raced down the ice on Sunday to negate an icing, probably a first this season, although he was caught flat-footed on Shayne Gostisbehere’s goal.

And the defensive zone coverage has been every man for himself. On two goals by Carolina, players were allowed to waltz right through — Mark Jankowski was left alone in the middle of the ice after a faceoff in the Flyers’ end and scored easily from above the slot, before William Carrier skated through the middle of five Flyers before dishing to Sebastian Aho for another goal.

» READ MORE: ‘We believed in each other’: Former Flyers look back on breaking through a seven-game winless streak to start the season

Did it all unfold quicker on the ice than in the press box, sure, but no one stepped up to even take a chance.

“It’s basic hockey right now,” Couturier said. “We’re dumb, honestly.”

“We’re not winning enough battles,” he added. “We’re making the wrong reads. We’re slow. We’re playing slow. … We’re not winning races. We’re just making it harder on ourselves.”

Something has to change. Whether it’s a trade, sending guys down and recalling hungry youngsters like Cole Knuble, Ty Murchison, and Jett Luchanko from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League, or the usual scapegoat of firing the coach.

Whatever it is, the change has to come because seven games into the season, things aren’t getting any better.