With former coach and player Craig Berube bringing his tough Toronto Maple Leafs to the Wells Fargo Center Tuesday, John Tortorella spoke hours before the game about his .500ish team, floating below the current NHL East playoff standard. The Flyers’ long-dismal power play is shuffling along at a 15.5% ratio of failure, illustrating how this club has a very long way to go to become a contender. Travis Konecny is the Flyers’ best offensive player, but their lack of offensive depth shows easily in the way that Konecny’s 18 goals rank only 16th highest (along with six other players) in the league, and his 43 points rank 20th, along with three other players. Worse yet, Matvei Michkov is the second-highest Flyers point-getter, his 29 points barely visible along with a bunch of other 29-point guys at a No. 79 ranking. Konecny is both an effective scorer and playmaker, though not an elite one. What he needs is help, though an aging Sean Couturier and rookie Michkov can only help so much. With the Flyers reaching the halfway point of the regular season with this game against the Leafs, it’s surprising that they managed to get to 17-18-5 (39 points) heading into it. A so-so 19th best at penalty kill, it’s clear they aren’t very special in special teams, and far from deep enough offensively. That’s been quite obvious for too many years now, through too many rebuilds and too many statements from coaches and front office leaders swearing better days are on the way as soon as their plan to build from within takes hold. In that same vein, the Flyers’ entrance into the playoffs is now a four-year-plus project of frustration. “We have to find our style of play,” Tortorella said Tuesday. “I think some guys have steadily improved and I think some guys have put themselves in the conversation of still being evaluated. That’s a big part of what this year’s about.” Inhibited offensive growth aside, however, it’s hard to see how that playoff wait won’t continue for a much longer time considering the shape of the Flyers’ goaltending. While the club’s defensive play certainly deserves a slice of blame, the Flyers’ goaltending remains a shambles. Sam Ersson, who was perhaps optimistically targeted to be a developing backup for the Flyers at this point, is instead a No. 1 goalie hampered by injury issues. He’s currently on a day-to-whenever basis with what’s thought to be an ouchy groin. The club considered itself lucky to be able to bring over Russian goalie Ivan Fedotov, but he’s clearly learning everything as he goes along, and everyone else is learning Belarusian goalie Aleksei Kolosov is a minor leaguer dressed in NHL clothing. This tandem, boosted earlier by an oft-ailing Ersson (9-6-2, 3.02 goals-against average, .884 saves percentage), has the Flyers at or very near the bottom of the NHL goaltending rankings. The Flyers went into Tuesday’s game with a backstopping total of 142 goals allowed (fourth-worst in the league), a 3.55 GAA (third-worst) and an .878 saves percentage, which was dead last out of the 32 NHL clubs. That unfortunate reality has been talked about at length. But Tortorella got understandably honest about it Tuesday, referencing what he sees as a major reason for this major flaw in his team’s defenses: The haunting figure of Carter Hart. “Obviously, goaltending is something where … each day I wake up, I’m not sure where it’s at,” Tortorella said. “That’s the way it’s gone so far but that’s something we’re trying to iron out. We did not expect this, right? We’re force-feeding (Ersson). Now we have two other guys coming from Russia, coming over and (being) in the picture a lot quicker than we thought they would be.” Usually, talk of the goaltending issue would end there, but Tortorella went on to address the elephant in the interview room. Maybe with the anniversary date of Hart’s last game as a Flyer (Jan. 20) less than two weeks away, Tortorella was moved to raise the specter of Hart, who after being pulled in that last game against Colorado almost a year ago suddenly disappeared, headed out to face sexual assault charges along with four other Team Canada junior hockey national team members from 2018. “When Carter left, that threw this into … turmoil,” Tortorella said. “It is what it is. We’ve lived with it, we continue to live with it and we do the best we can. No one foresaw this. … No one foresaw this was going to happen as you develop your team, and you develop probably your most important position.” To update, in November a trial date for Hart and four former Team Canada teammates finally was announced. Hart and Company are scheduled to get the trial they asked for beginning April 22 in London, Ont. It is expected to take as long as eight weeks to ascertain verdicts on the players, who were alleged to have taken part in a group sexual assault of a woman on June 19, 2018. The investigation on the incident initially closed without charges but was subsequently re-opened and charges were filed early last year, after Hart was put on permanent leave from the Flyers. His time with the club officially came to an end on June 30, when the Flyers declined to qualify his contract as a restricted free agent. Three of the other four defendants with NHL contracts also had their contracts lapse, primarily because, like the Flyers, everyone knew for months this case was likely to go the way it did. All five players are expected to plead not guilty. Meanwhile, Hart’s absence has had, by far, the worst impact on his former team as compared to the others. “We thought we’d have more time with Ers to develop him, and he gets thrown into it and now with his injury problems here of late it’s turned into even a little bit more of a situation,” Tortorella said. “So we just keep banging away.”