Rick Tocchet slams his players for being too soft.

The Philadelphia Flyers suffered an ugly loss to the National Hockey League's last place team, the Calgary Flames, on Sunday night and it was clear after the game that Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet was not at all happy with the effort from his players.

Tocchet began by almost apologizing to the fans who watched the game on Sunday night, stating plainly that it wasn't a pleasant one for him to witness from behind the Flyers bench.

"It was an ugly game," said Tocchet. "I feel bad for the fans."

Tocchet argued in the post game press conference that his team wasn't going to the net nearly hard enough with no bodies in front to screen the opposing goalie, arguing that his team would have to play harder if they wanted any hope of ever making the playoffs at the NHL level.

"It's hard to win in this league, if you want to play in April and May you gotta play hard hockey," said Tocchet.

Tocchet's most damning comments however would come when he flat out called out his players for playing too soft, including some of the Flyers very best players. Tocchet didn't call out any players by name, but the message was crystal clear.

"I think we're finding easy ice," lamented Tocchet. "A lot of guys, even some of our best players they wanna play the easy ice and not the hard ice. That's the bottom line.

You can't blame Tocchet for trying to ignite a fire under his team with the Flyers currently languishing in the basement of the Metropolitan Division standings, but whether or not his message will resonate within the locker room remains to be seen.

One thing is certain, Tocchet intends to drill that message into his players in the coming days.

"Haven't had practice the last couple days, we're gonna have to do a lot of net front drills," said Tocchet. "Like almost constantly, we're gonna have to get it ingrained in these guys."