Why do the Flyers stink?

Why do the Flyers stink? That is not meant to be a rhetorical comment about the Flyers' struggles this season, but the trigger for a real analysis of why a team that started season with such promise and looked like a legitimate Stanley Cup contender, has fallen into the mediocrity of the National Hockey League. I keep watching the Flyers play, and the standings show that they have completed 73 games (as of writing this), but to be perfectly honest, I don't think they've played more than 20 complete games all season.
In the past week, the Flyers blew third period leads against Toronto and Boston, both of which were games that a team fighting for a playoff spot has to close out. In between those two games was a home loss to Leafs. Follow up those setbacks with an embarrassing 7-1 defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins, sans Sidney Crosby, and the Flyers appear to be doing everything possible to sit out of the playoffs for the second consecutive year.
So now shortly after a ten game losing streak, the Flyers are mired in a four game slump and look helpless as three teams have pulled within two points (as of Monday morning) of them for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Granted, the Flyers are just 10 points behind the New Jersey Devils for the top spot in the conference, so with a few lucky bounces here and there, they would be at the top of the playoff picture instead of the bottom, but in reality, they're not a dangerous team this spring.
So what is holding them back?
A few months ago, I wrote that the Flyers needed to let Antero Niittymaki play the majority of the games because he was a better goalie than Martin Biron, and had shown in his career that he could carry a team for weeks at a time.
Well the Flyers went with Biron, who while having better numbers than Niittymaki (which I attribute to Niittymaki's inconsistent playing time), is hurting this team more than ever before.
Biron has the ability to make some spectacular saves, but he has the same problem that Ron Hextall, John Vanbiesbrouck, and Garth Snow had when the Flyers were making Stanley Cup runs in the 1990s; he gives up soft goals. And on top of that, he gives them up at the worst possible times. I don't mind a soft goal when the Flyers are up 5-1, but when you are playing the team directly in front of you in the playoff hunt, you can't give up a bad rebound and the tying goal with 30 seconds left in the game. And then you certainly can't follow that up by allowing an unscreened goal from the blue line in overtime. In case you haven't been following the Flyers closely, that's the series of events that doomed the Flyers against the Boston Bruins on Saturday.
If that wasn't bad enough, the next day against the Penguins, who the Flyers have owned this season, instead of hugging the goal post, Biron leaned six inches away from the pipe and Evgeni Malkin used that opening to put the Flyers down 1-0, setting the tone for a bad game. Basic goaltending says that you hug the post so you only have to go one direction to make a save, but apparently Biron was sick on the first day of hockey practice as a kid and nobody has corrected him.
In front of the goalie, the Flyers haven't had the best health, but the defensemen have been solid, led by veterans Jason Smith and Kimmo Timonen. They've even gotten good contributions from young prospects Braydon Coburn and Randy Jones. Coburn is a team high +17, and Randy Jones has pitched in 28 points from the blue line.
Looking at the forwards, injuries and lackluster play can be blamed for the Flyers inconsistencies in putting the puck in the net, but the real problem is that they lack true game-changing goal scorers. Yes, Danny Briere has the ability to carry a team, but his inability to play defense (as evidenced by his team worst-25 rating), makes him a $52 million bust at this point. Injuries to Simon Gagne and Joffrey Lupul certainly hurt, but neither guy can change a game on his own. Both players need setup men in the middle, so when Briere has been in a funk, he was actually bringing down himself and both his linemates.
The Flyers do have a few pure scorers in Jeff Carter and Mike Knuble, but neither player is a sniper on the level of Alexander Ovechkin, Rick Nash, or Jarome Iginla, so neither can stop a losing streak on their own.
This Flyers team does have a lot of solid players, but just like the Phillies' starting rotation from a few years ago, a bunch of number 2s are nice, but when times are bad, you need an ace to pull you out of a slump. Until the Flyers find that ace, playoff hockey will be brief in Philadelphia.