The 2023-24 Philadelphia Flyers season was supposed to be that of a rebuilding team. An expected bottom-ten finish and another miserable viewing for the fans. But that hasn’t been the case. The team exceeded all expectations set forth for them and have held on to a playoff spot for a vast majority of the season. But as they’re high stepping towards the end zone hoping to make their first visit to the postseason since the 2020 bubble, they are about to get tackled at the one yard line.
The story of the Flyers over the last few months has been their consistent struggle to step up when it matters most. They blew a back-to-back weekend with the New York Rangers and the Pittsburgh Penguins during the last weekend in February. They got stomped by Tampa during their Florida trip the following weekend, then they entered a seven game stretch against the top teams in the East and walk away from the gauntlet with a 2-3-2. And while that result wasn’t the worst possible outcome, dropping the next two games against the basement dwelling Canadiens and Blackhawks has officially pushed the Flyers to the second wildcard spot.
And to make things more interesting, all their direct competitors for those playoff spots- Detroit, Washington and New York Islanders, all have at least one game in hand too.
Now the Flyers have seven games left, against a mixed caliber of opponents, to hang on to a postseason spot. And they’re crawling to the finish line.
They’ve scored a single goal in three of their last four games and have received shaky goaltending from both Sam Ersson and Felix Sandstrom. The arrival of Ivan Fedotov is a much needed light in the dark, but if the team can’t produce any offense, it doesn’t matter how solid their netminder players.
But at the end of the day, this isn’t the fault of Sam Ersson. It’s an underwhelming group of players no longer being carried by their above-average goaltending.
Head coach John Tortorella has dragged more out of this ragtag group further than anybody expected. But his 82-game playoff style of fundamentally flawed. Not only is it a demanding baseline to keep up for their entirety of an NHL campaign, but it can lead to inaccurate results when assessing where the team really is.
Most teams that are just about guaranteed a playoff spot may not be giving it their all during the early days and midway point of the season. It’s how the Flyers managed to edge the Panthers twice in February and early March, and they were able to beat the central division titan Winnipeg Jets in January and February. But now that the playoffs are less than a dozen games away, those dormant teams who sleepwalk through the season turn it on. The thrashing the Lightning gave the Flyers in mid-March was a different (and more accurate) result than the Flyers beating them in February.
It leads to a skewed perception about what the Flyers are- a hard working team that is in way above their heads when compared to virtually every other team in playoff contention.
And the late season push has forced Tortorella’s hand a bit. He flat out admitted that Cam York and Travis Sanheim are gassed. The two, especially York, has played well over 25 minutes a night more often than not since Sean Walker was dealt at the deadline and a trio of injuries to Jamie Drysdale, Rasmus Ristolainen and Nick Seeler forced Torts to up the minutes of York… rather than spread the wealth to the prospects in the rare occasion they’ve had the chance to do so.
Their forward group has been underachieving most of the season. Travis Konecny is still the only player to eclipse the 50-point mark in large part due to the barren talent pool on the roster and the streakiness of their supposed top players. And, you know, their third consecutive season of a dead last ranked power play highlights their offensive struggles in a nutshell.
Maybe a late season collapse is what the organization needs though. They don’t need to enter the offseason with a false sense of security, thinking their shit don’t stink with a kicked-back offseason where a near identical roster is kept together. Some pressure to the front office to fix the rather gaping holes throughout the roster rather than ignore them for *yet another* summer may be the best thing possible for an improved product.
Can the Flyers hang onto a playoff spot? If they can pull their collective heads out of their asses they can still clinch a postseason berth… even though the resulting series may not be pretty. But whether they make it or not, they lesson remains the same- this roster still has a long way to go before they are a legitimate playoff-caliber team rather than a group of pretenders.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
brotherlypuck.com 