After nearly six whole years, the Philadelphia Flyers are back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As of March 1, the Flyers had just 65 points, sitting at 12th place in the Eastern Conference. They were sixth in both the Metropolitan division and the wild card standings, and most people had already started looking toward next season for them. They were six points behind the Boston Bruins for the second wild card spot, and in the NHL, with only 23 games remaining, that is a lot of ground to make up, especially when the Flyers would need a lot of help from the teams ahead of them to even have a chance.
Since that day, the Flyers went 16-6-1, finishing with 98 points, placing them third in the Metropolitan division. After a hard-fought shootout victory in their second to last regular season game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday, April 13, they clinched their playoff spot. They then closed out the regular season the following day with a 4-2 victory against the Montreal Canadians to put a cherry on top of their incredible final month of the season.
The Flyers were led by forwards Travis Konecny, Trevor Zegras and Owen Tippett as their points leaders across the season. Konecny led the team with 68 points, with 27 goals and 41 assists, while Zegras was close behind with 67 points, 26 goals and 41 assists. Tippet led the team with 28 goals, adding 23 assists. Their team MVP though may have been goaltender Dan Vladar, who held a 29-14-7 record in 52 starts with a 2.42 goals-against average. Over the hot stretch that the Flyers went on to close the season, Vladar was a huge part of keeping them in the hunt, with countless incredible saves and games. They also got some late help during the final stretch of the season, getting forward Tyson Foerster back from injury, and seeing rookie Porter Martone get called up from the minor leagues, playing in nine games and recording 4 goals and 6 assists, including an overtime game-winning goal against the Boston Bruins on Easter that put them in a playoff position that they didn’t drop out of for the rest of the season.
In the NHL, there are two divisions in each conference, with the top three teams in each division qualifying for the playoffs, along with the remaining top two teams in the conference getting the wild card spots. For the playoff matchups, the second and third teams in each division play each other in the first round. The team that placed second in the Metropolitan division is none other than the Flyers’ bitter in-state rival Pittsburgh Penguins. The first game of the best-of-seven series is Saturday, April 18 at 8pm in Pittsburgh. The Flyers lead the all-time playoff series between the two 21-20. The Penguins and Flyers have had an ongoing bitter rivalry for a long time, and between 2008 and 2018, they met four times in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in some intense series. In the 2008 conference finals, the Penguins defeated the Flyers 4-1, the next year in the quarterfinals, the Penguins won 4-2. Following that, in the 2012 quarterfinals, the Flyers defeated the Penguins 4-2 in a historically entertaining series. It was a brutal series physically between the two teams, seeing a total of 312 penalty minutes in the series. Most recently, the Penguins defeated the Flyers 4-2 in the 2018 quarterfinals.
Many hockey fans are looking forward to another series between the Flyers and Penguins, hoping it will have shades of the rivalry of the last decade and provide lots of entertainment. Even though many think that the Penguins will win in five or six games, if the Flyers do not make it past the first round of the playoffs, it will not be a disappointing season when they look back to where they were a month ago. They will look to build on their momentum in the playoffs and going into next season as well.
Jacob Burton is a second year Media & Culture major with a minor in Journalism. JB1051154@wcupa.edu