The Flyers needed a win and a prayer to still make the playoffs, but neither call went answered.
An Erik Johnson redirect countered an opening one from Alex Ovechkin, Sam Ersson stopped 16 of 17 shots, and the Flyers matched the Capitals beat for beat defensively. But requiring a victory in regulation to still have a chance, head coach John Tortorella made the call to pull Ersson with 3:05 left to try and go for that last goal in a tie game. T.J. Oshie got the puck and hit the empty net instead, and all the while, the Detroit Red Wings had forced overtime against the Canadiens up in Montreal at the very last second.
So either way, the ride was over for the Philadelphia Flyers.
They lost 2-1 to Washington Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center, and their playoff hopes, which defied expectation all year, were stopped short in the 82nd and final game of the regular season.
End of the line.
"I'm proud of the team, how they've handled themselves, even through some of the bumps we've had at the end of the year," Tortorella said earlier Tuesday after the team's morning skate. "They've stayed together. They've tried to figure it out, and now they get to play a Game 82 that means something."
Even if they left it empty-handed in the end.
Chances and possessions exchanged in the early going of the first period, with quick sticks and safe reads canceling them out at both ends of the ice. Ersson made a tough save on John Carlson's point blast through heavy traffic in front, while Cam York was able to clean up with a clear out from behind him as the puck continued to trickle out into the blue paint.
Sean Couturier nearly deflected a puck heading to the Capitals' net with the shaft of his stick, but the angle carried the redirect wide. Then former Flyer Nic Aube-Kubel came streaking through the middle of the ice for the Caps and toward the Philadelphia net, but Travis Sanheim jammed him on the deke to take away any opportunity.
The Flyers did have the puck moving up ice, but through seven minutes, they were still looking for their first actual registered shot on goal. Then they finally got it, and controversy struck.
Cam Atkinson carried up the middle of the ice and then dropped the puck off for Joel Farabee along the left wall, who had a clear lane to just throw a shot on and get something going. Caps goaltender Charlie Lindgren stopped it, initially, but the puck had sailed up into the air off his blocker. The ref didn't see it and blew the whistle. When the puck came back down, it was in the net.
The Flyers, and the Wells Fargo Center crowd surrounding them, argued. The officials took it to review, a lengthy one at that, but held to the call of a dead play.
The building wasn't happy. Boos and "ref, you suck!" chants rained down, the score remained 0-0, and the referees definitely didn't win any fans over for the remainder of the night after a few debatable calls went completely untouched – like Garnet Hathaway getting stapled to the boards while his back was turned and Scott Laughton getting taken down in the neutral zone far, far away from the play.
But the Flyers stayed on the puck.
Less than a minute later, Egor Zamula had the space and time to skate down with it himself and slid a pass over to Travis Konecny, who fired off a shot that led to a juicy rebound off Lindgren's pad. Washington cleared it away, but Tom Wilson tripped up Tyson Foerster along the boards going after it to send Philly on to the first and crucial power play.
A unit that had been rudderless for nearly all of the season, however, didn't change now.
Washington's Aliaksei Protas jumped the puck at the blue line as the Flyers were fumbling with it and took off the other way, but Ersson stepped up with a huge save off his pads to keep it scoreless, though ultimately with another man advantage gone to waste – and on the only penalty called all game.
Nick Seeler jumped in on the rush later on and tried to catch the Capitals sleeping on a wrap-around attempt from behind the net, but Lindgren had the post sealed off to send the puck sailing away from trouble.
Then late into the first, puck luck bounced in favor of the Capitals.
Oshie, upon a zone entry, flipped the puck up the wall for defenseman Dylan McIlrath, who let a slap shot toward the net go that bounced straight off an Ovechkin moving in. Ersson couldn't track it, the opening tally went to Washington, and a wall went up that took until past the halfway point of the second period for the Flyers to break down.
But they found the crack.
Zamula, who had already made a series of solid plays and passes to that point, held the puck up by the blue line and tried to thread a shot straight through. It found the sticks of Couturier and Johnson on the way there, shifting directions so that the puck could make its way past Lindgren. Tie game, and a pivotal momentum shift.
The ice tilted downhill for the Flyers for the remainder of the frame.
They spent the bulk of the period's remaining time down in Washington's zone and continually jammed the puck back toward the Capitals' net. The horn sounded with the Flyers winning the shot battle 15-12, but they just couldn't put home that next opportunity to pull ahead.
That carried into the third with the score still knotted, 1-1 – as the Flyers went on to outshoot the Capitals 28-18 for the game – which left them with no other choice but to take the massive gamble with the clock ticking down.
If Washington got a point just from going to overtime, that would've been the season. The Flyers needed the win, in regulation – along with regulation losses from Detroit and Pittsburgh – to stay alive, and during the last TV timeout with 4:35 remaining, Ersson started peeking toward the Flyers' bench.
With 3:05 left, the signal came for the pull and the extra attacker.
Oshie got the puck and scored on the empty net to put the game, and the season, away seconds later.
A season that, for so long, the Flyers defied nearly every expectation of.
"They already know my feelings about that as far as what this team is about," Tortorella said earlier in the day. "I'm proud of them. No matter what happens tonight, I'm excited about how they've handled themselves, I'm excited about some of the growth, excited about hopefully getting an opportunity, but if not, where we go in the future.
"So, no matter what the result is tonight, that's not gonna change in my mind."
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