November 29, 2023

How real are the Flyers' playoff chances?

The Flyers are playing better, smarter hockey, which has them holding an early playoff spot. But still, at the onset of a rebuild, they might not have the talent to keep this up in the long run.

By Nick Tricome
PhillyVoice Staff

The rebuilding Flyers entered Tuesday night holding third place in the Metro division – a playoff spot – and had they beaten Carolina, they would've jumped into second, though a 4-1 defeat stopped them short.

It's only 22 games into the season, sure, but even so, at 11-10-1, did anyone have the Flyers holding up this well?

It isn't just by luck either.

Ahead of Tuesday night's game, Stathletes' Meghan Chayka posted some impressive defensive data regarding the Flyers:

The Flyers. Defensive data
🤝 pic.twitter.com/6i2Kx5YYQF
— Meghan Chayka (@MeghanChayka) November 27, 2023

And then Sportslogiq's Mike Kelly posted their just as staggering offensive metrics off the rush:

The Flyers pressure the puck with purpose in the DZ & NZ. Their D activate often to join the rush. Through 21 games last season, PHI ranked near the bottom of the league producing rush chances & goals & had the 2nd worst rush goal differential. Top 10 in all 3 areas this season. pic.twitter.com/p1Q12FyspF
— Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyNHL) November 28, 2023

You can see it in their play too, when they rang off five straight against a run of quality opponents, not so much against the Rangers on Friday, but when they battled the Islanders shot for shot on Saturday night until Tyson Foerster finally tipped the scale their way in the shootout, and even in spurts during Tuesday night's loss to the Hurricanes.

Compared to last year, and especially two years prior, they've just been a smarter, more responsible, and carefully opportunistic team.

Having a fully healthy Sean Couturier back, who was one of the best two-way forwards in the league before his back issues cost him nearly two years, probably helps a lot with that as you can see in a clip Kelly posted from the October 30 home game against Carolina of a sequence that led straight to an Owen Tippett goal:

Here are a few examples….

Quick-strike offense by pressuring the puck in the neutral zone… pic.twitter.com/s1zwNoXQEj
— Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyNHL) November 28, 2023

Having a Travis Sanheim who has significantly stepped up his game and taken up monster minutes on the first defensive pairing night after night after nearly being traded away in the summer helps a lot too, and so does a Travis Konecny flying all over the ice and producing at an All-Star level, and a Carter Hart who almost always gives you a chance whenever he's in goal.

But team-wide, there's buy-in. The fundamentals have been hammered home, and aside from the Black Friday loss to the Rangers, to which head coach John Tortorella said they needed a reset after, they've stuck with it, and at the very least, it's been keeping them afloat.

Said Tortorella on the off day on Monday from the training facility in Voorhees:

"We knew this would happen. I'm surprised it's taken us 20 games to have to kind of reset [the players], because how many times did I talk to you guys last year? 'Defense, away from the puck, get above the puck, stick on puck, close out.' All we talked about was defense, because I think it needed to happen. We needed to get that foundation straightened out, and when you come in as a second year, you need to respect the athlete, that they bought into that. Now we need to get on to the other part of it.

"That's how we've approached this. That's how weve changed our language, how we coach them this year is – like I told them, I'm not sure what meeting or inbetween periods – how many times have I talked about defense this year? Very few. Very few words used on it because I think they defended well this year too. But when you get into the sloppiness and, throughout the lineup the cheating, it needs to be reset. Not a big deal. It's not yelling, it's not benching people, it's just saying 'OK, lets get back to this part of it. We know how to do it, we've done it to this point. Let's just get back to it.'

"Perfect timing was against the Islanders, because you're playing in the trenches. You know what type of game it's gonna be, and we gave up some chances, and we were going to, but I thought we were so much better being above the puck."

Which, in turn, has kept them above the early playoff fault line, but for how long?

Or to put it another way: How real could the idea of the Flyers staying in the playoff hunt actually be?

They're a smarter hockey team than they were before. That much is clear, and it's won them some games to this point. However, on nights like Tuesday night, when a team with clear Stanley Cup aspirations like Carolina just has the talent to outpace and outmatch the Flyers as they are right now, soon enough it can get overwhelming – just as it did quickly against the Rangers on Friday.

As a team, you can clean your game up significantly, but when an Artemi Panarin or a Sebastian Aho are on the ice, you either have to have the speed, both in skating and decision-making, to match, or you have to be perfect.

And the Flyers as they're currently constructed fall into the latter. Those true, game-changing level of star players just aren't in the building for them yet and won't be for a while. It's one of the realities of why they're rebuilding to begin with.

And why, as the season progresses, things might eventually even out closer to what most expected – which, for the Flyers' long-term future, may be for the best.

"It's the league," Tortorella said Tuesday night after the loss to Carolina. "It's the way it is, and that's the way it's gonna be for us. I've said that right along. We're gonna have some good streaks. we're gonna have some struggles. We may win three or four, we may lose three or four, like we're doing here going back and forth.

"It's not frustrating, it's just trying to figure out what's best for your team for the next day and I already have a plan for them tomorrow to get ready for Jersey."

Flyers lost, but the Metro is weird right now. pic.twitter.com/au6JBtSAfh
— Nick Tricome (@itssnick) November 29, 2023

But with all that said, there is a certain vulnerability to the Metro division right now.

Outside of the Rangers, who have been running away with it out of the gate at 15-4-1, the Hurricanes have struggled until recently to find steady footing – and the Flyers have played them tough twice already prior to Tuesday – all while the rival Penguins, Capitals, and Devils are still looking for theirs, and with the Islanders flailing to recapture their back-to-back conference final appearance form from three years ago.

Look, it's unlikely that the division stays this rocky and bunched up for long – after all, it's still only November – but with the Devils due up in Philly on Thursday, followed by the Penguins in a home-and-home series to begin December, the Flyers could stand to throw a real wrench into the Eastern Conference picture if they can manage another hot streak, at least enough to keep us thinking for a few more weeks.

The Flyers ultimately still have a long, long way to go before they can get to where they want to be in the far future. But hey, at least right now, as they are now, they've played solid enough hockey to wonder about a possible playoff chance in the short term.

Not a great chance – 31.9 percent based on MoneyPuck's projections – but a chance.