April 07, 2024
The Flyers were down to their last true break in the remaining schedule, and probably their last chance to make a real dent in their final bid for the playoffs.
A road back-to-back against an inconsistent Buffalo Sabres team and then a Columbus Blue Jackets club that had been a mess all season, those were four major and very attainable points on the table.
But instead, the Flyers fell flat on their face.
Friday night, they just couldn't figure out the Sabres and fell, 4-2. Then the next night against Columbus, they just completely fell apart, 6-2, after failing to do anything with a four-minute power play that was gifted to them less than two minutes in.
The Flyers have gone winless in seven straight now (0-5-2), stand at 36-31-11 still for 83 points and with only four more games left, and for the first time in months, they are no longer holding on to a playoff spot.
The Islanders beat Nashville on Saturday to take a clear hold of third in the Metro division, and at the same time, the Penguins beat Tampa to also climb up to 83 points and with a game in hand, move into the Eastern Conference's last wild card spot, all with the Capitals still hanging in there and set to play a struggling Ottawa later Sunday.
The Flyers had their chances to put away each of them within the past month and all but lock in their spot to keep skating late into April, but couldn't. They let them hang around, and now that Philly is spiraling, they caught up, and those postseason hopes are in very real danger now.
They're not dead yet, but those postseason aspirations, those ones no one expected them to even have going into October, yet they carried through with for months on end anyway, are now easily the most dire they've ever been.
The level of play picked up, teams are either desperate or making their preparations for much greater, and a moment of truth for a relatively inexperienced group arrived. But the Flyers never closed out and may have just squandered one chance too many now.
They'll get another go at Montreal on Tuesday night back at home after the Canadiens pounced all over their sloppiness a couple of weeks ago. Then after that, it's the juggernaut Rangers who they haven't beaten all season, the Devils team they couldn't crack from Stadium Series back in February, and then a Capitals team who will likely be fighting tooth and nail for their playoff lives to close out the regular season.
So life is definitely not about to get any easier, not that the Flyers have made it any easier on themselves, and all at the worst possible time.
"I don't think a lot of people are playing their best hockey," head coach John Tortorella said pretty calmly after the loss to Columbus Saturday night. "I think there are some guys that have found their way a little bit. Other guys are pressing. But you know what? It's a loss. It's an ugly one, but we can't get discouraged.
"No one is going to help us out of this. Being discouraged isn't going to help it. We just gotta try to stay positive. Have a good practice day on Monday, get on a flight, and get back to work."
And try to find some, any kind of scoring touch.
Against Buffalo, the Flyers' goal scorers were Noah Cates and Owen Tippett, who threw a hail mary slap shot on net that managed its way through traffic.
Against Columbus, it was Olle Lycksell and then Adam Ginning each with their career firsts.
And all due credit to them for it. No goal in the NHL ever comes easy, and the Flyers have more than one problem right now – there was some pretty passive defensive play against the Sabres and Jackets both that left shooters to freely step into their lanes, goaltending is struggling to hold up now after Sam Ersson has logged more minutes than he's ever had, and the power play was and still is extremely bad – but their offense in general, especially from their main contributors, has heavily dried up of late.
Joel Farabee hasn't scored since March 16 nor has had a point since March 21. Morgan Frost had that late tying goal against the Islanders on Monday, but that came coupled with the turnover that cost them in OT and a stretch of just two points from him going back to the March 23 win over Boston. Tyson Foerster has gone quiet since scoring the lone Philadelphia goal of the March 30 loss to Chicago, and so has Travis Konecny, who has only two assists since the March 26 OT loss to the Rangers, which was the last time the Flyers scored more than three goals. Tippett, for as much power in his skating and as quick of a shot that he has, also only has two goals since that Rangers game.
Little has been working, and it feels like anything that can go wrong will.
"The last two games, I'd say we're surrounding the net, but we're not getting that scoring touch," Garnet Hathaway said postgame Saturday. "And that's up and down throughout right now. The way to get out of this is to just keep going, keep pushing through."
"We're having problems scoring goals and goals are going in easy on us," Tortorella added later. "So – We can't worry about what just happened. We'll try to learn from it. Thought we were a little bit sloppy, a little bit loose tonight in front of our goalie...But we just gotta get ready to play our next game."
And just hope for the best with a glancing eye on the out-of-town scoreboard.
Of course, with the playoff race coming down to the wire like it is, but with the Flyers backed into a corner though with a rebuild having always been the long-term organizational goal, there is going to come debate about whether all of this was even worth it if the team ends up falling short and can't even swing a high draft pick in the summer because of it.
That conversation won't be going anywhere either through what's going to be a tough final four games, regardless of what happens.
Still, those are four games to make some kind of last mark if they can swing it.
Things look bad, for sure, but the Flyers aren't dead just yet.
The playoff hopes though, those are in dire shape now, with only a couple of chances left to save them.
"You need to learn from every game that you play in," Hathaway said. "Right now we're learning how to play our best hockey against teams that are fighting, that are desperate, that are playing hard hockey and passionate hockey.
"I think we are, but I think we have another gear, and we need to find that. That's something that every guy's learning, whether you've done it before, you've been through it before, you go through the gauntlet of the season and you need to find out how to continue to get better.
"The whole season's a process. You have to build on past games, experiences, and really the ups and downs of the season to find out how to fight through when you get some adversity."
Now it's on them to fight through one more time.
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
