NHL Playoff Push: Flyers fall to the outside looking in for season's final week

The Philadelphia Flyers enter the last week of the season in a position they haven't been in for months: On the outside looking in. 

Over the weekend, they dropped a crucial and manageable back-to-back, first to the Sabres in Buffalo and then to the Blue Jackets in Columbus in a total implosion. They've continued to spiral into a seven-game winless streak, looking almost out of gas ever since that massive home win over the Boston Bruins back on March 23, and all the while, everyone in the hunt with them caught up. 

The New York Islanders climbed into third in the Metro, the Detroit Red Wings moved back into the second and final Eastern Conference Wild Card spot, the Washington Capitals – even at a baffling minus-41 goal differential – remain in the mix, and Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins – a club believed to have waved the white flag at the trade deadline – somehow found a new lease on life.

The Flyers have four games left to try and pull something off, four tough ones at that, but have left themselves absolutely zero room for error and no time at all to soul search, because while all these teams have been finding late answers, they've been torpedoing south. 

The playoff hopes aren't dead yet, but they're in bad shape. 

Here's a look at the Flyers' spot in the playoff picture the rest of the way, beginning with the Metro and Eastern wild card standings as of Monday morning:

M-Metro; WC-Wild Card; *Clinched playoff spot

The Tampa Lightning clinched the first wild card, leaving third in the Metro and the second wild card as the last two playoff spots up for grabs. 

The Red Wings have no way of catching Tampa or the Toronto Maple Leafs at third in the Atlantic division, so their only way in is through the second wild card.

Working to the Flyers' benefit is that they still have two routes via the Metro three seed and the second wild card, but that also goes for the Islanders, Capitals, and Penguins as well. 

The remaining schedule

Here is the Flyers' last run of opponents to close out the season:

Montreal isn't great, but beat the Flyers 4-1, late last month early into their spiral, and looked like they had Philly completely handled. 

The Rangers are a juggernaut chasing after the Presidents' Trophy now, are a team with clear Cup aspirations, and a rival that the Flyers have just not been able to crack all season. 

The Devils took the Stadium Series tilt in the Meadowlands, 6-3, back in February, in a game where the Flyers outshot them but that New Jersey won in the quality of chance battle, having the speed and skill up front to do it. 

And the Capitals, they beat the Flyers 5-2 back on March 1 in a contest where Philly stood to put a serious dent in the playoff race. That could've been a game where the Flyers put Washington away, but they didn't and now they're looking to be fighting against them until the very end provided the race stays as close as it is. 

There are no more breaks here, that back-to-back against a middling Buffalo and a disastrous Columbus was really the Flyers' last one and they let it go to waste. 

It's a hole they dug themselves. 

And for a fuller picture, here's what the final stretch will look like for the Isles, Caps, Penguins, and Red Wings, who each have the added advantage of one more game in hand over the Flyers:

None of them are exactly cruising to the finish line either, with four-point games against one another and some tough matchups outside of those for each, but they're all arguably going in having played much more stable hockey of late, especially the Isles and Penguins, who have each won four straight. 

The odds

When we checked a week ago, MoneyPuck's model had the Flyers still with a 61.9 percent chance of making the playoffs and hockey-reference's projections had them with a 44 percent shot. The Flyers weren't looking so hot at the time, but they arguably still had a pretty decent opportunity.

Yeah, that's only tanked in the days since as the losses continued to pile on.

Here's where the odds to make the playoffs stand now (Monday morning) for the Flyers and the remaining East teams in the hunt between MoneyPuck's, hockey-reference's, and The Athletic's probability models:

I mean...there's still a chance.

The difference in the differential

Let's rewind the clock back to February 29 for a minute. The Flyers had just pulled off a big win over the Lightning 6-2 at home a couple of nights before, had a pretty good grip on the No. 3 seed in the Metro, and were very much in the driver's seat of their own destiny. 

At the time, their goal differential was treading just above water at plus-6.

But after they fumbled through much of March and then went spiraling straight into April, here's where the goal differentials for remaining playoff race stand as of Monday morning. 

The Flyers' offensive production just crashed and burned, and it's visible amongst key names like Travis Konecny, Joel Farabee, Tyson Foerster, Morgan Frost, and Owen Tippett, who have all been struggling to find the back of the net of late. 

"We're having problems scoring goals and goals are going in easy on us," head coach John Tortorella said after the loss to Columbus on Saturday. "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 hope they can find one more wakeup call, and now some help in the standings for one last gasp too.

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