Is it time to start considering the Flyers a legitimate threat in the East?
The Philadelphia Flyers clinched the Eastern Conference’s last spot in the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs on Saturday. Can this team upset the heavyweights in the conference?
If you wanted to find one word to sum up the Philadelphia Flyers’ 2018 season, streaky would suffice.
Finishing their season 42-26-14 (98 points) with by far the most overtime/shootout losses in the East, the Flyers have been hot and they have been freezing cold.
The fall was a time to forget for Philadelphia, as the Flyers went an unimpressive 6–5–1 in October and an absolutely dreadful 2–5–6 in November. The top line of Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier and Jakub Voracek (at the time) was getting the job done early, but it wasn’t getting much help from the rest of the team’s forwards.
But the Flyers started to turn it around down the stretch, posting their most impressive showing in February with a 10–1–2 record, including an incredible 7–1–0 on the road. As recently as the NHL trade deadline, the Flyers were in the lead in the Metropolitan Division — but that feels like a long way away, now.
Though they’ve been a largely mediocre team all season, February showed us that these Flyers might actually be able to get through a first-round playoffs matchup. And they ended their regular season on a similarly high note with a 5-0 shutout over the New York Rangers.
Much ado has been made about all the youth the Flyers have added, but Giroux continued to prove he is the heartbeat of this team, notching his first career regular-season hat trick on Saturday:
The Flyers looked dangerous in every facet of the game on Saturday, finishing with a huge 40-17 advantage on the shot chart. And goaltender Brian Elliott stopped all 17 shots he faced. Sure, the Rangers aren’t giving anyone trouble at this point, but it was an impressive showing nonetheless.
Sometimes streaky teams are the most dangerous, if only because you’re not sure which iteration you’re going to get. We’ll know the Flyers’ first-round opponent at the conclusion of tonight’s Columbus Blue Jackets and Nashville Predators game, but the team that lands Philadelphia could lose a little sleep wondering which version of this team it’s going to get.
Can the Flyers really make a push for the Eastern Conference Final? It’s not likely, given how deadly the Tampa Bay Lightning (54-23-4, 112 points) and Boston Bruins (49-19-12, 110 points) have looked. But crazier things have happened.
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If anything, the Flyers’ success on the road in the second half of the season bodes well for their ability to make a splash in the first round of the playoffs.
Plus, we’ve all seen how sports teams from Philadelphia have fared in championships this season. Would you bet against that magic continuing?