March 19, 2024
Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports
Can Owen Tippett and the Flyers put together one more convincing push into the playoffs?
The Flyers looked solid Saturday up in Boston, definitely much better than what they put up a couple of nights prior against Toronto – for 40 minutes.
Then the Bruins potted three goals within the first five minutes of the third period, which Philly, even though they climbed back to keep it close, could never fully recover from.
The Flyers lost, 6-5, their second straight and fifth in the eight games since March began – a 3-4-1 stretch.
They're still holding on to third in the Metropolitan division for a playoff spot, but not by much. The Capitals are only a point behind entering Tuesday's slate of games after beating Calgary the night before, and the Islanders are three points back and clawing to stay in the chase.
The race is close, much closer than it's been all season, and while the Flyers are still in the driver's seat when it comes to controlling their own destiny, they know they can't afford to waste any more time. They have to start churning out points again.
"We gotta be really careful with the moral victories here," head coach John Tortorella said after Saturday's loss to the Bruins. "I appreciate how hard we worked and kept on playing. You gotta be really careful. We gotta find a way to get points."
But in the middle of another gauntlet stretch in the schedule, one that still has another bout with Toronto on Tuesday night, then Carolina, Boston, Florida, and the Rangers all on deck, that is no small order.
The Flyers are very much in the fight pressing late into March, but they're still far from safe within it. They have gotten some luck though in that their immediate threats, even though they're not all that far behind, have been fumbling of late, too.
But you can hardly count on that to last. There are only 14 games left, and every second, every point is going to matter.
"It sucks," winger Joel Farabee, who scored twice against the Bruins, said postgame. "We can say we liked the effort and we competed and things like that, but at the end of the day, we need the two points."
So how good are the Flyers' chances looking for this final stretch of the season and last push toward the playoffs?
From where things stand right now, they are a bit of a different team post-trade deadline. They do miss Sean Walker's puck-driving ability on the back end for sure, which is serving Colorado well now, but it didn't help either that Nick Seeler, Jamie Drysdale, and Rasmus Ristolainen were already injured, which is spreading the blue line thin across Cam York, Travis Sanheim, Egor Zamula, Erik Johnson, Marc Staal, Ronnie Attard, and the just recalled Adam Ginning.
Key forwards caught in ill-timed slumps up front, like Travis Konecny and captain Sean Couturier, haven't been easing the struggles either.
Two playoff probability models, however, do seem to be betting on the Flyers surviving this and making it into the postseason.
As of Tuesday morning, MoneyPuck projects the Flyers with an 77.6 percent chance to make the playoffs, and hockey-reference has them with a 62.5 percent shot.
It's far from automatic, especially with Washington right there now. But compared to the handful of other teams behind them in the race, they still have maybe the strongest case out of them all – for now.
Here's a look at the Metro division and Eastern Conference Wild Card picture as of Tuesday morning:
| Metro | GP | W-L-OTL | PTS | P% | DIFF | L10 |
| 1) Rangers | 68 | 45-19-4 | 94 | .691 | +44 | 6-3-1 |
| 2) Hurricanes | 68 | 42-20-6 | 90 | .662 | +48 | 8-2-0 |
| 3) Flyers | 68 | 34-36-8 | 76 | .559 | -6 | 4-5-1 |
| Wild Card | ||||||
| 1) Lightning | 67 | 36-25-6 | 78 | .582 | +10 | 6-3-1 |
| 2) Capitals | 67 | 33-25-9 | 75 | .560 | -27 | 6-4-0 |
| --- | ||||||
| 3) Red Wings | 68 | 34-28-6 | 74 | .544 | +3 | 2-8-0 |
| 4) Islanders | 67 | 29-23-15 | 73 | .545 | -20 | 6-3-1 |
| 5) Penguins | 67 | 30-28-9 | 69 | .515 | -2 | 3-6-1 |
| 6) Sabres | 68 | 32-31-5 | 69 | .507 | -1 | 5-4-1 |
And some notes and playoff probabilities on the rest of the playoff-hunt competition (MP will denote MoneyPuck's odds and HR hockey-reference's)...
• Little about the Capitals (53.4% MP, 49.6% HR) indicates that they are a particularly great team, with that minus-27 goal differential standing out as a huge eye sore, but even so, they haven't gone away. Charlie Lindgren has given them some solid goaltending to keep them in games, while the skaters in front of him ground out back-to-back 2-1 wins against the Kraken and West-contending Canucks before taking the Flames down 5-2 on Monday night for their third straight. They also scored five unanswered against the Flyers in DC back on March 1 in what was a 5-2 defeat for Philly to start a crucial back-to-back. They shouldn't pose as much of a threat as they do, and yet here we are anyway.
• Go back a week and the Islanders (25.9% MP, 32.8% HR) looked to be storming back into the playoff race behind a six-game win streak and a spark from the coaching switch to Patrick Roy. Things seemed to have cooled off for them, however, as they fell into a four-game losing streak – an 0-3-1 stretch – right after. Ilya Sorokin gives the Isles some stellar goaltending to lean on, but they're in their own gauntlet stretch as well, which began with Sunday's 5-2 loss to the Rangers and then extends on to the Hurricanes, Red Wings, Jets, Devils, Panthers, and Lightning before the Flyers finally face them on April 1 at the Wells Fargo Center. Who knows what the picture looks like by then.
• The Red Wings (21.1% MP, 46.9% HR) find themselves holding on for dear life right now after dropping eight of their last nine in regulation. They have offensive firepower to boast between Alex DeBrincat, Patrick Kane, and Lucas Raymond, but little is working for them right now, with Sunday's 6-3 loss to Pittsburgh setting them another step back. They're probably the team in the most immediate danger of falling out of it.
• The Sabres (7.2% MP, 6.1% HR) caught a late spark to bring them into the rearview with wins in three of their last four, but their 69 points heading into Tuesday still leave them with a considerable gap to make up. The Penguins (9.3% MP, 6.6% HR), meanwhile, still have the appearance of being somewhat in there, but they're 3-7-1 in their last 11 games with those wins coming against a bad Sharks team, a bad Blue Jackets team, and an unraveling Red Wings team. They also pretty much punted on this season when they traded star winger Jake Guentzel to Carolina at the deadline.
The Flyers don't have any more games left against the Penguins this season, but they will see the Sabres on April 5 in Buffalo, and that could be a matchup where the Sabres are either trying to play spoiler or trying to make an improbable push into the wild card if somehow other teams just crumble around them.
Again, the Flyers are in it and in their own driver's seat, but they're by no means safe over these next few weeks. They need every point they can get.
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