Just ahead of training camp back way back in September, Danny Brière, Keith Jones, and Dan Hilferty, the trio at the top of the Flyers' front office, all spoke publicly in measured expectations. 

Young prospects were slowly but surely coming along and cracking the lineup, and Brière took some strategic risks in the offseason – like trading for Trevor Zegras, then signing Christian Dvorak and Dan Vladar – to afford a developing team some support.

Brière, along with Jones and Hilferty, recognized that the Flyers were getting better and wanted to see if maybe they were going to be ready to push into the playoffs.

But they never outright stated that the playoffs were going to be this season's be-all end-all, even though you could tell all three wanted that. 

What they did say is that they at least wanted to see a clear and tangible step forward when it came to on-ice results for the NHL roster, along with Brière emphasizing that, this time around, he wasn't going to be interested in being a trade deadline seller.

The general manager wanted to watch the Flyers see how far they could go as they were.

Seven months later, all the players were celebrating around Vladar in the crease, with Xfinity Mobile Arena at the loudest it's been for a hockey team in years.

The Flyers beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-2, in the shootout on Monday night to clinch their first Stanley Cup Playoff berth since 2020.

It was never a straight line forward (see January), but Brière's moves to get Zegras, Dvorak, and Vladar each paid off, wing prospects Denver Barkey and Alex Bump made their way up to the NHL roster midway through, and by the end, they gained top prospect Porter Martone out of Michigan State and got Tyson Foerster back from what was originally thought to be a season-ending injury to complete a post-Olympic break surge that will now bring a postseason hockey game to South Philadelphia for the first time since 2018.

Afterward, in a jubilant Flyers locker room, there was nothing really to hide for Vladar, who rose to the occasion all season, and especially on Monday night, as the No. 1 netminder that the team sorely needed.

They wanted the playoffs, Vladar told a sea of reporters. Internally, that was, indeed, the goal Brière had set for them.

"He told us at the beginning of the year, I hope he's not gonna get mad at me, but he said the goal is to make the playoffs," Vladar recalled. "There was always a belief in this room. Obviously, we knew that, even if it was the media or outsiders who didn't really believe in us, we always had the belief here since Day 1."

And after Game 81, with a whole lot of struggle in between, the Flyers finally got what they were after – they're even getting the rival Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, too.

It's hard to think anyone could be mad after that.

A few more thoughts on the Flyers a day after they punched their playoff ticket...

An unreal run

The Olympic break might've been the best thing to ever happen to this season's Flyers. 

Before it, they looked like they were spinning their wheels. They sleepwalked through their last game before the break against the Ottawa Senators, in an overtime loss that really never should've gone to that extra frame for them.

They were eight points out from both the second Wild Card and the 3-seed in the Metro, were 3-4-3 in their last 10 games, and were sitting at a minus-13 goal differential, all with lifeless play, an abysmal power play, and struggles from Matvei Michkov that boiled over into an odd PR firestorm between him, head coach Rick Tocchet, and the fans that became enough of a reason for Brière to step out and publicly put the fire out himself.

Before the breaks, the Flyers, and Brière's rebuild vision, looked aimless.

Then came the Flyers after the break.

Tocchet simplified the system to make for less decision-making defensively, overall play picked up, and quietly, so did Michkov's, while the wins started piling up.

March 11th and 12th, in a home-road back-to-back against the Washington Capitals and then the Minnesota Wild might've been the real turning point.

It was easy to see how the Flyers could beat the Caps at home, but a flight out to Minnesota right after to face a budding juggernaut of a Wild team that was now boasting Quinn Hughes as its top defenseman? Most would've looked at that game and just assumed it'd be a loss.

But the Flyers won both, and with that, worked themselves down to within five points of the Wild Card picture and to a 7.1-percent chance of still making the playoffs, per MoneyPuck's predictions model at the time.

It was chance enough, it turns out. 

The Flyers just kept climbing back up the standings down the stretch of the season, while getting the benefit of having the Islanders, Red Wings, and Blue Jackets all implode in the race around them.

They had their painful losses and setbacks, sure, particularly in those last two big games against Detroit, but for the most part over the past couple weeks, they were playing like the only team in that last stretch of the race that actually wanted to make it.

Entering Tuesday night's regular season finale against Montreal, the Flyers are 7-3-0 in their last 10, have won five of their last six, and since coming back from the Olympic break, have gone on an incredible 17-7-1 run.

At one point, just over a month ago on March 10, the Flyers were nine points out of the race after 63 games played, and yet they rallied all the way back to make the playoffs anyway.

No other team has done that in NHL history, per Flyers PR, which might be the ultimate testament to how well this team really did play closing out.

Michkov (quietly) makes the moment

Major props to Michkov, who also finished strong down the stretch to help get the Flyers in, despite how much of a struggle his second season has been.

Somewhat quietly, the 21-year-old winger was moving the puck around effectively through the Flyers' climb back, piling up a goal and 11 assists for 12 points in the 12 games between the 3-2 OT win at Anaheim on March 18 and the 5-1 win at New Jersey on April 7.

Then, after the team-wide dud in Detroit last Thursday, Michkov came right back with a goal and an assist in the 7-1 drubbing of the Jets on Saturday in Winnipeg, and followed up with that huge first goal in the second period on Monday night to start digging the Flyers out of that initial 2-0 hole against Carolina.

Through the past 15 games as of Tuesday morning, Michkov had a total of three goals and 12 assists for 15 points and a plus-9 rating.

It's just been a clutch, if not a bit understated, run of play from the Flyers' still rising star, and now he's going to be taking that into the playoffs for the first time.

• MORE FLYERS
• The rebuilding Flyers always heard the playoff stories. Now they can write their own.
  
• The Flyers made it: Philly clinches playoff spot with shootout win over Hurricanes
  
• The Flyers are different now. They grew up.
  

First time, long time

The playoffs are going to be new ground for a good chunk of the Flyers' developing roster.

For Michkov, Martone, Foerster, Noah Cates, Denver Barkey, and Alex Bump as the immediate list of younger in-house pieces, this is going to be their first time through.

It'll be the first trip for Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras, too, who never made it, even going back to their time in Anaheim.

And then there's veteran defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, who after 13 years and at 31 years old, will finally get to make his playoff debut after a lot of dark years in Buffalo and then a few more lean ones here in Philly. 

If his performance in the Olympic for Team Finland can serve as any indication, he's going to run with the opportunity, as former Flyers teammate Erik Johnson attested on Twitter once the Flyers clinched:

Hangover game

David Jiříček, the project defenseman who the Flyers got back in the deadline deal with Minnesota for Bobby Brink last month, got recalled from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Sunday, took the morning skate with the team on Monday, and depending on the outcome of Monday night, was in play to get that last game in on Tuesday.

The Flyers won to punch their playoff ticket, then earlier Tuesday, they called up five more guys from the AHL – defensemen Oliver Bonk and Hunter McDonald, forwards Anthony Richard and Jacob Gaucher, and goalie Aleksei Kolosov.

If you've seen teams clinch with a game or two to go, you know exactly what this looks like.

But hey, everyone will be watching later Tuesday night with their heart rates intact, while getting to see Bonk and McDonald make their NHL debuts on the Flyers' blue line.

It's a pretty stress-free way for the Flyers to close out after 81 games prior that already probably had way more than enough.

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