The Flyers were at it again on Tuesday night.

It was another game against a team they lost to previously this season. And again, they exacted revenge. Of the Flyers’ 13 losses this season, seven have come against teams whom they then beat the next time they faced them. They can make it eight with a win over Nashville Thursday. Four other teams they haven’t faced a second time yet, and the remaining team is Carolina, who they’ve alternated loss-win-loss.

Tuesday’s game wasn’t pretty. It was a grind at times. The forecheck wasn’t as good as it usually is. The power play was terrible, as usual. And the penalty kill, which has been so very good this season, even let up a goal.

And yet, the Flyers still found a way to win, beating the New Jersey Devils on the road, 3-2 in overtime. They extended their point streak to nine games. They held their opponent to three goals or fewer for the 13th straight road game, a franchise record. They are 18-10-3 for 39 points, second place in the Metro and the ninth-best record in hockey.

It’s hard to believe, right? I mean nobody – NOBODY saw this coming. Sure, we knew the Flyers would compete game-to-game. They’re coached by John Tortorella. He wouldn’t accept anything less. And yes, they would surprise some teams here and there. We expected progression from last season, certainly, but a top 10 team in the League?

Not even the people who run the team believed they’d be here at this point in the season.

Yet here they are. They are a fun, exciting team to watch again for the first time since 2019-20, and since that turned out to be a flukey year, interrupted by a global pandemic, this might be the best anyone has felt about the Flyers since they beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round of the 2012 playoffs.

That’s great. And they should be celebrated. But here is the fine line everyone needs to walk:

Enjoy them. Have fun with them. Get excited by them. But whatever you do, do not raise your level of expectation for them. You’ll ruin the fun for yourself.

Seriously. Let the Flyers be. Let them do whatever they do and enjoy the ride. It can end abruptly, and that’s OK. It can go on well into the spring and steal a little bit of the spotlight from the start of the next baseball season, and that’s OK, too.

But whatever you do, please, please don’t go too far.


Yeah, that’s too far.

The Flyers aren’t trading for Johnny Gaudreau, nor should they. Stop. It’s a ridiculous contract for an underperforming player who would not further the rebuild for down the road.

Oh, there’s this kind of talk out there too:


This is what I mean. Stop with the crazy talk. None of this is going to happen, nor should it. The fact that Myrtetus is even addressing it, or we had to talk about it on Snow the Goalie, or I’m even writing about it now is outrageous. Bundy said what needed to be said right here. It’s a rant worth watching, even if it’s NSFW:

Here’s another little nugget, Chris Johnston of The Athletic, a national insider on par with Darren Dreger and Elliotte Freidman, put out his list of the Top 30 trade candidates in the NHL today. TODAY!!! And there are four Flyers on that list – Sean Walker, Nick Seeler, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Morgan Frost.

That means that through all of this excitement and positivity and inspired play by an underdog team everyone should love, the Flyers brass is not losing focus of the long-range plan.

The rebuild continues.

Johnston wouldn’t publish such a list willy-nilly. He’s plugged in. He knows who is being talked about. He knows what teams are gauging interest on players. Does that mean all 30 guys on his list will be traded? Of course not. Some will be added, others removed, it’s all fluid. But, the fact that there are 30 names and four of them belong to the Flyers is telling.

What’s also telling is that of the 30 names on that list, only nine of them are from teams currently sitting in a playoff spot, and of the other five not on the Flyers, only one – Vancouver’s Andrei Kuzmenko – is from a team with a better record than the Flyers.

On top of that, no other team has as many players listed as the Flyers.

ESPN also published a trade list. Although Greg Wyshynski is nowhere close to the insider that Johnston is, and his list is 63 names long, which suggests a lot more dart-throwing, all four of those Flyers players also appear on his list as well.

So, here’s the skinny –

The Flyers are a great story. They really are. And plays like this to win a game in overtime against a division rival are special and deserve your love:


Get excited. Cheer them on. Be proud of the orange and black once again. (Rumor has it that Thursday’s home game against Nashville is sold out. Seriously. That’s great for the Flyers.)

And you can root them on to a playoff berth all you want. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that level of fandom.

But be cognizant that as much as you are enjoying this team, there are several players who won’t be part of this team next season and beyond. Heck, they may not make it past March 8th, which is the trade deadline.

Whatever the outcome of this season is, it will be perfectly acceptable. The Flyers have already exceeded expectations, and have proven that their arrow is definitely pointing up, so barring something horrific, this is going to go down as a successful season for the franchise, and you should be celebrating that as well.

Just don’t take it too far. Don’t raise the bar yet. Some already have, and that’s a shame.