A lot of people turned their attention to the Flyers this past weekend, and with good reason.

The team was playing great hockey, they had just played, perhaps their best game of the season, eviscerating a very good Dallas team, and it was highlighted by an Owen Tippett goal that has been viewed more than a bazillion times on social platforms.

Fans who hadn’t checked in on the team in, well, years, were suddenly intrigued. Fans who stuck with the team through the darkest of days, were suddenly a little giddy that the Flyers were back.

So, now that football season was officially over (although, is it ever, really over?), there is that two-month window where the Flyers and 76ers have a chance to steal some eyeballs of the casual fans as the countdown to baseball Opening Day commences (67 days, for those wondering).

There has been a lot of buzz around the Flyers, of course, with their unexpected success through the first half of the season and the eye-popping trade of one of their top prospects who decided he didn’t want to play for the organization, and they shipped out of town as soon as they could.

On a frigid weekend, when it was best to stay inside by the fireplace, sipping on hot toddies and flipping channels, it was worth a peek, for many, to once again check out a pair of home afternoon games for the Orange and the Black.

And when they tuned in, what did they see?

Two regulation losses.

Womp, womp.

The first, Saturday, came against another very good team – the Colorado Avalanche – and although the Flyers allowed a touchdown, losing 7-4, it was a good game. The Flyers didn’t play their best, but they were right there, fighting and scrapping with one of the fastest, most offensively-gifted teams in the sport, and it was a one goal game midway through the third period.

If that was the one you tuned into, you were entertained. You might not have liked the result, but there were a lot of the things on display that you had heard about the Flyers. Their resilience. Their grit and determination. Their fun and energetic spirit.

There was still plenty there to hook you in to stick with them.

Sunday, not so much.


The 5-3 loss to the last place Ottawa Senators and former captain Claude Giroux was a bit of a snoozer. The game was uneven from the start, and although the Flyers built two separate two-goal leads, first 2-0 on two power play goals by Egor Zamula (who was good on the power play and, if the video above is any evidence, not great at 5-on-5), and then 3-1 on a beauty by Joel Farabee, you never got the sense that they were controlling the game.

Then, it just seemed like they took their foot off the gas entirely, had very little going in the offensive end, and allowed the Senators to take the game to them over the final 29 minutes, a span in which Ottawa outscored the Flyers 4-0.

Turnovers didn’t help. Zamula’s turnover above led to the first Ottawa goal and this one by Nick Seeler became the Sens game-winner:


It was one of those games you really can’t afford to lose if you want to continue to wear the Cinderella slipper. As well as the Flyers have played against the best teams in the league, they have also had some head-head scratchers against league bottom-feeders.

Consider that the Flyers are 10-8-3 against teams currently in a playoff spot and 15-8-3 against teams not currently in a playoff spot and you think, that’s pretty good. And on one level, it is. But if you look at that 15-8-3, Most of the wins are coming against teams that are on the bubble, and most of the losses are coming against teams we know are going to be in the lottery. The Flyers are 4-5-1 against the teams with the six worst-records in the NHL at the moment. They’ve lost twice to Ottawa and once each to Buffalo, Columbus, Anaheim, and San Jose (they haven’t played Chicago yet).

It’s this kind of inconsistency that has coach John Tortorella reminding everyone constantly as to why they aren’t thinking about playoffs just yet. There’s a lot of hockey to play and nothing is a given in the NHL.

The Flyers had two very important swaths of games on their schedule. They are in the middle of one right now, where they play eight-of-11 against current playoff teams and then a 12th in a nationally televised outdoor game against the Devils. Two of the three non-playoff teams could be in a playoff spot by the time the Flyers play them. The only one that was considered a “breather” was Sunday. And they lost it, likely because they took too much of a breather against a team that decided to play hard against them in return.

Starting 1-2-0 isn’t the end of the world. It’s just who the second loss was against that is a bit irksome. Had they lost to Dallas and Colorado but beaten Ottawa, it would have tracked. But burying the Stars and skating with the Avalanche should have led to a win against the Sens, and didn’t, making Tuesday’s tilt with Tampa – the first of three meetings in an 18-game-span – a bit more meaningful – especially with the Lightning starting to find their footing again. They lost a close one in Detroit Sunday, 2-1, but had won five straight before that and seven-of-nine.

The other important stretch for the Flyers comes around the trade deadline. I’ve mentioned it before, but a series of 10 games that starts just before the deadline in Florida and ends 20 days later in New York and encompasses nine games against the best teams in the Eastern Conference (with one “breather” at home against San Jose), will determine their postseason fate.

The Flyers have built up some equity. It’s a lot harder to climb into a playoff spot in the NHL than it is to fall out of one, thanks to the occasional loser point, but it’s also fair to note that despite having the ninth-best record in the sport, the Flyers also have played more games than everyone else (tied with Colorado and Tampa Bay). This means teams behind them have games in hand and can, in fact, close in on the Flyers while they are idle.

It’s also fair to point out that the Flyers are just 14th in the NHL when it comes to goal differential. This isn’t a be-all, end-all statistic, but it is one that usually is an indicator of where a team will end up in the standings. The Flyers are plus-9 right now, which is solid, but teams chasing them in the standings are better.

And then there’s the trade deadline itself, which could alter everything. Will the Flyers move on from players on their current roster for future assets, as they stay focused on the rebuild? Depending on how much turnover there is can and will impact the outcomes this season. Not to say the Flyers are going to be buyers, per se, either, but they could add a really inexpensive piece to the roster at the deadline as well. Will that have any impact? Possibly. Maybe not. It’s all a wild card.

And that’s kind of how to view the Flyers right now – as a wild card. They’re in a playoff race and no one expected them to be here. They certainly can continue to play at this level, and be a darling of a postseason story, or they could end up being a speed horse that falls off the pace once the other thoroughbreds kick it into high gear.

I feel like they are still a 50/50 at this point to get there. They are definitely going to exceed their pre-season expectation. They probably will eclipse 90 points as well, which will be a great season for the team, regardless.


There’s a great vibe in that locker room, and the team is really well-coached, which is what makes part of me believe in January that the Flyers will prove all of us wrong and be a playoff team.

But there’s also experience in following hockey seasons and seeing how these things go and knowing that teams like this sometimes, come up just short in the end, for any number of reasons.

That’s why I’m torn between believing and not believing. I will go all-in on a stance at some point, one way or another – I’m just not ready to do it yet.

Either way, this team continues to fascinate, in all aspects. And that might be the best outcome of all possibilities this season, because it means they are getting everyone’s attention, and you can’t have a good rebuild without that.