The Flyers lost 6-5 in overtime to the New York Rangers on Tuesday night. It was an incredible banger of a game that featured seven third period goals, with the Flyers coughing up a 2-0 lead but erasing three one-goal deficits to pull level and steal a point at Madison Square Garden. They’re on 82 points and remain third in the Metro by virtue of the OT point alone, though the Caps are hot on their trail, just one point behind with two games in hand.

If you’re one of those people who cares about the Flyers making the playoffs this year (there are many who don’t), you realize that every point counts, and you can’t help but wonder what John Tortorella is doing with these overtime lineups. For the second straight game, he left his best players on the bench, and the period was over before they could see the ice. No Owen Tippett, no Morgan Frost, no Travis Konecny, who looked to be banged up a bit but played through the third period anyway.

Instead, he ran an injured Ryan Poehling out there (he was hunched over, holding his arm during the game-winner), alongside Noah Cates and Travis Sanheim. New York scored in 35 seconds, then Brad Shaw did postgame media:

This is two games in a row that Torts has decided not to speak after an overtime loss. But good on Charlie O’Connor for asking Shaw the question that Torts has yet to answer, which got this response:

“(Ryan Poehling) has been one of our best two-way players for the best 2-3 months, and so he’s got a chance to win the faceoff and plus he’s responsible at both ends of the rink. He’s played well offensively and defensively. He’s earned the right to get out there. Obviously it didn’t end the way we wanted. I think he’s the right guy to put out there. They’ve got two of their best offensive guys and one of the best offensive defensemen out there in (Adam) Fox as well, and so we have guys that feel are going to play both ends of the rink really well, and it didn’t work out.”

Look, all due respect to Poehling, who is having a career year, but aren’t we going a little overboard here? You want to have this “feeling out” period in overtime and combat the opponent’s best attacking players with your best two-way guys? Okay, fine. The line of thinking makes sense. You survive the opening salvo and then the big guns come off the bench. But in the last two OT periods, the Flyers haven’t even gotten that far. They haven’t gotten past the second shift. Your three most skilled offensive players have logged a grand total of zero seconds in the last two OT periods, so throwing bottom-six guys out there against the Rangers’ and Hurricanes’ top players is not viable. It’s not feasible.

This singular issue kind of encapsulates what the Flyers have been all year. Torts has bottom-six guys playing like second liners. For the lack of top-end talent on this squad, he’s getting a lot out of the two-way grinders, and they’ve carved out this scrappy and blue collar team identity in a transitional and/or rebuilding type of year. But you’d think Ryan Poehling was Bobby fucking Clarke out there, the way he’s been elevated recently. Would it kill Torts to just put his best players on the ice and say, “you know what? we’re gonna fight fire with fire, we’re gonna fucking go for it“? No, it would not.

And look, we have to frame all of this properly. The Flyers have overachieved tremendously this season, and if they didn’t win another game, this year would be a raging success. They are ahead of schedule. But it might be nice to get this team some legitimate playoff experience, and it’s right there in front of them. These are wasted opportunities for OT points.