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Flyers Back on Track After Second Putrid Shutout Loss in a Row
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The Flyers are back on track after a putrid 2-0 loss in Tampa on Monday night. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped all 21 shots thrown at him, Nikita Kucherov scored on a 4v4 breakaway, and the Flyers went 0 for 5 on the power play. The Lightning turned the puck over 18 times without punishment and after the 5-0 home loss this past weekend, the Flyers have now played seven periods without scoring a goal.
It was a beautifully grotesque work of art for a team that has now lost seven of eight.
And with the idiotic Pittsburgh Penguins on a four-game winning streak, the Flyers have jumped the Yinzers for 6th place on the Tankathon board:
Catching the Sharks and Blackhawks isn’t going to happen, but breaking into the top five is a real possibility. When you look at the Flyers’ 13 remaining games, eight are on the road and six are against teams currently in playoff position. They do play the Sabres twice, and get the Predators at home, so those results are going to be significant in the jockeying for draft position since the three teams are currently separated by just six points. Pittsburgh’s schedule is similar to the Flyers’ in difficulty while the Kraken still have to play Edmonton twice, Dallas twice, then go on a five-game road swing that includes Vegas and Vancouver. They end with home games against the Blues and Kings, so unfortunately they will probably lose a lot of games as well.
No matter. Falling inside the top eight is the key. As we’ve mentioned before, this is a very good center draft, and finishing 6th or 7th-worst will put them in position to draft one of James Hagens, Michael Misa, Roger McQueen, Caleb Desnoyers, or Jake O’Brien. The Flyers need quality young centers like a fish needs water. Throw in the Colorado and Edmonton picks and assorted draft capital, and this team is in good shape assuming Danny Briere gets the picks right, and the organ-eye-zation develops them properly.
One adjustment to our Flyers attitude, however. We’ve talked about the team being in a rebuild, but had the verbiage wrong. It’s now evident that the last year and a half was a tear down, and now the rebuild has begun. Erroneously, we were describing 2024-2025 as year 2 of a two-year rebuild, but this now looks like a 3-4 year full tear down AND THEN rebuild, which is fine. We’ve waited 50 years for a Cup and we can wait longer if the process is comprehensive and not the same old half-assed retooling which has kept the Flyers in purgatory for more than a decade.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com