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The Flyers Mapped Out Their Post-Olympics Schedule in Five-Game Chunks
By Matt Schultz
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Considering how dead in the water the Flyers looked only two months ago, I’d venture to guess that hockey fans all over the Delaware Valley (and the world? Billions of people? It’s possible) are wondering: How the hell did this team pull off a playoff berth? Well, according to Flyers CEO and Governor Dan Hilferty, a major component of the team’s late-season success was how they approached the schedule. According to the boss man himself, the team always believed in its potential, and a slight shift in perspective may have been the key to kicking off this winning run: breaking the season into small, 5-game chunks after everyone returned from the Olympic break:
“I’m the eternal optimist, so I would count games and look at post-break for the Olympics, but it was really looking in the eyes of some of the players. And there were comments they made on paper, to the media, that I really thought like, they had a chance to do something. I don’t know that that means make the playoffs, but I just had a feeling about the players. And then we kind of mapped out, we put it in 5 game segments, and my theory was that we had to go 3-1-1 every 5 games. And we would joke about it, we didn’t even think that’d be enough, but we’d joke about it and say, ‘Hey, we’re on pace,’ after every five. And just, as the momentum built, we began to think, ‘We just might just get there.‘”
It sounds simple enough, but I don’t think you can overlook the effect that this kind of approach could have on a team. During an 82-game season, you gotta imagine that it’s easy for the zoomed-out “narrative” of your team to seep into the collective vibe of the locker room – especially when your record is bad, like the Flyers’ was (before the Olympic break, they were 25–20–11, and at one point had lost 12 of 15). The worse your record, the more impossible it’s going to seem to right the ship and make a playoff run. It becomes a race against the clock. You’re going to get bogged down by the idea of an uphill battle.
But when the organization’s leadership remains vocally optimistic about what the team can accomplish regardless of record, and sends a top-down directive to only look at the five games in front of you, that’s gotta be a nice feeling. It’ll allow everyone to play a little freer, a little looser, by viewing each five game set as its own little tournament, without the weight of the whole season on your shoulders every time you take the ice. And clearly this had a positive impact on the Flyers.
The Orange and Black posted a 16–7–1 record after the Olympic break, which is 7th best in the NHL in that time. The only teams that fared better were the Dallas Stars (19–4–1), Minnesota Wild (18–5–1), Tampa Bay Lightning (17–5–2), Buffalo Sabres (17–6–1), Columbus Blue Jackets (16–5–3), and Edmonton Oilers (17–6–0).
Five of those teams (Stars, Lightning, Oilers, Sabres, maybe the Wild depending on who you ask) are some of the best in hockey! Columbus flamed out, but still! This is a good group to be in.
Here’s to hoping the Flyers can maintain their version of a one-game-at-a-time mentality, and that it makes a real difference in the postseason (Let’s gooooo).
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…)