Flyers

The Flyers Had Their Chances to Flip The Script Against the Hurricanes

By Nick Piccone

Published: May 8th, 2026 · 9:13 AM EDT

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Make no mistake, it’s tough at the moment to put things into perspective. If you told me a month ago that the Flyers would be on their way to getting swept by the No. 1 seed in the East in the second round of the playoffs, I’d say, “Hell yeah!” There are some things you just deal with after a long playoff drought that many of us just aren’t used to seeing. So, as we sit here with the Flyers down 3-0 to the Carolina Hurricanes, I’m going to try to soften the blow – if not for you, then for me.

This isn’t meant to be a eulogy for the entire season. In some respects, this season felt like three separate seasons. The Flyers started off well enough during the first third to make us believe they could be a playoff team. Then, they just went on a tailspin and sorely needed the Olympic break, as much as we did. Watching those games were torture for a few months. Then, after the break, they went on an unbelievable run that swept us up into playoff fever.

I’ll take that.

And I’ll take that because, even though they’re down 3-0 to a team that will probably be favorites to make the Stanley Cup Final, they haven’t gotten the breaks that great teams like the Hurricanes have. And it’s a tale as old as the first hockey playoff series (for all intents and purposes). They’ve been outplayed, no doubt, but they have pretty much capitalized on zero breaks they’ve gotten against the Hurricanes, like Travis Konecny’s overtime breakaway in Game 2. They hit iron a few different times in Game 3. Even the best hockey teams make mistakes, but when the other team can’t make them pay, it looks a lot worse than it could be.

Yeah, I don’t love hypotheticals, either. But imagine if the Flyers scored on any of their breakaways this postseason. They’ve had a few against the Hurricanes that could have changed the course of the game. They had what seemed like 500 against the Penguins and capitalized on none of them. The power play was terrible all year long and into the playoffs. Simply put, it’s a team that just isn’t ready for the big time. But they could have been with a couple of breaks. They could have went from 0-60 with some luck, but I think they might have used up all their luck at the end of the regular season while every other team they were trying to leapfrog choked and choked and choked. If any of those teams just won one more game, things could have turned out a lot differently. 

So, yeah, while expectations change as we move along, it’s still important to remember this team was not even supposed to sniff the playoffs. They beat the Penguins in six games, and it probably would have been a sweep if this team had prior playoff experience; and even though they still would be outplayed overall, could have been down 2-1, or even up 2-1 if their shots that hit the post Thursday night wound up in the net. Anyone that’s watched the Stanley Cup Playoffs before knows that even the best teams in the league sometimes don’t make it to the Final. Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than the best.

Unfortunately for the Flyers, their luck has just about run out.