The Flyers Are Stubbornly Refusing To Die At This Point
The Philadelphia Flyers went in to Pittsburgh last night to play a Penguins team that has already clinched a playoff spot and most likely will play Columbus in the 1st round of the playoffs no matter what happens in these last two weeks of the season. Meanwhile, here’s where the Flyers stand in the wild card chase after last night’s win.
7 games left, 6 points out of that last wild card spot. They need 4 teams to completely tank during the most important stretch of the season and win pretty much every game just to have a chance of making the playoffs. It’s not going to happen. They dug themselves too deep of a hole. Especially after losing 1-0 in regulation to Columbus on Saturday. So winning a game in Pittsburgh 6-2 with goals scored by Jordan Weal, Valtteri Filppula, Dale Weise and Radko Gudas just seemed highly unnecessary. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of any time the Flyers beat the shit out of Pittsburgh and demoralize the entire city. That part of last night was pretty heckin’ sweet. And the Flyers have never in the history of the world lost a game to the Penguins since they took Mark Streit away from them. So that’s pretty neat. But yeah. Last night’s game just felt like Pittsburgh knew exactly what they were doing. It’s almost as if they want to let Flyers fans get their hopes up just one last time before everything comes crashing down at the end of the season. Almost like they gave us that one just so the last game of the season can be extra crushing. Which is pretty rude if you ask me.
Anywho… this weekend was another prime classic showing from the 2016-17 Philadelphia Flyers Men’s Professional Ice Hockey Team. Saturday they can’t score a single goal on 36 shots with 3 powerplay opportunities against Columbus and lose out on 2 points there. The next night they get 6 goals on 33 shots. It’s this inconsistency that has been the back breaker for them all season long. If you want to point to the biggest issue this team has and why they’re currently in the position they’ve found themselves in, it’s that. X’s and O’s wise, the Flyers are not a bad hockey team. What kills them is their ability to shoot themselves in the dick every opportunity they have to fuck something up. They can be great one night and then look like absolute dog shit the next. There’s not much you can do about that. It’s more of a confidence issue than anything. They’re not bad enough to be horrible and looking toward a lottery pick in the draft. They’re not good enough to sustain the momentum they got from a win streak a few months ago. The Flyers are the Flyers. Good not great. Is it better than going through a decade of total irrelevance like the Blackhawks did before they lucked out with Kane and Toews to win 3 Cups? I don’t know. But I’m getting pretty sick and tired of this inconsistency shit.
Goals from last night:
Nobody has been taking advantage more of their opportunity right now than Jordan Weal has. Kid is proving himself to be a great addition to this offense that has been lacking 5v5 scoring ability for a while. Now a lot of people will look at Weal and start to criticize Dave Hakstol for taking so long to call him up. And sure, it would have been nice to have him here in Philly a little earlier in the season but this year was a huge confidence season in the AHL for him. You have to remember that in 14 NHL games before getting called up again this year, Jordan Weal had 0 goals and 0 assists. It’s not like they were keeping a bonafide goal scorer in the AHL this whole time. But he was scoring more than a point per game in the minzies this year and that’s what he needed to elevate his game. He needed to stay in Lehigh Valley just a little longer for that confidence booster and look at him now. 5 goals in 17 games for a kid who was a throw away in that Lecavalier/Luke Schenn trade. His scoring ability will make the Flyers’ game plan for this offseason a little easier now.
Here he is again able to get a stick on the puck with heavy traffic in front of the net. Obviously got a few lucky bounces for that puck to end up on Filppula’s stick but you have to grind your dick off to get lucky. Filppula has also been much more effective that I originally thought he would be when the Flyers made that trade with Tampa Bay. Still think I’d rather have an extra $5 million in cap space to work with for next year but Weal and Filppula could be worth the price.
Beauty of a feed from Schenn here. And then that’s just a good ol’ fashion Ghost Bear Bomb. Nothing is more beautiful than when Shayne hits the net with a one-timer. It only happens about once in every 5 shots. Kid is the real life version of Fulton Reed. But when it’s on target, there’s nothing you can do about it. If I’m Shayne Gostisbehere this offseason, I go back down to Florida and just take 500 clappers a day in the driveway every single day. Get a bucket of 100 pucks and don’t stop shooting them until your hands are bleeding. And maybe make sure there aren’t any windows within 100-yards of the net.
Flyers have Ottawa at home tomorrow night. Then close out the season with the Islanders, Devils, Rangers, Devils again, Blue Jackets and Carolina. They always play like shit against the Devils so having them twice in the final week of the season is almost certainly a kiss of death. I’m assuming April 4th is when they are mathematically eliminated.
@BarstoolJordie