The Flyers had eyes going into the Christmas break.
They piled on against the Vancouver Canucks at home in a 5-2 win, in front of a sellout Xfinity Mobile Arena crowd, then took the quick trip out to Chicago and stayed ahead of the Blackhawks in a 3-1 final.
They answered big time from a downswing of five losses in their previous six games, though while still collecting a point in four of those from being overtime defeats, and then, almost suddenly, they were occupying second place in the Metropolitan Division with a few days off to relax and regroup – sitting directly in the playoff picture.
They’ll be back on the ice later Sunday when they face the Kraken out in Seattle. They’ve since dropped to third in the Metro with the rest of the league starting to pick back up from the Holidays, too, but still, the Flyers are in there, and it’s only getting later into the season.
They might have something. It might be time for a lot of people to start taking the Philadelphia Flyers seriously.
Does that mean they’re perfect? That they’re Stanley Cup contenders who are ready to go all in? That the rebuild is over?
No, not even close. This is still a process. This is still a rebuild. And while they’re a bit better equipped to keep up with the Colorados, the Vegases, and the Carolinas of the world, the past few weeks have shown that they’re still not to that level yet.
But what this season so far has shown is that they are getting better. They are taking steps forward, and should their current momentum keep carrying them along as it has for the most part, that next step for the Flyers might just be into the playoffs.
It might be time to start taking them seriously.
“I mean, listen, it’s you come to the rink every day and it’s not we’re not going around like ‘We deserve to be respected,'” head coach Rick Tocchet said after last Monday’s win over Vancouver. “We had to earn what we earn, right?
“We’re not a perfect team, but there’s a lot of fight, and there’s some times where we don’t look good because we’re backing in and we know it. Then all of a sudden, we score a couple of goals and get back in the game, like you gotta give these guys credit. They don’t give up, these guys.”
And even though it can get frustrating, like when a horrible turnover gets handed to Vegas in overtime or when they let go of a two-goal lead against Carolina, more often than not, they’ve been finding more ways to come out on top rather than just falling apart.
They are getting better.
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
Travis Konecny took a plus-11 rating into the Christmas break.
Heading into Sunday night, the Flyers were 19-10-7 for the 45 points that were placing them third in the Metro, and with a game in hand on the Hurricanes in first place with 49 points, and two on the upstart Islanders in second with 46 points.
They’re still the NHL’s comeback kids, leading the league with 13 wins after trailing, and they’re still playing a style of game that doesn’t give up a lot of shots, allowing 25 to Vancouver and then just 21 to Chicago last week to sit at an average of 25.7 shots allowed per game, which is the fifth-lowest in the league.
The flip side of that is that they’re not generating a lot of shots themselves, at a 25.5 shot rate that is the sixth-lowest in the league, and have often struggled to work their way to the inside to get those shots off from inbetween the hashmarks.
Their power play still leaves a lot to be desired, too, sitting at a 24th-ranked 16.8 percent success rate, while ever-improving winger Tyson Foester going down for the rest of the season with an injury that required surgery also dealt a massive blow to their overall offensive output and two-way checking.
Yet the Flyers haven’t wavered from that either.
Trevor Zegras continues to bring the creative, playmaking skill on the ice that the Flyers have long been missing with a team-leading 15 goals and 37 assists; Rasmus Ristolainen finally returned to the blue line to bring size and physicality to a defensive group that’s been somewhat quietly efficient at moving the puck and suppressing opposing chances between Travis Sanheim, Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, and an Emil Andrae who at this point isn’t going back to the AHL; and up front, Owen Tippett and Matvei Michkov got some badly-needed goals and chances elsewhere tagainst Vancouver that could suggest they might be finding a groove, while Travis Konency had a goal and an assist a night later against Chicago to continue a solid stretch of play that might’ve fallen under the radar, too.
Plus, Denver Barkey, a long-awaited forward prospect from the 2023 draft, just came up, and in the albeit small sample size, so far he’s been skating with energy and looks like he belongs in the NHL.
Again, it isn’t all perfect, but there’s enough there for the Flyers that has been working to keep them up in the playoff picture. They’re continuing to get some solid goaltending, too, between Dan Vladar and then Sam Ersson, who put in a steady night for the win out in Chicago on Tuesday.
And again, it’s only getting later into the season.
The team isn’t waiting on anyone to roll out the red carpet for them, but the signs are there.
The arena was sold out for them against Vancouver, and they tore right through the Canucks. Then they flew straight to Chicago, and didn’t miss a beat cleaning up the latter half of a home and road back-to-back.
They’re better, they’re in the mix right now, and though they’ve stumbled, they haven’t fallen completely yet.
It might just be time to start taking the Philadelphia Flyers seriously.
“I don’t think we care about what they think,” center Christian Dvorak said of any outside respect after the Vancouver win. “We just care about how we believe in ourselves and how we’re playing. There’s a lot of belief in our room here, and we’re confident in ourselves, and that’s really all that matters.”
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