{"id":502304,"date":"2026-03-14T02:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/502304\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T02:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:42:14","slug":"flyers-blue-jackets-collide-with-wild-card-race-tightening-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/502304\/","title":{"rendered":"Flyers, Blue Jackets collide with wild-card race tightening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid some chaotic scheduling, the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> return home Saturday to host the Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> in a matchup of two teams looking to make a postseason push.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia faced the Washington Capitals at home on Wednesday and won 4-1 before taking a late-night flight to Minnesota. The team arrived in town well past midnight but still pushed through Thursday night to earn a 3-2 shootout victory against a skilled Wild team.<\/p>\n

“No negative (comments) from me tonight,” said Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet, whose team has won six of its last eight games (6-2-0). “The guys got in at 3 in the morning. The guys (were) resilient, so (that was a) hell of a job. That’s a tough team to get two points against.”<\/p>\n

Owen Tippett’s short-handed blast with 12:02 remaining in the third period drew the Flyers even at 2-2 before Travis Konecny went on to deposit the decisive shootout tally. Tippett has three short-handed goals this season and has scored in three of his last four games overall.<\/p>\n

“Huge goal for us,” Philadelphia forward Noah Cates said. “I think he’s got a couple shorties now, and obviously his skill, his speed is so dangerous. … He’s been big for us all year.”<\/p>\n

After the game, the Flyers flew back to Philadelphia, where they will face Columbus on Saturday before heading west for a three-game trip to California. Despite the travel chaos, the Flyers must perform at their best, as they are five points behind the Boston Bruins for the second and final wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

“I thought we hung in there. I thought our energy was great,” Tippett said after the win over Minnesota. “Any time you can push and get an extra point, an extra two, that’s huge right now.”<\/p>\n

Columbus sits four points in front of Philadelphia and one behind Boston. The Blue Jackets have recorded at least one point in eight straight games, although they are just 4-0-4 in that stretch.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the Blue Jackets split their two-game visit to the Sunshine State. They defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 before falling to the Florida Panthers 2-1 in overtime. Adam Fantilli scored the team’s only goal against Florida in a game where Columbus players acknowledged that Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was simply a one-man show, making 30 saves.<\/p>\n

“Very happy with the way we played,” said Columbus coach Rick Bowness, who is 14-2-4 since taking over for Dean Evason on Jan. 12. “We gave up 16 shots on net for 60 minutes. We dominated the game. Give (Bobrovsky) credit — he was the difference in the game, simple as that. … But overall, for 60 minutes, very happy with what we saw. Sometimes the goalie is better than your shooters. That’s the case tonight.”<\/p>\n

With 19 goals, Fantilli is one shy of joining Kirill Marchenko (24) and Zach Werenski (20) as 20-goal scorers for the Blue Jackets this season. Fantilli has four goals in seven games this month as Columbus makes its playoff push.<\/p>\n

“We dominated for the most part,” Fantilli said. “You’re happy to get a point, but … eventually, it’s not good enough. We need two to get into the playoffs. We just have to bear down on our chances.”<\/p>\n

This is the second of three matchups between the teams this season. The Blue Jackets defeated the visiting Flyers 5-3 on Jan. 28 despite a hat trick by Konecny.<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid some chaotic scheduling, the Philadelphia Flyers return home Saturday to host the Columbus Blue Jackets in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,4,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-502304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-philadelphia-flyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116225228404897897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}