After missing the postseason each of the past five years, the Philadelphia Flyers are making a bid to sneak into the playoffs in 2026.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019re making franchise history in the process.<\/p>\n
The Flyers, who have gone 8-1-1 in their last 10 games, travel to Washington to face the Capitals on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
The road is where Philadelphia (37-24-12, 86 points) has gotten back into postseason contention. The Flyers recently equaled the single-season franchise record for consecutive road wins with eight and can break it with a victory in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
The Flyers, who have won two of three meetings, can also clinch the season series with Washington (37-28-9, 83 points) in the process.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia has two chances at a postseason berth right now. The Flyers are tied with the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators, just two behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the Eastern Conference\u2019s second wild card.<\/p>\n
However, they\u2019re also just two points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for third place in the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe belief and confidence (are) pretty high right now,\u201d Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen said after the team defeated Dallas 2-1 in overtime at home Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really fun playing extremely meaningful games at this time of year. Obviously, every night is a big one. So very, very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trevor Zegras scored the game-winner against the Stars, his 23rd, as the Flyers won their third straight overall. Travis Konecny added his 26th goal, and Samuel Ersson made 17 saves.<\/p>\n
Ersson has gone 5-0-0 with a 1.46 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage in six games since play resumed following the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the difference in the game,\u201d Flyers captain Sean Couturier said after the Dallas win. \u201cHe\u2019s a gamer. He\u2019s there when you need him. He can make those big saves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ersson made 22 saves and allowed just one goal in a win over the Capitals three weeks ago. Like the Flyers, Washington is trying to play itself into a playoff spot with just two weeks left in the regular season.<\/p>\n
The Caps, 3-0-2 in their last five home games, and 4-1-1 in their last six overall, sit three points behind Philadelphia with eight games remaining after a critical 5-4 shootout victory over Vegas on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s a huge win for us. We\u2019re staying in this fight. We\u2019re not going to roll over big two points now,\u201d Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. \u201cNow we\u2019ll go back home and get ready at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logan Thompson made 25 saves for the Capitals, who have won two straight. Dylan Strome scored a goal in regulation and had the lone score in the shootout for Washington, which blew a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a panic; we stayed calm through that,\u201d Carbery said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After missing the postseason each of the past five years, the Philadelphia Flyers are making a bid to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205],"class_list":{"0":"post-532300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532300","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=532300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}