On March 23, 2024, the Philadelphia Flyers had a 36-26-9 record, giving them 81 points in 71 contests and an all-but-certain postseason berth right in the palm of their hand. Less than three weeks later, they sit at 36-32-11 for 83 points in 79 contests with miracle-at-best odds to qualify for the playoffs.
What actually happened to the Flyers? How did it get so bad so quickly? Perhaps it wasn’t as unprecedented as it seems.
The Flyers Play a Taxing Style Without High-End Talent
John Tortorella is, objectively, a great coach in the NHL and has a historical resume. For as good as he is, he can only do so much. That has been highlighted quite frequently in his last few seasons in the NHL.
The Flyers being on an eight-game losing streak at the end of the season isn’t something unique to them under Tortorella. In fact, they lost seven of their last nine contests in 2022-23 during his first campaign with the Orange and Black. But it doesn’t stop there — it goes back to his days with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
In both 2019-20 and 2020-21, he lost 12 of his last 15 contests with the team. When something like this happens in a coach’s last four seasons in the NHL, it shifts from a possible coincidence to a genuine concern. What are some reasons why it is happening?
Well, for one, Tortorella’s teams play an incredibly taxing style. This season, Philadelphia has had to finish checks and get low to block shots to the tune of the second-highest rate in the NHL. He demands a lot out of his players. And, to his credit, it works for most of the season. He has a knack for having underwhelming on-paper rosters achieve solid records.
Once the 60 to 70 game mark hits, that’s where the wall begins. It’s just not feasible to play with this sort of energy over the course of five or six months. Thus, the downward trend starts. These trends can almost only be broken by superstars or those teetering on that title.
There’s a reason why the skids of Tortorella teams only started after the 2018-19 season; he had top-end players like Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky on the roster before 2019-20. When they left for free agency in 2019, everything suddenly changed.
Players with top-end talent don’t slow down once the games start to pile up. If anything, they flourish once the bodies of their opponents break down.
On April 9, for example, Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche had one of the most jaw-dropping goals and overall games of his entire career. It’s not a coincidence that he has a ludicrous 100 points in 77 playoff contests in his career despite playing against superior foes — talent can mitigate the effects of a worn-down body. Making high-end plays just comes naturally to players like MacKinnon, no matter how “tired” they are.
Getting back to Panarin for just a second, his numbers are at their best when he is playing toward the end of the season. In his last 13 contests, he has 10 goals and 18 assists for 28 points and a plus-7 rating. Over a full 82-game season, he would be on pace for a Wayne Gretzky-esque 177 points.
The Flyers don’t have players like this. Game-changers just aren’t present on their roster. It’s why Owen Tippett and Ryan Poehling lead the team in goals during the losing streak with three apiece. Other than Tippett, the Flyers’ top-six forwards have been virtually unplayable.
The team’s most effective plays come off of rush chances. Now that they are getting outworked in the defensive zone, these rush opportunities have become more and more scarce. With nobody on the team having MacKinnon-like skating ability, it has left players like Travis Konecny and Joel Farabee, who benefit the most from goals off the rush, in the dust.
Related: Flyers’ Playoff Hopes Hinge on Travis Konecny
A player like MacKinnon can create a rush chance by himself without any issues. A player like Panarin can create open looks for his teammates better than anyone with his top-notch passing ability and overall offensive instincts. Without this type of talent, there’s really not much the Flyers can do.
Philadelphia is an energetic yet low-event team due to their lack of star players like the two just mentioned. When that energy is gone, so is the offense. Tortorella is not all to blame for his skid. Rather, the limitations of his rosters have come into play at the worst times.
Flyers’ Goaltenders Never Had a Chance
Since Jan. 21, goaltender Sam Ersson has started a pretty crazy amount of games. In the 33 contests since, he has 27 starts under his belt. To put that into context, Brian Elliott led the Flyers in starts with 26 back in the shortened 2020-21 season. That campaign was 56 games long.
Before the date just mentioned, the Flyers sat at 25-15-6, on pace for a 100-point campaign. After that, they hold a record of 11-17-5 for an 82-game point pace of 67. The way the goaltending situation was handled has certainly played into this vast imbalance.
The numbers from Ersson and every other netminder who has played in the Flyers’ last 33 games have been absolutely dreadful. He has a .866 save percentage (SV%) and a 3.55 goals-against average (GAA) in that two-and-a-half month period. Collectively, the backups have been even worse. Cal Petersen, Felix Sandstrom, and Ivan Fedotov have combined for a .822 SV% and a 4.21 GAA.
With these stats, it’s almost a miracle that the Flyers were even in the race for so long. With the increased workload for Ersson, things have gone downhill for everyone. He is playing too much which has sunk his numbers beyond repair, while the others have played so little that they never really got a groove going and struggled by default. This situation is a combination of both their own issues and malpractice on the Flyers’ end.
Inconsistency Has Plagued the Flyers All Season
While it is happening at the worst possible time, the Flyers have been inconsistent for the entire season. One week, they could be dominant offensively and play great all-around hockey. The next, the offense might be completely anemic and the defense could be struggling like it is now. This applies to a bunch of teams in the NHL, but playoff clubs tend to be more consistent. The Flyers have had to live with this.
Like a seesaw, the Flyers’ season has gone up and down. They started off hot with a 3-1-0 record, fell to 5-7-1, rose back up to 18-10-3, and then the team traded five-game losing streaks with a five- and four-game winning streak. Philadelphia has been all over the place, but it has finally come to a screeching halt. They are going through their biggest downswing all season long, and it hasn’t gone back up. At this point, it’s almost impossible for it to.
For a group of players that have battled long and hard all season long, it is pretty heartbreaking to see them fall short. However, the team’s collapse suggested that they likely never were quite ready for playoff hockey. The good news is that a great early first-round draft class awaits the Flyers, and there’s still always that very slight chance that their pick moves up. Even though the ending was sour, this season has been a success for Philadelphia. A lot of lessons have been learned.