The Philadelphia Flyers are in a good spot in terms of making the playoffs. They have favorable odds as is, and that’s great news for a team that hasn’t hosted a playoff game at Wells Fargo Center since 2018, as their last time in the dance was in the 2020 bubble in Toronto the whole way.
In order to make the playoffs, the Flyers need to help themselves out. In case the teams chasing their spot start heating up, they need to make sure they don’t start slipping. The way to do that is through consistency in every aspect of their game. If they can achieve that, they can grant Philadelphia its first true NHL playoff series in quite some time — and maybe more.
Offense Will Need to Put it All Together
For starters, the Flyers’ offense needs to be working all at once. Seldom can the Flyers combine great chance generating with good finishing — it, obviously, limits their scoring. They have had extended stints where they can out-chance their opponents and get really good looks, but the finishing rarely comes. Much more often than not, their actual goal output is less than their expected output.
While that can be attributed to the Flyers’ lack of talent, there’s really no reason why they should be doing everything but finishing as often as they do. They have put it together this season, but not much. At times, they’ve only finished well in seemingly “lost-cause” types of games, those where they play poor defense and let their opponents rack up multi-goal leads.
But if the Flyers’ offense can put it all together, it can actually be a force. They have thoroughly outplayed Stanley Cup contenders like the Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, and Vancouver Canucks at times this season. And that only happens when they figure out their offense. If that can happen with a little bit of regularity down the stretch, they should easily be a playoff team. It’s a tall ask, but it can be done.
Both Special Teams Units Need to Be Clicking
From a season-long perspective, the Flyers’ power play and penalty kill couldn’t be more different. Their penalty kill has been among the top three units from essentially the moment the season started. Without it, mastered by associate coach Brad Shaw, the Flyers likely wouldn’t be in the playoff chase like they are now. Or, at least, one of the teams with hopeful-at-best odds to make it.
Not only do the Flyers kill penalties at an amazing rate, but they score shorthanded goals better than any other team, too. It’s been a complete rejuvenation of that unit, one that has seemingly struggled for decades in Philadelphia.
Related: Flyers’ Penalty Kill Among the Best in NHL History
As for the power play, it has been a struggle all season long. After finishing as the NHL’s worst unit in both 2021-22 and 2022-23, the Flyers are looking to break a record by making it three in a row. Even with their lack of juice offensively, there’s no good excuse for them being as bad as they are. They are by no means the least skilled team in the NHL, yet their power play would suggest that.
With that being said, though, the power play has had good stretches. The problem? It has, coincidentally, come with the penalty kill struggling, too. The Flyers have pretty much never had both their special teams units playing well at the same time. It’s either one or the other, and that limits their upside.
While special teams only make up a fraction of an NHL game, they can decide one-goal contests. Mistakes are magnified when a team is up or down a man. By having one really good unit and one really bad unit, they’re essentially average. And that can’t happen. Considering their offensive deficiencies at even strength, they need something to help out. If the special teams click at the same time, the Flyers can compete with contenders much more easily.
Defense Can’t Be Slipping
The biggest reason why the Flyers are in such a good position this season is because of the massive improvement in their defense. It is prone to making mistakes, sure, but its one-year transformation from being one of the worst units last season to one of the best has been great to see.
With all that praise aside, the defense has to be on its game. They make starting goaltender Sam Ersson’s job much more difficult than it has to be at times, and that costs the team goals. He does a good job of bailing them out at times, but he is still human. The defense needs to be as mistake-free as possible for the Flyers to be in the mix for the playoffs until the season’s end.
Bad positioning, turnovers, and an inability to exit the zone have all worked against the Flyers at times. Since those have been areas of relative strength, when they turn into weaknesses it’s just not an easy thing to rebound from. When the Flyers’ offense isn’t clicking goal-wise, which is pretty often, the defense has to be atop its game. Even if the offense is scoring, the defense needs to be at its very best. If not, the Flyers won’t be, either.
Everything Has to Go Perfectly for the Flyers to Contend
If all (or at least some of) these factors can shine for the Flyers at once, they can be a legitimate contender. As mentioned before, they have completely exposed some of the best teams in the NHL when all goes right. If that can happen with consistency and they do end up making the playoffs, they could go on a run.
The odds of that happening are obviously pretty low, but it’s not like the Flyers are several steps behind the best teams in the league in terms of upside. At times, they have been a force — it just hasn’t come with any sort of consistency. In a seven-game series, that’s short enough of a sample size for the Flyers to find their game. Everything changes in the postseason, and that would be the chance for the Flyers to prove once and for all how good they really are.
But the Flyers need to be worried about making the playoffs first. If their game is at the right place, the wins will come naturally. At this stage of the season, every single point matters. They need to show nothing short of their best to qualify for the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs and end their second-longest postseason drought in franchise history.
