Flyers Floundering in Familiar Second Half Skid

Both of those seasons featured an obvious turning point, though: the team made moves that worsened its position to acquire future assets. The Flyers were too early in their rebuild to justify focusing solely on a playoff push two seasons ago, selling high on Sean Walker to add another first-round pick to their cupboard. In 2023-24, the Flyers were 6-10-3 after the trade deadline, sixth-worst in the NHL.

Last season, the Flyers sold a little earlier, moving Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost on Jan. 31. Still, their big nose-dive came right after the March 6 deadline (and shortly after trading Scott Laughton, Erik Johnson, and Andrei Kuzmenko), as they went on a 1-9-1 tailspin that didn’t let up until John Tortorella’s firing.

This time, there’s no external reason to explain the Flyers’ swoon. Sure, the schedule got hard at the beginning of this stretch. The Toronto Maple Leafs were red hot when they beat the Flyers in overtime on Jan. 8, as were the dominant Tampa Bay Lightning in sweeping a two-game mini-series, and even the Buffalo Sabres as well. But the Flyers have played several games against teams even or below them in the standings and still struggled, often losing convincingly.

Blaming everything on Dan Vladař’s injury is the most charitable way to look at the Flyers’ predicament. And yes, their goaltending was brutal during his five-game absence, especially in the immediate aftermath. But it’s not the only reason. Special teams were atrocious early in the month. Their 2.93 goals per game in January are only tied for 20th. And perhaps most concerning are the increasingly frequent blown coverages in prime areas, the very thing Rick Tocchet‘s system is built around.

There’s Always Next Season

Those dips in the second half of the last two seasons were understandable because they fit in with the Flyers’ long-term plan. The 2023-24 team was never supposed to be near the playoffs. Last season’s club was expected to take a step back. This year’s team, management said at the start of the season, was supposed to take a step forward. They weren’t expecting a playoff team, but even that modest proclamation went against public expectations.

At the start of the month, it looked like the team would certainly be right. Now, it’s completely flipped. If the Flyers play at the pace they did in January for the final 28 games of the season, they will finish with 79 points, just three more than last season.

However, there were at least reasons to follow the team down the stretch the last two seasons. The 2023-24 team remained alive in the playoff race until the final game. Last season, the excitement of Matvei Michkov‘s promising rookie campaign still kept fans interested. Michkov is still here, of course, and trending in the right direction, but there’s definitely less shine on him right now, no matter who you attribute the blame to.

There are also fewer long-term benefits to this losing streak. Christian Dvorak’s extension couldn’t have been timed any more poorly, coming right before the team’s woes began. It also removes a potentially significant trade chip, as Dvorak would’ve been one of the best centers on the market. The team only has three pending unrestricted free agents — Carl Grundström, Nic Deslauriers, and Noah Juulsen — none of whom would bring back more than a late-round pick, if that.

One potential source of excitement is the potential NHL debut of Porter Martone, the sixth overall pick in last year’s draft. That could happen this year, but if Martone’s stellar Michigan State team advances all the way to the Frozen Four, it might be delayed until the fall. This year’s tournament finishes on April 11, with only two Flyers regular-season games remaining after that.

Re-Defining Success

There are two paths the Flyers could take to salvage their season, one way or another. The first is the one the team is hoping for, that they can right the ship and at least get back in the playoff picture. Crazier things have happened — maybe the Flyers are this season’s 2018-19 St. Louis Blues or (more realistically, but still positively) 2023-24 Nashville Predators.

The other would be to follow last season’s finish, when the Flyers sank to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, earning the fourth-best lottery odds in the NHL Draft. Luck wasn’t on their side, with the New York Islanders and Utah Mammoth jumping them via the lottery to push them to the sixth pick. But maybe another similar finish in the standings would yield better results.

What would be most disappointing is to only modestly improve on the current pace, finishing with a low-80s point total. That would be enough of an improvement for the front office to justify it as a step forward, without creating many tangible feelings that the team is any closer to contention in either the short or long term.

Belief is great, but it can only last with results. And right now, the Flyers seem to be running low on both.