The Philadelphia Flyers’ season came to an unfortunate end Tuesday night. The Flyers needed a regulation win against the Washington Capitals in their season finale to stay alive in the playoff race, but fell by a score of 2-1 at Wells Fargo Center.
Erik Johnson, of all people, netted the Flyers’ only goal of the game.
Capitals forward T.J. Oshie potted the game-winner with the Flyers net empty late in the third period. The decision to pull Ersson was a Hail Mary, but a necessary one to keep their playoff hopes alive.
As fate would have it, a win against the Capitals wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The Detroit Red Wings, who the Flyers needed to lose in regulation, forced overtime in their tilt against the Montreal Canadiens, eliminating the Orange and Black from playoff contention.
The Basics
First period: 18:08 — Ovechkin (McIlrath, Oshie)
Second period: 12:29 — Johnson (Zamula, Couturier)
Third period: 17:00 — Oshie (Dowd)
SOG: 28 (PHI), 18 (WAS)
Takeaways
Quick on the trigger
The Flyers appeared to take an early lead off a wild bounce in the first period, but the Capitals benefited from a quick whistle by the official.
Joel Farabee fired a wrister at Caps netminder Charlie Lindgren. The puck bounced high in the air and deflected into the net off of Farabee. The crowd erupted, but the goal was waived off immediately.
Had the puck bounced directly into the net, the call may have been overturned. However, because the whistle was blown between Farabee’s initial shot and the puck redirecting in off of his body, the no-goal was upheld.
A lucky break for the Capitals. Par for the course for the Flyers.
Finishing off strong
Sam Ersson has been going through it over the last month — and that’s putting it lightly. Ersson played admirably for much of the season, especially after Carter Hart was granted his leave of absence, but between March 9 and April 9, he hit a wall. In 12 appearances during that month-long window, he logged a dreadful 4.59 goals against average along with a ghastly .835 save percentage.
Head coach John Tortorella acknowledged Ersson’s massive (and unexpected) workload was the culprit for his sudden dip in production. He was exhausted, and it was obvious.
However, Ersson’s looked more like his pre-March self as of late. He stopped 24 of 25 shots against the New York Rangers to earn his 22nd win of the season last Thursday, then logged a 20-save shutout against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday.
He kept up the strong play against the Capitals, turning aside 16 of 17 Washington shots to keep the Flyers’ hopes alive. His biggest save of the night came in the first period when he stopped Caps forward Aliaksei Protas on a shorthanded breakaway.
Ersson hit rock bottom less than a week ago. But after his encouraging showing in the season finale, the 24-year-old appears to have at least regained some of the confidence he was sorely missing over the last month-plus.
Too little, too late
It’s a small miracle the Flyers even made it this far. Going into the season, the Flyers were considered one of the weakest teams in the NHL. Given their dearth of elite talent, no one would’ve been surprised if they finished the campaign among the league’s bottom dwellers. Instead, the Flyers wildly surpassed expectations and played like one of the better teams in the Metropolitan Division for much of the season.
Unfortunately, their worst skid of the campaign came at the worst possible time. The Flyers lost nine of their final 11 games of the season, including eight straight losses against some of the NHL’s worst clubs. In the grand scheme, that brutal losing streak ended up costing the Flyers a playoff spot.
The victories over the Rangers and Devils were nice, but the damage was already done at that point. There was no coming back from that crushing stretch.
But in typical Flyers fashion, they somehow managed to reel everyone back in. Even if everyone knew in the back of their mind that it would inevitably end on a sour note.
This season was a wild ride. It may not have ended the way many hoped, but for the most part, the ride was memorable. For better or for worse.
Let the offseason begin.
