On home ice for last night’s Game 4, the Flyers learned in real time how difficult it is to sweep a playoff series in the National Hockey League.
With a chance to take care of business and close out the series tidily in four games, the Flyers instead delivered their flattest showing of the postseason — lacking intensity at times, looking bogged down by the Penguins’ forecheck, and struggling to get much of anything going in the way of dangerous scoring chances. It was a game in which they spent a good deal of time looking for some pop, someone to step up and give the team some energy and production, but that proved to be a bit hard to come by.
And one of their bigger standouts from that game though — for better or worse, at times — was rookie forward Denver Barkey.
For Barkey it was, shall we say, a high-event game. He came in with some of the better jump on the Flyers’ side, and was able to create a few good scoring chances across the whole of the game, one of which he was able to convert on to get the Flyers on the board.
BARK BARK BARK. 🐶🐕#PITvsPHI | #IgniteTheOrange pic.twitter.com/XzxBWjceCk
— x – Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) April 26, 2026
It might not have been a hugely flashy play, but it saw Barkey getting to the right place at the right time, and that was an effort that was somewhat few and far between elsewhere in the lineup, particularly at that point in the game.
“I mean I kind of got out there,” Barkey said postgame, “and we’re already in the o-zone and I’m playing with two pretty talented players that I know can find me. So I was just trying to find some space around the net and I kind of just built a wall back door and [Zegras] put it right on my tape.”
This goal marked a major moment for the team on a collective level, as it got them back into the game, back within one goal, and really saw them beginning to wake up after it was scored, but for Barkey on an individual level, it felt like a bit of a relief that he was able to even the scales, so to speak, after it was his high-sticking penalty in front of the net which sent the Penguins to their first power play of the night, on which they would score to pull ahead early.
It was a tough penalty to see taken in the first place, as there was good work taking place around it, with the Flyers getting a bit of a cycle going in the offensive zone, looking like they might be finding some life, and Barkey having gotten himself again to the right area of the ice, right at the netfront looking for a chance. It would have been major to see them get something out of that shift, but the penalty killing the momentum was a bit of a deflating moment, even if the effort was otherwise in the right place.
“Just trying to, yeah, get in front of him,” he explained, “get good positioning and yeah, you got to be careful with your sticks right now. I mean the refs are, they’re calling a lot so yeah, you got to be careful in front of the net.”
But even with Barkey’s low moment with the penalty, there was a lot to like about the all-around game that he was delivering, and that was a big reason why he earned himself more ice as the game went on, and the coaching staff went back to an old working line to hopefully give the team a bit more juice.
“Yeah, I had him with them about a month [ago],” head coach Rick Tocchet said, “I think he was playing with [Tippett] and [Zegras] before, I think about three weeks ago. It’s when [Barkey] was playing really well. So, I just felt I had to make a switch. There was a couple lines, [where] nothing was happening. So, it did give a little bit of spark.”
It wasn’t a perfect game for Barkey, but there was a lot that he was able to take from that matchup — it was a good reminder of the hard-nosed work to get to the dirty areas will pay off, but also that focus must be maintained in these high-leverage moments, and how much higher the compete level must remain for the whole of the group to be able to put away a series like this.
And in all of this there’s a reminder, too, of where the Flyers are at in their process. That is, a deep run into the postseason would be fun and enlightening for everyone, but this season is still, at its core, a learning experience for the young and developing players on this team. A player like Barkey putting away that first playoff goal in his rookie season makes for a big moment, but the lessons in the good and the bad alike that unfold here will inform his process, and the processes of the rest of these young guns, as the team continues to chip away at it and move into their prime. We’ll see how well they’re able to put some of these lessons in place in the short-term as they move into tomorrow’s potential elimination game, but there’s a ton of value in everything that they’ll take from this series into the longer run, the next stage of the rebuild.
