The rest of the Flyers season is all gravy, and that’s why it’s going to be so much fun

I was having a conversation over a beer last night with a life long Washington Capitals fan. He was talking about the season their team is having and about just how it’s been watching the best team in the NHL for 60-plus games this season.

There’s no doubt about it — that team has been absurdly good all year long, and they are the clear favorites to win the Stanley Cup not only right now, but perhaps even next season as well. Envy is a word I know and a feeling I have.

Yet, I found the main point he was trying to make interesting: that given their past playoff failures, it’s been hard to truly have fun with the season; that despite really smart Washington Post columns urging fans to enjoy it while it lasts, the playoffs are still the thing in the back of everybody’s mind. And that the thought of not winning the Cup when you have a team so good is just absolutely paralyzing. It’s kind of like we feel about those late 1980s Flyers that ran into the Oilers dynasty, or the late 1990s Flyers that ran into the Red Wings dynasty … or, well. You get it. What if the mid-2010s Capitals are a great team that runs into a Blackhawks dynasty, or whatever?

Would I rather have the Flyers be in the position the Capitals are in today, rather than where the Flyers are today? The answer’s obvious. But there is a lot of truth in what he was saying — and you can totally understand the fear that Caps fans have.

And so that helps fuel my feeling towards what’s left of these 2015-16 Flyers. Let’s enjoy these next 17 games — and maybe more in the playoffs — like it is the postseason. Even when compared to what our rivals are doing, this is really damn fun.

Think about it: the Penguins are, for all intents and purposes, all-in for the Cup right now. Yes, they’ve been pretty good the second half of the season, but this is a team with questionable NHL depth and nothing resembling a competent prospect pool. They barely made the playoffs last year and it’s still quite perilous this year. Oh, and hahaha, their cap situation is really funny: they have just 10 forwards and six defense under contract for next season, and they’re already at $71 million. The cap is at that number this year, and with the Canadian dollar in the tank, it might not go up much next year. Really putting Crosby and Malkin to good use there, guys!

The Rangers are probably even more all-in than the Penguins, and their window is closing. I don’t need to make the case for you. Go read this January story from Blueshirt Banter about it. Here’s a bit:

The Rangers are at a crossroads. The organization, with an older roster tying up much of the salary cap and a depleted prospect pool, is built to win now and deal with the consequences later. Which is fine in theory, but uncertain at best with the actual players on the roster. The next six months will be the most important the franchise has had in a long time.

In short, they better hope they can ride Henrik Lundqvist — who turned 34 this week — to a Cup in the next two-ish years, or they’re probably screwed.

The Islanders … I don’t really know what to make of the Islanders as a long-term threat. They seem to be on that Good Enough To Make The Playoffs, Not Good Enough To Win The Cup bubble right now. But who knows, really. They’re a young team with a lot of talent and certainly seem set up better than most teams in the division over the 5-10 year timeline.

Carolina is on the road to competitiveness, if a bit behind the Flyers. The Devils seem to have a good coach in place and are certainly a strong team defensively and in net. But hmmm, I’m actually not sure if they’re ever going to score a goal again. Columbus is a place, I guess.

Then there are the Flyers. Ron Hextall has done yeoman’s work in his two years as general manager, and you’re well-versed so I don’t need to run you through all his wins. The result has been one of the 10 best prospect pools in the NHL (with another big draft upcoming), one ranked as high as the second-best in the league by some. Their cap situation is nowhere near the mess it once was, and they’ll have around $10 million to spend this summer — depending on next year’s cap — if they choose.

And hey, even with that, they’re basically on par with teams like the Penguins and Red Wings as we enter the final month of the season.

They’ve been pretty darn good since the beginning of 2016, and over the last month to month-and-a-half they have played like a very good team. They just picked up 10 points out of a possible 12 in their six-game home stand, which ended in a game where they absolutely rolled over last year’s Eastern Conference champion. From Charlie’s observations on the win:

The Flyers took apart the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, carrying play and winning a well-deserved 6-0 blowout. But that’s the Blue Jackets — the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference and one of the most disappointing teams in the NHL this season.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are an entirely different animal. They have one of the best snipers in hockey in Steven Stamkos, one of the most dynamic lines in hockey with the Triplets, and maybe the best top pairing in hockey with Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman. They lead the Atlantic Division, have a conference-high 52.6% score-adjusted Corsi at 5-on-5, and are rightfully one of the betting favorites to win the Stanley Cup this season. The Flyers destroyed them anyway. Philadelphia’s numbers were staggering — 40 shots on goal, 90 total shot attempts, 45 scoring chances, a 65.2% 5-on-5 score-adjusted Corsi. Even if you take away all 32 shots that Tampa Bay blocked last night, the Flyers still would have directed more pucks at the net than the Lightning did.

And this isn’t just one great game, either. Since February 16th, Philadelphia has the best score-adjusted possession metrics in the entire NHL, and star Jakub Voracek has missed five of the ten games in that span. I’m starting to wonder if this Flyers team may have arrived about a year ahead of schedule.

That’s how this Flyers team is looking, and the way it’s progressed through the season and these last two months in particular, it feels like more than just a hot streak. It feels like a team finding their footing.

Imagine what it could be like when Jake comes back, assuming the rest of the team stays healthy. Get that power play working at full speed again in addition to all this even strength success. The forwards have really meshed as a group lately, and that’s in large part happened without Jake or, earlier, without Sean Couturier. If that keeps up once Voracek gets back in a week or so, this team could absolutely be playoff bound. A lot would have to go right for a playoff series win against a top opponent, but if they play like they did last night in a playoff series, an upset is truly possible.

The best part, and what makes this so enjoyable, is that this is all gravy right now. This is a team that wasn’t expected to be in this playoff race with a sub par roster and a rookie NHL head coach. Next year, sure, maybe. Not this year. Looking back, I still don’t regret most of what I wrote here at the beginning of the season.

But the Flyers are changing the narrative. They’re playing above their on-paper potential, and they’re having a ton of fun doing it. They have one of the best players of this generation in Claude Giroux, one of the best rookies in the NHL in Shayne Gostisbehere, and they’re winning games in ways that were simply just not expected this season. They’re unequivocally fun to watch in a year where we very easily could have been talking about the draft already.

A playoff berth would be the icing on the cake, but the cake is pretty damn enjoyable without it. If that playoff berth came at the expense of Pittsburgh it would be like striking comedic gold. Because even when this season is over — whether it’s 17 games from now on April 10 or at some point later than that — we’ll be able turn the page and get excited about a team that’s going nowhere but up.

That’s more than a lot of our direct rivals can say. For them, anything but a Stanley Cup this season will be another lost opportunity in a rapidly closing window. So let’s enjoy the ride. The Flyers are damn fun right now, and it’s only going to get better from here.