Maddening close-but-no-cigar scenario playing out
PHILADELPHIA >> The New York TV reporter put it as breathlessly blunt to Flyers coach Dave Hakstol Thursday morning as every ounce of dramatic training could provide ... could he possibly put into words just how important that night’s game between these teams would be?
Cue the Hakstol frown. Then cut to the usual coachspeak script. Just another night, just another game, he said, between two teams fighting for their playoff lives.
How simply and beautifully overstated.
The Flyers and Islanders, co-joined for another game of meaningless standings observation Thursday night at Wells Fargo Center, entered as two teams that have underachieved most of the season. Collectively huddled in that comfort zone where teams that are just far enough out of the playoff picture can freely loiter in the league shadows, they grimly plot their post-season regrets while making their finish look as worthwhile as possible.
The hard truth: If you’re not good enough to play deeper into April, there’s always enough games left through the early days of the month to make a jolly good close-but-no-cigar showing.
Experienced as they are with this kind of late-season deathmarch, the Flyers are skilled at such performances. Forget the previous 75 games or so and press forward with stiff, bloody upper lip.
Yet they did so Thursday night while putting on what was anything but a typical 2016-17 performance in what became an easy 6-3 win over the Islanders. For those fans that are still watching the Eastern Conference standings, that’s three victories in a row and six wins in the last nine games for your hard-charging Flyers.
And they now have five games left in the season that for them, could essentially end this weekend. That’s because the Boston Bruins, by virtue of a win over Dallas Thursday night, took another giant leap toward securing the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference. The Flyers are six points and a couple of in-between teams behind them, logjammed in that aforementioned comfort zone that demands dreams of next season.
So while the Bruins closed in, this game played out as just another dance between two teams that will call it a season on April 9 with proclamtions of “Wait ’til next year!” Again? This will be the third time in the past five seasons the Flyers are falling short of the playoffs, and despite their increased speed toward the finish line, they would have taken a step back from their eighthplace finish (and predictable easy ouster at the hands of Washington) in 2016.
No matter, for the script will remain the same...
“I don’t think we can let ourselves look at the big picture,” Claude Giroux said recently. “We’ll look at the small picture; that picture’s all about (the next game). ... It’s been like that for a month or a month and a half for us. It’s about winning games. We’ve been playing some good hockey and a couple of times we couldn’t find a way to get some points. We went to Columbus (March 25), we played a great game; a great 60 minutes. And we couldn’t find a way to get any points. So it’s tough, but at the same time we have to look at what we’re doing here and we’ve got to be better.”
No worries, for that’s clearly what the Flyers proved to be on this night ... at least early on ... in a game that was anything but typical.
It took the Flyers a bit more than nine minutes from the opening drop of the puck to prove that. They came out storming all over Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss, firing pucks at him and beating a sleepy Islanders defense at every turn.
It took 4 minutes, 30 seconds for the first earthquake to hit, that being Dale Weise scoring a goal. Just 1:49 later, Weise’s linemate Sean Couturier scored another. Then a couple of minutes later, Weise helped set up a goal for Radek Gudas, the bullish defenseman who really doesn’t use his blistering shot enough.
But then, that only means he fits in well with this Flyers team, which would scored five unanswered goals in the first period, then get outshot 22-3 in the second period, and finally hold on through the third for a victory that came with questions.
What moved Weise to suddenly wake up and realize it was time to stop feeling good about somehow getting a four-year free agency contract out of Ron Hextall and start earning his new salary?
Just how did Couturier’s goal in this first period register as his 14th point in 14 games?
And is there somehow a scenario that will see Steve Mason here next year? You know, since he remembered how to be a top NHL starting goalie again just as March was about to dawn?
Mason oversaw this win over the Islanders from beautiful start to so-so finish, his 14th start in the last 16 games ... a stretch that began just a short time before backup goalie Michal Neuvirth earned a two-year contract extension. Mason, with nine victories since Feb. 25, remains a pending unrestricted free agent and is probably playing for a new contract elsewhere.
Oh, and about Couturier? The start of his Fabulous Fourteen in Fourteen run essentially coincided with the arrival of Valtteri Filppula in a trade with Tampa Bay. That ensured Couturier of not needing to worry about providing second-line level offense from his center spot. Instead, he dropped to the third line and started scoring points like a topline center.
It can be quite maddening for Flyers fans who have watched this team in recent years. Three playoff misses in five years from a team that can look so good, but usually only when so motivated by contractual and personnel moves, and only then, usually when the playoff heat goes from hot to disppointingly comfortable.
Ah, but just wait ’til next year...