Season wraps with cool win in Brooklyn

NEW YORK >> With Wayne Simmonds getting a welldeserved game off Sunday night, Michael Raffl celebrated his status as the only Flyer to play in all 82 games this season with a secondperiod goal that went down as a game-winner in a season-closing, 5-2 Flyers victory over two-thirds of a New York Islanders team at Barclays Center.

Considering the game was meaningless in the larger sense for the Flyers (41-27-14, 96 points), Raffl’s goal and his two assists would seem to go largely unnoticed in the bigger scope of a season just completed, and a postseason yet to begin against the Washington Capitals, with Games 1 and 2 Thursday and Saturday nights at Verizon Center in D.C.

But hey, Raffl wasn’t going to treat this last regular moment without a little pump-you-up circumstance.

Taking the podium to thank the locker room for his Perfect Attendance Award, Raffl said, “It’s nice, yeah. I don’t know. Cool. Sick.”

That just about summed up Game 82 of this surprising Flyers season, in which they scored five unanswered goals almost in spite of themselves.

“It was for nothing, so I think it was kind of a sloppy game in both ends,” Raffl said. “But well, it is what it is. We had to get through it.”

Of course, it was much more meaningful to the Islanders (45-27-10, 100), and they showed that by resting seven of their best regular players and successfully blowing a two-goal lead at home against a team not playing for anything.

“Exhibition games are more intense than that one, I think,” said Brayden Schenn, who chalked up two assists to finish with a career-high 26 goals and 59 points. “As far as us, we knew where we stood and I’m not sure what kind of (playoff) matchup they were looking for, but now everything’s set.”

In achieving this loss, the Islanders slipped to the first wild card spot, No. 7 overall in the Eastern Conference, and get to start the playoffs Thursday night in South Florida against the Panthers.

A victory would have given them the No. 3 spot in the Metropolitan Division and the right to play a much hotter Pittsburgh Penguins team. So there probably was a bit of a triumphant feeling in defeat for the new Brooklynites. Then again, with Marc-Andre Fleury still feeling the effects of a concussion and Matt Murray perhaps out after getting hurt in what for the Penguins was a meaningless game at Wells Fargo Center Saturday, the Pens may or may not have to start the playoffs with a No. 3 goalie in net.

“It was just a different game. Obviously guys were cautious out there. No one was really physical. I guess there were a couple of hits, but you saw when guys got hit they were almost mad ... it was weird. Bizarre. It was a different game to be part of but we’re happy to get the playoff spot now.”

Of course, that playoff spot at No. 8 means they have to figure out how to beat the NHL kingpin Capitals, who handed their last game of the season Sunday night to the grateful Anaheim Ducks in the other NHL weather makeup game. Still, the Caps finished at 56-18-8 for 120 points.