Flyers visit the playoff-bound Ottawa Senators

The Flyers head to Ottawa to face the playoff-bound Senators.

Claude Giroux’s going back to the playoffs, baby! The Flyers head to Ottawa after a shootout win over the New York Islanders, and there’s a very real chance the Flyers could win out the season. Currently, they have the sixth best draft odds according to Tankathon, and it seems impossible for them to catch the Boston Bruins in the fourth slot–which means they’re likely duking it out with the Seattle Kraken for the fifth position.

Frankly, though, if the last few wins of the season are on the backs of the young players (more on them below), there isn’t much to be upset about. For the Flyers to succeed in the future, they need the guys who are going to be here to be good–and a couple of players are stepping up to show they are good enough to be a part of this.

Anyway, the Sens: what a story. Or, at least, a story that’s as old as time: get a good goaltender and you can get a team over the hump and into the playoffs. While we wouldn’t call Linus Ullmark the MVP of the Senators season, goaltending was the biggest hurdle to Ottawa reaching the post season: last year’s overpay for Joonas Korpisalo didn’t pan out, and trading Filip Gustavsson to the Minnesota Wild the season before looks pretty dumb these days. Thankfully for Sens fans, management went out and traded for (and extended!) a guy who won the Vezina not too long ago. That, plus some incremental development from their young stars, and the Senators are going to the playoffs for the first time since 2017–though their first round matchup is yet to be decided.

The Flyers, for their part, can’t seem to stop scoring goals: in the six games since John Tortorella was fired, they’ve scored 29 goals. It’s fair to say this team would’ve won the President’s Trophy had they fired Tortorella earlier, but alas (this is a joke). Still, the way the team’s been playing out the stretch is promising, so here’s hoping they can carry it over into a strong start next season. Plus, Brad Shaw succeeding as head coach may give him pole position for the head coaching gig next season, though plenty of names have been bandied about in the media for who could fill the role. A solid finish would be a gold star on Shaw’s CV for the job.

Storylines to watch

Tyson Foerster, hello

We talked about Foerster in our last preview, but his play warrants another mention here. Five goals in two games is definitely not a sustainable scoring pace…but eight goals in six games is so promising from a player who was drafted for his shot. The two-way impact is still there, he’s a menace on the forecheck, defensively sound, and it looks like he might be able to pile up the goals at the NHL level. While this season was a bit of a letdown from the high expectations we set heading in, a strong finish will help everyone forget Foerster’s “just okay” performance for most of the year.

Michkov cracks 60

For the first time since the 1990s, the Flyers have a rookie who’s surpassed the 60 point threshold. His name is Matvei Michkov, and he absolutely rules. With 26 goals and 36 assists, he’s the first Flyers rookie since Mikael Renberg to crack 60. While it’s easy to think Michkov’s been “quiet” lately because he’s had four games without a goal, he’s got four points in that span–all assists. Becoming a full point per game player this year seems unlikely (unless he puts up 20 points this week), but what a promising first season this has been for the young Russian.

Ottawa sheds the “rebuild” tag

This marks the first season the Senators will be in the playoffs since the Hamburglar run of 2017. It was a lengthy rebuild, worsened by poor ownership, for a team that had a seven year playoff drought. The Flyers are going on their fifth year out of the playoffs, and barely half of that time has been spent rebuilding. Why highlight this? Because Flyers fans should steel themselves for another year or two on the outside looking in; this season has shown the team isn’t ready for that next step, and many players that will be on the next great Flyers team aren’t even professionals yet–hell, they might not even be drafted! There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though, and the Sens provide some hope that the Flyers will find a way forward.

Projected Lineups

Philadelphia Flyers

Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Travis Konecny – Sean Couturier – Matvei Michkov
Jakob Pelletier – Ryan Poehling – Owen Tippett
Nic Deslauriers – Karsen Dorwart – Garnet Hathaway

Nick Seeler – Travis Sanheim
Cam York – Jamie Drysdale
Emil Andrae – Egor Zamula

Aleksei Kolosov
(Sam Ersson)

Ottawa Senators

David Perron – Tim Stutzle – Drake Batherson
Fabian Zetterlund – Dylan Cozens – Claude Giroux
Ridly Greig – Shane Pinto – Michael Amadio
Matthew Highmore – Adam Gaudette – Nick Cousins

Jake Sanderson – Artem Zub
Thomas Chabot – Nick Jensen
Tyler Kleven – Nikolas Matinpalo

Anton Forsberg
(Linus Ullmark)

Gameday Tunes

It has been the greyest, dreariest weekend of April showers in Philadelphia, and we need the music to match.