At one point in the not-so-distant past, the Philadelphia Flyers were in last place in the NHL, making them the de facto worst team in the league. Make no mistake about it, the Flyers are still in the midst of a rough patch, but they are now showing signs of life, even without star rookie Matvei Michkov.
Heading into this brutal three-game road trip, things were looking bleak. Sam Ersson had just suffered an injury that forced him to exit a 3-0 shutout loss to Boston after just seven minutes. Cam York was already on injured reserve, and it was later revealed that Ryan Poehling, who did not travel with the team, would be joining him.
As a result, Aleksei Kolosov was forced to make his second NHL start, allowing five goals on 34 shots in a game which the Flyers were handily outplayed, despite carrying a 4-4 tie into the final minute.
And though the Flyers were out-shot by a ratio greater than 2:1, they were 41 seconds away from avoiding the eventual 6-4 fate and adding at least one point in the standings.
Things took a turn for the worse after Kolosov suffered an undisclosed injury during morning skate on Thursday, which pressed Ivan Fedotov into action for the first time in over two weeks. The goalie situation was so dire that Kyle Konin, a local emergency backup previously utilized by the Tampa Bay Lightning, signed an amateur tryout offer.
Fedotov proceeded to play the best game of his NHL career by far, stopping 22 of 23 shots and earning the first win of his NHL career. Owen Tippett’s lucky but skilled backhander in the dying minutes of that game against the Lightning was the team’s only goal in the team’s only game without Michkov, but it was enough to win.
Tippett carried his confidence into the shootout, and Fedotov was perfect against shooters at the other end. Add two points to the bank with a 2-1 shootout win.
Then came Saturday night’s game against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers.
The Flyers came in carrying a 4-1-0 record in their last five games against Florida and, despite losing 4-3 in a shootout, fully deserved the point they earned in the standings. That strong record was not a fluke.
Michkov was again absent, and again the Flyers turned up their performances another notch. Maybe there’s a correlation there, maybe there isn’t.
Joel Farabee has been buzzing on a line with Scott Laughton and Bobby Brink, providing depth scoring and good middle-six minutes Philadelphia desperately needs. Tippett and Travis Konecny seem to have finally found their legs, creating scoring chance after scoring chance and shooting with more confidence.
Young Swedish defenseman Emil Andrae appears to have fully leaped Egor Zamula in the organizational depth chart, though time will tell once York returns. Ersson, Fedotov, and Kolosov have all proven capable of giving the Flyers quality starts between the pipes, even if Ersson is still the most consistent and reliable option of the three.
Now, the Flyers are not without warts and still lose the shot and scoring chance battles more often than not. But we’re seeing signs of life – signs of life we weren’t seeing in the previous four weeks.
As long as this group continues to stack games on top of each other, they’ll build momentum. Momentum is a stat that nobody can fully quantify in sports, and a 1-1-1 record in three games nobody gave the Flyers a chance of winning builds a little bit of that.
Remember where the Philadelphia Flyers were this time last year and where they took themselves in the winter.
