The Flyers blew a two-goal lead with less than two minutes remaining in the game while on a power play last night and managed to pick up only one point on a night where it looked like they had two locked up. That was bad. You can read more about that here or here if you want to for some twisted reason, but we’ll move on for now.
That one point (and the additional win that would have helped for tiebreaker purposes had the team won in regulation or overtime) that the team missed out on certainly hurts in the team’s pursuit of a final playoff spot. But thanks to happenings elsewhere, the team enters this morning no worse than it was yesterday in terms of the playoff race.
How are things looking for the Flyers with Tuesday night in the rearview mirror?
What happened last night?
- The Flyers played hockey ugh we talked about that already.
- The Red Wings lost! In the only other game on Tuesday that was really relevant to the Flyers’ playoff hopes, the Tampa Bay Lightning welcomed Detroit to town and put a good old 6-2 stompin’ on ’em. This is a massive break for the Flyers, and one that allowed them to jump into a tie for eighth place in the conference with Detroit despite their loss./
How things look now:
As mentioned, the Flyers now sit in eighth place in the conference, and they technically are ahead of Detroit given the fact that they’ve got one extra game in hand.
The full playoff picture can be seen below. (The numbers in parentheses in the “Odds” columns are the percentage change compared to the odds in place before last night’s games.)
| (Standing) Team | Points | Games Remaining | ROW | Remaining Strength of Schedule (Points %) | Teams In Playoff Race* Left On Schedule | Back-To-Backs Left On Schedule | Odds (SportsClubStats) | Odds (Hockeyviz.com) |
| (M3) Pittsburgh | 88 | 10 | 37 | 58.0% | 7 | 2 | 98.8% (+0.5%) | 99% (+1%) |
| (A3) Boston | 86 | 9 | 35 | 56.1% | 5 | 1 | 91.5% (+2.5%) | 82% (+4%) |
| (W1) NY Islanders | 85 | 11 | 34 | 57.0% | 6 | 3 | 95.3% (+1.6%) | 93% (+2%) |
| (W2) Philadelphia | 83 | 10 | 33 | 55.8% | 6 | 3 | 64.3% (+3.3%) | 72% (0%) |
| (W3) Detroit | 83 | 9 | 34 | 53.9% | 5 | 3 | 50.6% (-9.0%) | 57% (-9%) |
* “Teams In Playoff Race” includes any team in or within two points of a playoff spot; in other words, the sixteen teams currently in playoff spots plus Detroit and Colorado.
The big winners last night were the Bruins and Islanders, who had a good night simply by sitting on their couch and watching the two teams below them flounder. Tonight, though …
Games that matter tonight:
… the tables turn! Only two games are on tap tonight in the NHL, but both of them involve those two teams right ahead of the Flyers in the race. In particular:
- The Islanders, fresh off their loss to the Flyers on Monday, will host Ottawa. Ottawa’s coming off a game last night in Washington, so it’ll be a tough turnaround for them, but they played pretty well in that game despite a loss so there’s room for optimism. A Sens win would help the Flyers in their long-shot pursuit of the Isles.
- Boston, meanwhile, will also play in New York tonight, but they’ll be in Manhattan to play the Rangers. A Rangers win would also slightly help the Flyers, who currently sit three points back of Boston but will have two games in hand by the time tonight ends. As always, don’t think of it as rooting for the Rangers, think of it as strongly rooting for Boston to lose./
How much do tonight’s games matter:
Here are the projected changes in the Flyers’ playoff odds based on potential results tonight.
| OTT @ NYI | OTT Reg W | OTT OT W | OTT SO W | NYI Reg W | NYI OT W | NYI SO W |
| Sportsclubstats | +1.3% | +0.3% | +0.3% | -0.6% | -0.6% | -0.5% |
| Hockeyviz | +1% | 0% | 0% | -1% | -1% | -1% |
| BOS @ NYR | BOS Reg W | BOS OT W | BOS SO W | NYR Reg W | NYR OT W | NYR SO W |
| Sportsclubstats | -1.4% | -1.6% | -1.3% | +1.5% | -0.2% | -0.2% |
| Hockeyviz | -2% | -3% | -2% | +2% | 0% | 0% |
Not exactly two high-impact games in the race tonight, but they’re ones that could slightly help the Flyers if one of these teams ahead of them could falter down the stretch.
