Philadelphia Flyers can stick a fork in season after Game 4 loss

After another embarrassing loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 4, it’s time to stick a fork in the 2017-18 season for the Philadelphia Flyers.

Entering Wednesday’s Game 4 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers already knew they were going to be at a major disadvantage since they would be playing without one of their top players in Sean Couturier. Seeing the star center suffer a lower-body injury in practice of all places after Couturier collided with teammate Radko Gudas was beyond frustrating to see for the Flyers, and watching them lose 5-0 the way they did against the Penguins in Game 4 was the icing on the cake.

It’s one thing to suffer a key loss at home, but to get shutout in front of their own fans in a meaningful playoff game can only be described as embarrassing for Philadelphia. If the Flyers were going to look this horrendous during this series against the Penguins, they may as well have been better off missing out on the playoffs as a whole since the last week or so has simply been pathetic.

Between Sidney Crosby racking up five goals in the series to the Flyers being outscored 18-6 overall over the last four games, it’s safe to say the Penguins can begin looking ahead to the second round of the playoffs. Yes, there have been numerous occasions over the years in which NHL teams pull off historic comebacks, but when seeing the way that Philadelphia has been playing this series, that’s never going to happen.

Failing to score a single goal in two of the four meetings this series is just one of many examples behind the struggles of this Philadelphia team, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better heading into Game 5. The Flyers realized the importance of winning at least one of their previous two games at home to avoid heading back to Pittsburgh on the verge of elimination, but they couldn’t even accomplish that goal.

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As great as Philadelphia has looked at times throughout the season, this series against Pittsburgh has been a wakeup call when it comes to whether they deserved even the slightest bit of consideration for being Stanley Cup contenders. With Game 5 taking place on Friday, chances are this will be the final game of 2018 for the Flyers, assuming they continue to look as awful as they have for the most part this series.