Philadelphia Flyers watch season end in heartbreaking fashion

Despite a hot start, the Philadelphia Flyers watched their 2017-18 season come to an official end on Sunday following a Game 6 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

After all of the inconsistency surrounding the Philadelphia Flyers during their first round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Dave Hakstol‘s team seemed confident enough in their chances of forcing a Game 7, as long as they came through with a win on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Flyers failed to come through when it mattered the most against their in-state rivals after falling to the Penguins 8-5 in Game 6.

When considering that Sean Couturier wasted no time putting his team on the board by scoring the game’s first goal in the within the first three minutes of the game, Philadelphia seemed to be carrying the momentum early on, that is until it all fell apart. Between allowing the Penguins to score two goals of their own shortly after Couturier netted his first score to the Flyers letting a 4-2 lead slip away over the final two periods, there are plenty of factors behind this kind of loss.

Not to mention, it didn’t help Philadelphia’s case that Jake Guentzel scoring four of the eight goals for Pittsburgh, showing just how long of an afternoon was. At the end of the day, the Penguins were simply the better of the two teams, and seem determined enough to make a serious run at winning the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row.

As for the Flyers, one can only imagine how different this series would have been if their play had been more consistent against the Penguins. The fact that Philadelphia was held to just one goal during their first three losses to Pittsburgh shows how ugly this series was for the most part, and as much as they don’t want to admit it, the results from Sunday shouldn’t have been all that surprising.

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Even if the Flyers had managed to pull off the unthinkable by forcing a Game 7, and somehow found a way to advance in the series, the chances of them going beyond the second round would have seemed slim. It’s not often a team scores five goals in a game, and still comes up on the losing end, but Game 6 was the perfect example of how frustrating this series was for the most part when it comes to Philadelphia, and unfortunately it’s time to begin looking forward to the offseason.