The Philadelphia Flyers are in very real danger of missing the playoffs

It wasn’t supposed to be this way for the Philadelphia Flyers.

Sure, the National Hockey League didn’t do them any favors by placing them in a very competitive-looking East Division for this abbreviated season, but we all figured that the Flyers could handle it. There was an air of confidence that the team would be able to easily achieve a spot in the top half of the standings, thereby qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It appeared that the Flyers would be one of five teams competing for four spots, along with the Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Washington Capitals. That the Flyers would build on last year’s success, and one of those other teams would be the “odd man out”.

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How’s that going?

As we near the midpoint of this shortened, 56-game sprint of a season, the Flyers are getting close to panic time already, three points out of a playoff spot. And things don’t get much worse than they did on Thursday night for the Orange and Black, who dropped a home game in regulation to Washington while all three of the other top clubs managed victories by beating up on the division’s bottom three of the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, and Buffalo Sabres.

This NHL season is quickly going off the rails for the Philadelphia Flyers.

More concerningly, the Flyers are just 6-7-2 against the four teams above them in the standings, games that represent important four-point swings and will go a long way toward determining which club will be left out in the cold once the regular season ends. And, right now, it’s looking an awful lot like the Flyers will be that team.

The issues are many, from Carter Hart’s struggles in net to the team’s inability to fill the gaping hole left on the blueline by Matt Niskanen’s retirement. But I’d like to posit that forward depth, something that we all thought would be a strength for this club, is also a critical concern at this time.

Just a short while ago, the Philadelphia Flyers looked like a four-line club, balanced and dangerous throughout the lineup. But it’s now obvious that this was an overly optimistic view of the team, since it relied too heavily on the assumption of everyone staying healthy and either matching expectations or continuing to build on the trajectory they’ve established.

To be fair, a few Flyers forwards have stood out. Joel Farabee has taken a huge step in his development, while James van Riemsdyk has been fantastic and leads the team in scoring. Scott Laughton continues to flash more and more offensive upside, and Sean Couturier remains the best player on the club. But you can’t be a top team in today’s NHL with two lines.

Rather than the standard approach of scapegoating veterans like Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux, let’s take a look at the fourth line that the Flyers trotted out on Thursday night against Washington: Nolan Patrick, Andy Andreoff, and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. In theory, the line shouldn’t be that bad. But they got crushed. Andreoff, to his credit, tried to spark the team with a fight. It didn’t end up mattering, however.

Even in limited ice time, the unit proved to be extremely ineffective, something that can’t happen against good opponents. Alain Vigneault and company have had to shuffle the deck to work around things like Michael Raffl’s hand injury and some big slumps from players like Patrick, and right now it isn’t working. I’m not going to hold an underwhelming fourth line accountable for losses, as everyone else needs to pull their weight, but what’s that saying about a chain only being as strong as its weakest link?

Not to pick on Patrick after the long road he had to take to come back from a year off, but he has been an absolute liability this season. And though it’s anathema to say, Oskar Lindblom hasn’t looked much better. We probably expected too much, thinking that these guys could just pick up where they left off after battling serious health issues. And maybe they find their games at some point, but time is running out for this season, with only 32 games remaining.

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Maybe a trade for the likes of Mattias Ekholm would shake things up. Or if Carter Hart returns to form, covering up the rest of the team’s blemishes. No matter what, something needs to change, or the Philadelphia Flyers will find themselves out of the 2021 playoffs, signaling an unmitigated disaster after the sky-high expectations this club was facing. We’ll find out in very short order if the Flyers are able to answer the bell or if they go quietly into the night.

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