The Flyers Season May Be Over But At Least Gritty Was Voted The League's Best Mascot By The Players
If the Flyers wanted to hold on to any reasonable chance they had of making the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, they needed to beat the Montreal Canadiens last night at home. The team that is one spot ahead of them in the standings still fighting for a playoff spot themselves. The Flyers went into that game just 3 points behind Montreal for the 9th spot in the East and 6 points out of a wild card spot. I’m not sure how great you guys are at math but a win in regulation would have put them just 1 point behind Montreal and 4 points out of a wild card spot with 9 games left to go.
Instead, the Flyers ended up losing in regulation and that’s about all she wrote. They’re not mathematically eliminated yet but there’s no real hope for them anymore. It looks like the 2018-19 Philadelphia Flyers season will come to an end on Saturday April 6th against the Carolina Hurricanes. And what a wild year it has been. A season which saw the team fire both their head coach and the GM. A season which saw them call up the franchise’s savior in a 20-year-old goaltender. A season which saw the Flyers be one of the best teams in the league since firing Dave Hakstol (hmmm, funny how that works). And of course, a season in which we were all introduced to Gritty.
I’m almost certain that the reason why this was one of the most bizarre seasons in Flyers history is because the Hockey Gods are punishing the city of Philadelphia for Gritty. We should have known that it was going to be a year that would destroy all of us physically and emotionally as soon as Gritty was first unveiled.
Sure, it’s a little embarrassing that the thing that this team is best known for right now is a mascot. Sure, it’s a little embarrassing that the Flyers haven’t won a playoff series since 2012. Sure, it’s a little embarrassing that this season has gone the exact way that it’s gone so far. But whatever. The Flyers will head into next season without Dave Hakstol, they’ll have Carter Hart from day 1, they’ll have a ton of young stud defensemen, they’ll have Sean Couturier coming off of back-to-back 30+ goal seasons, they’ll have guys like Travis Konecny and Nolan Patrick really finding their way at the NHL level, they’ll (hopefully) have a healthy JvR, and hopefully they’ll make a few splashes in free agency this summer with all that cap room they have to play around with. Gritty may have been the only notable “highlight” of the 2018-19 Philadelphia Flyers season, but this organization’s future is just one offseason away.
P.S. – I’ll have a better breakdown/obituary of the Flyers season within the next week or so.