A symbolic meaning behind Flyers back-t0-back wins over Lightning
The Flyers faced the Tampa Bay Lightning twice this week and now twice they have conquered the storm. The two back-to-back wins have the Flyers within two points of a playoff spot and winners in six of their last seven games.
There is an important meaning to both wins this week. On Monday, it was the date. On Friday, it was the point in the season.
Monday was March 7, when one year ago, the Flyers lost a regulation win against the Boston Bruins with 15 seconds left and ultimately fell in overtime. The Flyers never recovered in their playoff push that season. It was game No. 66 on the season.
Friday marked the Flyers 66th game of the 2015-16 season and a convincing 3-1 win helped further define the turnaround that this team is having.
"We played a good road game tonight," head coach Dave Hakstol said. "We were a hard team to play against without the puck and with the puck we handled some of their pressure. A couple good pushes by them but overall I thought it was a real good road game by our team."
Again, it was a series of unlikely contributors. Sam Gagner's seventh goal got the Flyers on the board in the first. Gagner was playing as part of the second power-play unit that has never found much success this season.
The second unit struck again for the second goal of the game for the Orange and Black with Matt Read scoring his 11th of the season.
"It's timely," Hakstol said. "To win games, at this time of year, you have to have everybody chipping in. I think they have had good opportunities. They had some chemistry and came up with some real big goals for us. That unit tonight did a great job."
Brayden Schenn danced around the net for a wrap-around goal to put things away.
"We're a confident group right now," Schenn said. "Everyone's buying in, playing their roles, doing their jobs and it's resulting in wins. It's not an easy building to play in, our team seemed to struggle here a little bit so it's nice to come here and get two points."
Through all of this recent success, the Flyers have been able to shuffle goalies without altering the results. Steve Mason made his third straight start and stopped 18 of 19 shots for his third straight win.
In two games against Tampa this week, the Flyers very simply looked like the better team, which says a lot going against the reigning Eastern Conference champions. To hold that team with so much fire-power — and that carried a nine-game winning streak into Monday's game — to 18 shots on one night and 19 in the next meeting just four days later is impressive.
It is efforts like Andrew MacDonald's 10 blocked shots or Pierre-Edouard Bellemare's courageous blocking or smart plays along the wall and determination in puck battles that has the Flyers where they are now.
"The guys are just overwhelming the opposition right now which is great to see," Mason said. "The effort on the reloads is great. It's what we need at this time of the year in order to win hockey games. The guys right now are just outworking other teams and that's why we're having so much success."
The win didn't help the Flyers too much in the standings just yet, as the Flyers trail the Detroit Red Wings by two points for a playoff spot, but that day will come. This team, which has said that every game from here is a playoff game, has another one on Saturday night against the Panthers before getting to confront the Red Wings on home ice. That may very well be the defining game for the Flyers coming up.
Despite that, take a moment to realize what is happening. In a season where the Flyers not only had no real expectations, but have always been the underdogs through the climb, they are turning into the team people can rally around.
Another impressive win in Tampa on Friday just kept the exciting ride going.
"We're always checking scores. We're looking at the teams ahead of us. But I think we've got to keep doing the things that make us successful," Read said. "We're taking care of pucks when we have to and we're skating well, playing well defensively. If we keep doing things like that, it's obviously giving us a chance to win games."
"We're just going game-to-game," Hakstol said.
Bring on Saturday against the Panthers.
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
