How the Flyers can be poised for a playoff season

It has been a long road for Flyers fans. Since making a run at the Stanley Cup in 2010 and being ousted in the second round in 2012, the Flyers have missed the playoffs in two of the three seasons played.

It’s not a common occurrence in the history of the franchise. The Flyers have always strived to be a playoff team every season, and usually they have succeeded.

The Flyers have made plenty of changes in the offseason. But is it enough to make the Flyers a playoff team again?

The jury is still out and the rest of their division improved as well, but there are ways the Flyers can rise up and make the playoffs again to give themselves the chance at playing for the Stanley Cup.

Here are five ways the Flyers can make the playoffs.

New coach, new system – Dave Hakstol may come in with no experience, but maybe that’s just what the Flyers need. Hakstol has no previous ties to the organization, so he comes in fresh, not as a part of the past, but a part of the future. His style should be more suited for today’s NHL and if he preaches the 200-foot game he talks about so much, then the Flyers should be able to keep an offensive prowess while improving on defense.

Consistency – It was the Flyers Achilles heel in each of the two seasons they missed the playoffs. They can’t start slow again and can’t go from a hot stretch to a cold spell as quickly as they have. For this team to success, they have to find consistency that was so hard to find last season.

Get Up For Big Games – The Flyers playoff hopes last season barely lasted into April, but there was a reason for that. Late in the season, the Flyers kept delivering in big games against playoff opponents. The Flyers swept the season series against the Penguins, bested Washington three times late in the year and finally got the better of the New York Rangers in a crucial game in late February. They remained competitive in nearly all of those games. If you can skate with the best, then you always have a chance. But…

Avoid the Letdown Games – Perhaps the biggest part of the Flyers inconsistency was the points given away to lesser teams. The Flyers finished with the seventh worst record in the NHL last season, and they had their fair share of losses against the bottom six. Good teams hang with the best and put away the worst. The Flyers may have benefited from having the seventh overall pick in the deepest draft in years, but they also got what they deserved as a result of their play in the previous season.

Improved Special Teams – The Flyers already have an excellent top power-play unit, led by Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek and Wayne Simmonds with Mark Streit quarterbacking at the blue line. With the addition of Sam Gagner and changes on the defensive end, if the Flyers can get more out of the second power-play unit and operate the penalty kill with the consistency they had to close the season, the puck will see less of the Flyers net and more of the opponents’.

Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.