By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
There are just three games remaining in the Flyers season. The Flyers 50th anniversary season, which featured numerous reasons to celebrate the history of the franchise, will come to a close in six days.
Just like 10 years ago, when the Flyers celebrated their 40th anniversary season, the Flyers will not be in the playoffs.
In the first of a two part series, we revisit on the 2006-07 season, the worst in Flyers history by overall point total. In this part of the series, we look at the season itself and the similarities it has to the 50th anniversary season.
The noticeable difference between the two seasons is that the Flyers point total is significantly higher in 2016-17. The Flyers finished the 2006-07 season with a franchise-low 56 points — in a full-length season. The Flyers have 84 points this season.
That total was unfortunately nowhere near enough to make the playoffs, but it is not the lowest of the low, like the 56 was for the Flyers 10 seasons ago. In fact, if the Flyers sweep their final weekend of the season at home, they will finish with 56 points in their home games alone, so this season is far from the anomaly it was in 2006-07.
That said, it’s the fanfare of the season and the overall mediocrity where comparison can be drawn.
The Flyers were celebrating their 40th anniversary season in 2006-07. It’s not quite a golden anniversary, but still a historical milestone for the franchise.
One of the biggest differences is that the 2006-07 season never really had a prayer.
The Flyers started the season 1-1-1 with their first win coming in their third game of the season. They lost five straight after that, essentially putting them in chase mode from the start.
The Flyers never recovered that season. They would trade winning and losing results here and there, but then string together losses that just made it impossible to crawl out of the cellar.
They lost six straight to open November.
They won their final two games in December after opening the month on a 10-game losing streak.
They also won their first game of January to open up a three-game winning streak, only to drop their next nine games.
So when you look at the results of the past five seasons, three of them resulting in early offseasons, remember that there was a day when it was much worse.
Of course, that doesn’t take away from expectations. The Flyers season in 2006-07 was truly an anomaly in the sense that it was sandwiched between successful seasons. The Flyers made the playoffs in the first season out of the lockout with a lot of newness in the NHL. They also made the playoffs in the season after the nightmare of 06-07, and more than that, made a run at the Stanley Cup by advancing to the Eastern Conference Final.
So perhaps the Flyers are in a worse state now so to speak. Yes, the 2006-07 season was not one to honor the 39 years prior that were typically playoff years and all more successful than a 56-point performance in an 82-game schedule.
But when you look at the Flyers now, who also had playoff expectations entering this season, only to miss in this see-saw pattern they are stuck in, the overall lack of energy and passion down the stretch did not do just to the 49 years prior either.
What that does is create even more similarities between the two seasons. Because, in the end, the Flyers season ends in early April. There is more excitement surrounding a potential draft pick — more of that tomorrow — than there is the team’s current roster and potential — though a lot of fans are more informed about prospects in this digital age.
Nothing will ever truly compare to the 2006-07 season and even this season, where the Flyers ultimately learned of their fateful demise with three games left in the regular season, at least presented the chance for playoff hockey. It’s not often that the Flyers could look to the calendar in December and be dead in the standings already.
But what both seasons will be remembered for are the milestones that the franchise was reaching, certainly a celebration through and through, only to go down as two forgettable seasons on the ice.
