Alain Vigneault
With the Flyers on a six-game winning streak and in second place in the heavyweight Metropolitan Division, it feels like night and day compared to just a year ago.
It’s fitting that the Flyers next opponent is Washington, given how a 3-2 regulation win on Jan. 8 against the then-NHL-best Capitals was the start of something that is becoming a magical run for the Orange and Black.
In the middle of a game where the scoreboard showed 4-1 and 5-1 for most of the third period, it is the small defensive plays that will quickly be forgotten, but those little plays have the Flyers where they are. Where they are, on Saturday morning, is second in the Metropolitan Division and on a five-game winning streak.
For Nate Thompson and Derek Grant, who were literally dropped into a playoff race at the trade deadline, there should be some added motivation. They both had a front row seat as their next team continued to make that playoff push with another win on Tuesday.
The Flyers have acquired center Derek Grant from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for AHL forward Kyle Criscuolo and a 2020 fourth-round pick.
That’s perhaps the biggest difference between the Flyers of this season and the Flyers of last season and years past. This team believes they are never out of a game. More times than not, they have risen to the occasion. There have been times when people want to pronounce them dead for a poor performance or a crushing loss, only to have them rise to the occasion the very next game.
When the dust settled from Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the scoreboard read 5-1 in favor of the Flyers. It hardly felt like a game that the Flyers had won by four goals in rather convincing fashion.
In his return to the lineup on Monday, the first game in a stretch of six against teams right in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race, the first shot Carter Hart faced found the net. Hart responded by stopping the next 30 that the Panthers took in the Flyers 4-1 win.
“It was a strong team win, we had saves at the right time, but go figure, we were able to score seven tonight and weren’t able to score one last game.” Go figure is right. After getting shut out by the last-place Devils on Thursday, the Flyers scored seven goals against the Metropolitan Division-leading Capitals. “It’s the beauty of the game,” Vigneault said with a smile.
The Flyers season is at a crossroads. On one hand, they are right in the thick of the race already and not in a frantic chase back to the playoffs. But they also learned the hard way on Thursday night that every game matters, even the ones against teams in the bottom third of the standings.
