Miracle Flyers Complete Comeback, Clinch First Playoff Berth In 6 Years

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Something orange, tireless, filthy, bearded clawed its way out of the tar and the rubble off Broad Street Monday night to be set loose against the wider world.

The Flyers retold Gritty's origin story in a characteristically unlikely comeback win over the Carolina Hurricanes, clinching their first postseason berth in seven years.

Seas of orange bled into the reds and maroons on the streets and the subway. Playoff hockey is back in Philadelphia, on the same night the Phillies put 13 runs on the board across the street at the Bank. All is right with the world.

The Canes, the top seed in the Eastern Conference, scored on two of their first three shots early in the first period. For a breath the raucous crowd simmered, the Flyers appeared overmatched and battered. But netminder Dan Vladar would not let another shot by him the rest of the of the night. The Flyers knew they could not control the puck the way Carolina could, but they were unrelenting in disrupting their rhythm. At times they were just surviving. But once Matvei Michkov and Trevor Zegras netted back to back midgame goals, it was enough for the Flyers to just survive into the overtime period.

They then survived the overtime period, and Vladar helped them survive the first few dangerous shooters of the shootout, turning away all three.

But by then, after hours of ferocious and improbable hockey, there grew an inertia behind the orange and black. There was indeed a sort of premonitory glee to Tyson Foerster's zig and zag the blue line, to the pointed wrist shot he fired from the middle of the point which could end up no where other than the high corner of the net.

Seconds later, Vladar stopped his twenty sixth straight shot to seal the win and the playoff berth. It echoed the final game of the 2010 season, when Brian Boucher stopped the final shot of a shootout to clinch the Flyers playoff spot.

That 2010 team, a 7th seed, roared all the way to the Stanley Cup finals.

This is a very different Flyers team, peppered with multiple teenagers and guys in their early 20s along with a handful of mid-30s veterans. No one expected them to be here. At their best moment midseason, oddsmakers gave them about a 50 percent chance to make the playoffs. As recently as early March, that was down to about 7 percent, particularly after a brutal 3-8-3 stretch entering the Olympic break.

Since returning from the break, they've gone 17-6-1, digging themselves out of a deep hole which they remained in just a few weeks ago to snag the final playoff spot.

The Flyers will play their archrivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in round one. An exact schedule for the whole opening round of games has not yet been released, but the postseason itself is set to start on Saturday, April 18. Games 1 and 2 will be in Pittsburgh.

Unlike the Phillies, Eagles, and Sixers, the Flyers do not have superstars in the primes, they do not have playoff experience, they do not have the fear of the league. They also do not labor under the enormous expectation of either the city or the sports world. They're the final seed and no one expects them to win and that's exactly how they want it.