As It Stands

Every morning at 5 AM my DVR records NHL on the Fly. When I’m getting ready for work, and more specifically when I’m eating my dozen waffles as the sun rises, I watch the Eastern Conference highlights from the previous night’s game. Lately, as would be suspected, they are very focused on the playoff race. They show this little portion of the standings that usually has the 7th through 9th seeds on it and a bar designating who’s currently in versus who’s currently out. No matter what order those teams are in I always end up thinking the same thing – what about the Flyers.

As a Philadelphia sports fan it’s in my nature to worry. The Phillies World Series Championship has done surprisingly little to quell that. When they show me the race to make it into the playoffs and don’t show the Flyers it worries me a bit. Now, I don’t believe in jinxes or any sort of hocus pocus having any hand in the Flyers destiny, but why must these producers taunt fate so frivolously? And it’s not just this show, it’s everywhere.

The Flyers are currently in 4th place, holding on to the last seed that gets home-ice advantage during the first round of the playoffs. And the question on every writer’s mind is whether or not they can hold on in that race for the 4th spot. Am I crazy to be worried about the 9th place Panthers who are only 7 points behind us? Two weeks ago the Hurricanes were in that 8th place playoff race and last night they were sitting ahead of us in the 4th seed before our game was completed. I’m well aware that we have games at hand on almost everyone in our Conference. But those games don’t mean anything if we don’t win them.

For the Flyers to not make the Playoffs all 5 teams directly below them in the standings would have to pass them. That means that the 9th place Panthers would have to get at least 8 points in their last 6 games. This is very possible and, in fact, likely. They have 2 games against the Thrashers, a game against the back-down-to-Earth Senators, and a 4 point swing contest against the Flyers. The Flyers would have to go 0-8 in their last two weeks of the season.

So this scenario is probably not going to happen. But could this one?

The Panthers run the board and win their last 6, ending the season with 97 points. The Flyers finish up the year with a depressingly pathetic 2-6 record, losing twice to the Rangers, once to the Leafs, to the Panthers themselves, to the B’s, and to either the Islanders or Senators. After last night I’m afraid that the answer to that question is scared but doubtful yes. It could happen. But the more important question is will it?

And that’s when I take a look at the roster and see Mike Richards (C), and calm down a bit. Just hearing that he tore into the room last night between the second and the third, and seeing the results of that tongue lashing, allows me to focus on and see that race for the last playoff spot for what it really is – a bunch of teams competing for the chance to get stomped by the Flyers on our way to the Stanley Cup Finals.