No more drought about it: Flyers are back in the dance

PHILADELPHIA -- It was apropos, in so many ways, that it came down to a shootout. 

Consider:

The last time the Flyers had a win and your in game of the same magnitude as Monday night, current G.M. Danny Briere was a skater and current broadcaster Brian Boucher was in goal. 

Briere scored the winning goal in the shootout on New York Rangers legend Henrik Lundqvist, and Boucher needed to make a save to secure the Flyers a playoff berth that many didn't believe they deserved. 

Flash forward 16 years, with both Briere and Boucher sitting on the balcony level of Xfinity Mobile Arena, a new generation of players were looking to write a similar story. 

Consider:

Tyson Foerster wasn't supposed to play another regular season game after injuring his shoulder on Dec. 1 and having to have a subsequent surgery.

But he wanted to play, badly. He wore out the carpeting between his locker stall and coach Rick Tocchet's office begging to get back sooner. 

He felt like his teammates worked their tails off for three months to make an unexpected climb back into playoff contention, that he wanted, nay needed, to be part of writing the final chapter. 

With eight games to go in the season, he was given the go ahead. And although he's not been particularly successful in his career in the shootout, after the guys who have all came up empty, Foerster wanted to be there to pick them up after they had been the ones to earn the Flyers so many shootout wins already (nine before Monday). 

So, he wasn't going to miss. He picked a corner and snapped a vaunted wrister past stingy Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi. You could feel the building about to explode, but there was one more thing needed. 

Courtesy of the Snider fan club!🧡 ⁦@SniderHockey⁩ ⁦@NHLFlyers⁩ ⁦@FlyersNation⁩ ⁦@BroadStHockey⁩ ⁦@NHLFlyers⁩ ⁦@AntSanPhilly⁩ ⁦@NBCSPhilly⁩ ⁦@barstoolsports⁩ ⁦@FlyersFanClubPA⁩ ⁦ pic.twitter.com/HW0p2uAANY

— Lindy Lou Snider (@lindysnider8) April 14, 2026

Consider:

If you told anyone that when he was signed to a two-year deal last summer that Dan Vladar was going to not only be the Flyers most valuable player, but that the season would come down to him needing make a save in a shootout, the entirety of the hockey world would have scoffed in your face. 

Vladar was always a fine backup, both in Boston and Calgary - but no one had thought that he was much more than that. When the Flyers signed him, the intention was for him to be a solid veteran goalie who could split time with Sam Ersson and not create one melt down loss after another, like they experienced the season previous, whether it was with the overmatched Ivan Fedotov in net, or the woefully inexperienced Aleksei Kolosov in between the pipes. 

Everyone in the organization will tell you that's exactly what they expected from Vladar. But what they told Vladar personally was that there would be an opportunity. That he would be given a chance to show everyone that he deserved to be a No. 1 goalie in the league. 

And he did it all year. He outplayed Ersson in training camp to earn the nod on opening night. He continued to showcase his desire to be the man throughout the season. 

So it was only right that for the 33rd time in the season, second-most in the NHL, Vladar would keep an opponent to two goals or fewer in a game. 

And to ensure it, and with it the Flyers first playoff berth in six years and the first to take place in front of live fans inside Xfinity Mobile Arena in eight years, he would need to make four saves in a shootout. 

The last came against Carolina defenseman Alexander Nikishin. But after it happened. Euphoria. 

Flyers 3, Hurricanes 2.

And the all important "x" placed next to their logo in the standings. 

Vladar has said it countless times throughout the season - the Flyers had a goal they were looking to accomplish and they weren't going to stop pursuing it - and that was to make the playoffs, even if there was serious doubt they would ever get there. 

MVP OF THE SZN DAN VLADAR pic.twitter.com/dVS27tCcUt

— Ben (@PrimeBryce) April 14, 2026

A brutal January that dropped them from second place to seventh place in the Metropolitan Division standings made it seem like another lost season was underway and that after the trade deadline, there'd be a slow slog to the finish line. 

Sitting nine points out of a playoff spot 34 days prior to Monday was also an indicator that it wasn't going to happen this year.

But then, the perfect storm struck. The Flyers started playing winning hockey, but a bunch of teams around them simultaneously collapsed.

The result? The Flyers are the first team in NHL history to overcome a nine-point standings deficit int the final 22 games of a season to make the playoffs. 

Think about that.

And yet, here they are. And they going to face long-time rival Pittsburgh in the first round, likely to begin on Saturday on the other side of the state, and sometime, in the middle of next week, Flyers fans will throw on the orange t-shirts for a playoff game again.

The next demon to vanquish, is a home playoff win. That's because the Flyers haven't had one of those since beating Washington on April 20, 2016. It will have been more than a decade.

There's no guarantee they will do it, but then again, nothing has come easy to these Flyers. 

There's been a lot of noise. A lot of B.S. noise at that. Criticisms of the work of the management, the coach, the players, everything - you name it, it was out there. 

And in some dark corners of the interwebs it still is. As soon as the magic runs out on this miraculous run, the noisemakers will re-emerge.

Until then. The Flyers just need to enjoy the ride. For guys like Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim it's been too long. For guys like Trevor Zegras, who has never played in a playoff game - or Rasmus Ristolainen, who has waited 13 long years playing on some bad teams in Buffalo and Philadelphia, to finally make the postseason - this one is special. 

And for guys like Foerster, who had to rehab lick the dickens to get here and Vladar, who will finish the season with the third best goals against average in the NHL among qualified goalies, this is special, too. 

But for a franchise, once a stalwart in the league, who had such an astounding fall from grace and became a laughingstock in the league for the better part of a decade, Monday was a huge moment. 

The Flyers are back as a part of the Philadelphia sports lexicon again. They are in the talk radio conversation. They matter. 

All it took was a little history. Both the repeating kind and the kind you make on your own. 

And hockey in Philadelphia just feels normal, again.