2010-2011 NHL Regular Season Assessment: Philadelphia Flyers
Before the 2010-2011 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season started, many, if not all teams, had their eyes on the prize, which was ultimately the Stanley Cup. Losing to Chicago Blackhawks during the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals was a shock on its own and
had Philadelphia Flyers wanted more.
Winning a Stanley Cup is like tasting blood for an animal, they keep on wanting more, and Philly was not about to slowdown on its race for championship glory.
Their first game of the regular season was up against Eastern Conference rivals, Pittsburgh Penguins, on October 7, 2010, in which they overtook them by a 3-2 victory to start off the 82-game season on a high note.
Philadelphia’s best part of the season came during the month of January when the team won 10 out of 12 games and had easily moved up nearly two places from where they originally were. It was a rough road from there, especially the last month before the postseason
was set to takeoff.
Flyers entered the month of April by a loss from Atlanta Thrashers, who shut them out 1-0, following four straight losses from teams like New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres, all which were nowhere close to their league.
Fortunately, they won their last regular season game against the struggling New York Islanders by a landslide, 7-4, victory.
At the end of the regular season and prior to the 2011 NHL Playoffs, Philadelphia Flyers played well and ranked second overall in the Eastern Conference. They led the conference for most of the time, but were taken over by Washington Capitals near the end,
due to their consecutive losing streak, which undermined them by one point. Philadelphia remained ahead of Boston Bruins by three points with 106, and below Washington, who had 107.
In total, throughout their 82-game regular season, Philadelphia won 47 regular season matchups, lost 23, while 12 went into either overtime or shootouts. They scored a total of 259 goals and let in 223, something which was much higher than the top four teams
along with Philadelphia, like Washington (197), Boston (195) and Pittsburgh (199).
This had Philadelphia in deep consideration about changing up their defensive line-up, a decision which was delayed till the offseason, in which they would look for a top-notch goalie to backup Sergei Bobrovsky.
Even though there were some tough times during Philadelphia’s stretch, they still managed to keep a home record of 22-12-7 and away record of 25-11-5.
The postseason was especially interesting to see whether Flyers would make as big of an impact they did last season. Their 2010 Stanley Cup Finals rival, Chicago Blackhawks struggled to make it into the playoffs and was eliminated during the first round,
while Philadelphia narrowly escaped being thrown out and won against Buffalo Sabres in a heated seven-game quarterfinal series.
Philadelphia would have never thought about what might happen to them next and lost in a historic comeback by Boston Bruins, who previously met the same fate as Flyers did this time around. Bruins knocked out the 2010 Stanley Cup contenders in four straight
matchups for an embarrassing postseason shutout during the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
For Philadelphia, at least the loss came from a team that went on to win the Stanley Cup, which returned to the East from the West.
Flyers have made many changes to their line-up and team overall, but that is another topic altogether, which we will discuss in the offseason assessment of various NHL teams.
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