Clinching a playoff spot for the first time in 6 years has to be an extremely gratifying moment for the longest tenured members of the Philadelphia Flyers.
The last time a playoff game was played in Philadelphia, current Flyers captain Sean Couturier produced a hat-trick and 2 assists in an 8-5 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, while playing through a torn MCL.
The last time the Flyers played a playoff game, Travis Konecny was playing in the first year of his post-ELC contract and Travis Sanheim was only partaking in his third full season at the NHL-level.
No one could’ve envisioned a 5-year drought to follow, considering the future looked pretty bright with young players and veterans coexisting the way they did during the 2019-20 season and COVID bubble playoffs.
Unfortunately, the Flyers sat back that off-season, and a chain of events followed that pushed this team further and further away from contention. However, as players came and went, as the front office changed, as new head coaches tried to implement new systems, Couturier, Konecny, and Sanheim remained – albeit in different ways.
Sanheim was nearly traded to St.Louis in the summer of 2023 before Torey Krug declined to waive his NMC to join the Flyers, Couturier missed a season and a half due to back injuries, and Konecny survived trade rumours on a yearly basis during the height of Chuck Fletcher’s tenure.
Fast forward to the present and they remain pillars for this organization in very different roles since the last time they played a playoff game.
Sanheim is now the alpha of the Flyers back-end, a role that was bestowed upon Ivan Provorov at the beginning of his career. He went through a few up-and-down seasons but has been a consistent defenseman for the Flyers over the last 3 years, which eventually led him to be on Team Canada’s radar for the Four Nations and Olympics.
Konecny went from 3 straight 24-goal seasons to scoring 27 goals in a 145-game span between the Covid playoff bubble to 2022. His shooting percentage took a massive nose dive as he went from connecting at a 14% clip to 7.3%, which led many to wonder if he was going to be a casualty of the numerous retooling seasons.
Konecny was off to another strong start this season, but after scoring 17 goals and 40 points in 37 games heading into the Olympic break, he has just 5 goals and 14 points in his last 22 games. While those aren’t horrible numbers by any stretch of the imagination, they’re going to need a lot more out of their top winger heading into the playoffs.
As for Couturier, the former Selke Trophy winner, he arguably had the toughest road of the three. Battling through the back injuries, Couturier came back and looked like he never missed a beat. However, he clashed with John Tortorella and his offensive numbers have taken a hit since the midway point of the 2023-24 season.
That trend continued into this season before he humbly took on a fourth line role after the Olympic breaks – which has worked wonders for him and the entire lineup.
The captain has not been a popular player amongst Flyers social media, but he remains a focal point in the locker room for the rest of his teammates. Perhaps his days of being a 30-goal scorer are long gone, but he’s still great off the puck, can kill penalties, eat important minutes, and remains a face-off maestro for a team that has generally done very poor on the dot.
The trio will now look to lead the charge when the Flyers open their series against the Penguins. This will be Couturier’s 3rd playoff series against their state-rivals, having beaten them in 2011-12 and losing in 2017-18. He was tasked with shutting down Evgeni Malkin as a 19-year-old rookie, which could be the same role he plays this year as a wily 33-year-old veteran.
On the offensive side of the puck, the Flyers are much better equipped with their current forward group. Only time will tell how this series plays out, but at least for the time being, the longest tenured veterans can keep their heads high knowing they’re going back to the playoffs after a franchise-long drought.
