Dan Vladar turned aside Carolina\u2019s fourth shootout attempt, threw his arms in the air and waited for the swarm of Flyers to mob him in celebration.\n<\/p>\n
Every Flyer hopped the boards and rushed the ice as fans \u2014 almost all clad in orange \u2014 went wild in a celebration six years \u2014 and a long rebuild \u2014 in the making.\n<\/p>\n
The Flyers skated to center ice and raised their sticks toward a packed and rowdy crowd that hasn\u2019t enjoyed a home playoff series since 2018 as \u201cCLINCHED!\u201d flashed on the big screen.\n<\/p>\n
Yes, Philadelphia \u2014 long ago one of the model franchises in the NHL \u2014 is indeed back in the playoffs for the first time since 2020.\n <\/p>\n
Tyson Foerster scored the only goal in the shootout to send Philadelphia to a 3-2 win over the Eastern Conference top seed Carolina Hurricanes on Monday night, setting up a first-round series with Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a lot of fun,\u201d Owen Tippett said. \u201cThese guys in this room love each other. It\u2019s going to be a blast. But the job\u2019s not done.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Reaching the postseason is a meaningful milestone for the Flyers and fans who endured many seasons of miserable hockey.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of years,\u201d Flyers first-year coach Rick Tocchet said. \u201cI feel for them, I really do. I get it. We could only do our part and try and build this thing. I understand their angst. Hopefully this gives them a little bit of belief.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The Flyers played must-win hockey in the final week of the season. Chicago beat Philadelphia in 2010 for the Stanley Cup, and the Flyers never recovered, winning three playoff series headed into this season.\n<\/p>\n
Only Toronto (1966-67) has suffered longer than any other team that has won at least one Stanley Cup.\n<\/p>\n
The Flyers have been close: Philadelphia lost in the Cup finals in 1976, 1980, 1985, 1987, 1997 and 2010.\n<\/p>\n
The architect of an overdue organizational overhaul, general manager Danny Briere, kept his eye on the future the last three seasons, refusing to yield his promising prospects for veterans that could have accelerated the rebuild.\n<\/p>\n
The Flyers are loaded with young stars like Matvei Michkov, who scored against Carolina, and 19-year-old rookie Porter Martone. Both are expected to usher the Flyers into serious Stanley Cup contention in the future.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the room\u2019s in a good spot,\u201d Travis Konecny said. \u201cA lot of the young guys that we have, to be honest with you, they\u2019ve been farther ahead than you would expect. And they also play a professional style where they make the right plays at the right time.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Vladar turned aside Carolina\u2019s fourth shootout attempt, threw his arms in the air and waited for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,4845,71,70,10167],"class_list":{"0":"post-165370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-playoffs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}