Philadelphia Flyers: Breaking down potential playoff opponents

There’s a long way before we get to the first round. But it’s never too early to take a look at the Flyers potential opponents.

Whenever the first round of the playoffs start, the Flyers know they will be at least a fourth seed. They can climb up to first seed during round-robin play. But no matter what, they are in the playoffs.

There is a large group of teams that the Flyers could possibly face in that round. It will all depend on the teams that make it through the play-in round. Aside from the top four teams in each conference, eight more teams will make it.

The Flyers can end up playing the Rangers, Hurricanes, Penguins, Canadiens, Islanders, Panthers, Leafs, or the Blue Jackets. There is a possibility re-seeding could be done after the play-in round.

As a reminder, the current system in place has the number one seed playing the winner of TOR/CBJ. NYI/FLA would play the second seed. Third seed would take on either NYR/CAR. And lastly, the fourth seed would be playing PIT/MTL.

That is subject to change, but we can look at the teams the Flyers have a chance of facing. Looking at Metro teams first, the Flyers would be most familiar with those teams. They went a combined 10-3-3 against the five teams this season.

Two of their losses were at the hands of the Pens, with one being in overtime. The Islanders were responsible for two regulation losses, as well as an overtime.  But overall, the Flyers were fairly dominant against their potential Metro opponents.

They swept the season series against both the Blue Jackets and Rangers. So based on that alone, they would likely not mind taking on either of those teams.

As for the other teams, it’s a slightly smaller sample size, but a similar result. The Flyers went 6-2-1 against their potential Atlantic opponents. They had two wins against each of the three teams, winning every season series.

Based on points gained, they performed the best against Toronto. Their loss to the team came in the shootout. So they grabbed a possible five out of six points against the Leafs. Shootouts don’t matter in the playoffs, of course. But it gives us an idea of what team they performed well against.

All in all, they had 16 wins against all of the potential teams they could face in the first round. That is a .640 winning percentage.

The Flyers were on a hot streak before the season ended. This break almost certainly hurt them in that regard. But it is the same across the entire league.

It looks like teams will get up to three weeks of training camp. And there is also a chance for exhibition games before round-robin and play-in games are to begin. So the Flyers will have plenty of time to knock the rust off.

We’ve seem how the Flyers have performed after long layoffs. And it usually is not good. But these are not normal circumstances. With every team facing the same battle, everyone will be on a level playing field.

Teams will be getting key players back from injury. That includes the Flyers with James van Riemsdyk and Philippe Myers. Anything can happen when hockey returns.

The Flyers are set up to perform well whenever the season does resume. They’ve had success against every team they could face in the first round.