Flyers are apparently not one of the top 10 teams in NHL

Apparently finishing the regular season as one of the best teams in the league wasn’t enough for the Flyers.

The Flyers had one of their best seasons in recent memory. They were neck and neck with the Washington Capitals for the best record in the Metro Division. There’s a large possibility they could have ended the season there. However, they finished second in the Metro and were fourth in the hotly contested Eastern Conference. Being up there with teams like Tampa Bay and Boston is pretty successful, right?

Well, apparently not if you ask the Pro Hockey Talk writers. They recently released a list of the top 10 teams in the NHL. Unsurprisingly, teams like Boston and Tampa were on there. Washington found their names on the list as well. That makes sense as all three were top teams in the conference.

So the Flyers should have been included on this list as well, right? You would be correct in saying so, but wrong since they were left off the list completely.

There were five teams on the list that had fewer than the 86 points that the Flyers finished with. Along with the three Eastern teams, Colorado and St. Louis finished the abbreviated season with more points.  The Flyers ending up missing the cutoff by two spots as they were ranked the 12th best team in the league.

So let’s get into the other teams that somehow made the list instead of Philadelphia.

What better place to start than with the team that found themselves eliminated in the play-in round by the Montreal Canadiens. Yes, a Penguins team that couldn’t get past the “lowly” Canadiens. That is enough proof right there. Pittsburgh was freefalling towards the end of the regular season as the Flyers had begun to create a gap between them.

Yes, the Penguins have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Yes, they have won Stanley Cups in recent years. But we aren’t talking about what they have done in the past. This is about the best teams right now.

And do we really need to get into the Edmonton Oilers spot on this list? They have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Other than that, what else do they have? Look up and down their lineup, there is no depth behind those two. There was over a 30-point dropoff when it came to their third-leading scorer. And then another 30+ point dropoff to their next.

The Flyers had six players with over 40 points this season. The Oilers had just three players over that mark. So depth is a much better sight on Philadelphia’s side.

And to make it even better, Alain Vigneault was a Jack Adams Award finalist. How can the Flyers have one of the best coaches in the league if they aren’t one of the best teams? Their 89 points were the best finish they had to a season since 2017-18 where they ended with 98 points. And they likely would have challenged that with 13 games remaining.

The above list looked at teams after the first month of the offseason. The Flyers did not make any big moves and retained a few of their free agents. But while the team did not make a splash, they are bringing back an identical team if they continue to stand pat.

Not to mention they should be getting some young talent back in Oskar Lindblom and Nolan Patrick. So the team that was one of the hottest in the league before the pause isn’t one of the best with almost the same players coming back? Teams above them on the list didn’t do much either, yet they are ahead of them.

Maybe this can fuel the Flyers as they continue to not get some of the respect they deserve in the league.