It happens every spring.
Sixteen teams qualify for the NHL's Stanley Cup Playoffs, but only one can take home hockey's holy grail. Along the way, the teams that fail to capture the Cup join the non-qualifiers in the scattered wreckage.
For some, it would be unfair to judge the season as a failure, because maybe they weren't expected to win to begin with or went as far as they possibly could have. For others, like this year's Toronto Maple Leafs, their playoff ouster was likely the final catastrophic straw that should set off organizational change.
From the perspective of the Philadelphia Flyers, who didn't even come close to qualifying for the playoff tournament this year, watching the postseason should stir up emotions of years past when the team was competitive and played into the spring with expectations surrounding them.
And as we rapidly approach the 50th anniversary of the team's last Stanley Cup win, just days from now, long-time fans are yearning for some meaningful hockey to bring them some true excitement. If you're any student of Flyers history, however, be careful what you wish for.
Every playoff elimination has some pain to it, but the Flyers have served up some real doozies over the years. Skipping over the first two decades of the club that included a trio of Cup Final appearances that ended with a loss, the "modern era" of Flyers playoff heartbreak began in 1987.
That year, they took arguably the greatest team in league history to seven games in the Cup Final before falling to Wayne Gretzky's Oilers. That anguish was followed a year later when they blew a 3-1 series lead against Washington in the first round, losing Game 7 in overtime for the only time in team history to date.
After some lean years, the Eric Lindros era featured even more gut punches. With the team on the rise in 1995, they were upset in the conference final by the Devils, who went on to win the Cup that year. It kicked off a trend that saw the Flyers lose to the eventual champion regularly over the following decade. It happened in 1997, of course, when they were swept by Detroit in the Stanley Cup Final, and the 2004 playoffs saw the Flyers give Tampa Bay everything they could handle before losing a heartbreaking Game 7 in the East Final.
But the most painful elimination of all had to be the team's 2000 collapse against the Devils, as they let a 3-1 series lead slip away and lost a Game 7 that featured Scott Stevens' infamous hit on Lindros that altered the franchise. It put a damper on what had been an incredibly fun playoff run up to that point, which is a trend that the fanbase got sadly accustomed to.
Following the NHL lockout that saw the 2004-05 season canceled, the Flyers suffered consecutive playoff eliminations at the hands of the Penguins in 2008 and 2009 before seeing their last real shot at a Cup go up in smoke against the Blackhawks in 2010. Chicago eased its own long Cup drought, and the Flyers' current dry spell is longer than the one that the Hawks had at that point.
2012 saw an utterly disappointing second-round exit to the Devils, and 2014 brought a predictable seven-game loss to the Rangers in the first round. In the years that have followed since, even before the Flyers' current playoff drought kicked in, the team hasn't been close to contending status. As a result, the team's eventual spring ousters haven't felt too disheartening for the fan base for quite some time.
So, what gives? Do we, as fans, want to feel this sickness again in the spring? Is it somehow better to get there and be utterly let down like current fans of the Maple Leafs and other franchises are feeling than to be left out of 'the dance' entirely? Well, sort of.
You've got to get into the tournament to begin with, and the odds of any one team winning the Stanley Cup are overwhelmingly against them. But this is what we root for and dream about, so playoff pain is unfortunately going to be a big part of the total fan experience.
The Flyers will get back to the playoffs at some point; the law of averages says it has to happen for everyone (except Buffalo, apparently). But the organization needs to make sure that the team has an actual chance once they return to these meaningful games, rather than just being cannon fodder for a real contender.
It can be painful seeing former Flyers players and coaches win championships after leaving the team, but getting back to the playoffs means that the Orange and Black can do something about it instead of sitting idly by. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are one of the greatest spectacles in sports, and you simply want to be a part of the heart-pounding — and often, heart-stopping — excitement. It's been sorely missed in Flyers Nation for half a decade.
We'll deal with the playoff disappointment when it gets here. The Flyers and their fans just want to have some postseason excitement surrounding the team again. Because even if the Flyers' playoff forays haven't ended in a parade for over half a century, it was always exciting seeing them play into the spring when the tension is high and everything is on the line. Bring that back, please.