Mercifully, it is over. The 2013 Flyers are now a thing of the past.
The orange and black went out on a high note tonight, knocking the Ottawa Senators hopes of playing the not-Penguins in the first round down a peg with a 2-1 win in the season finale. Jason Akeson scored his first NHL goal on his second NHL shift on the Flyers’ top line and generally looked like he completely belonged with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek in 12 minutes of ice time.
Voracek added the game-winning goal 10 minutes into the third period, finishing with 22 goals on the year and 46 points, just two shy of Giroux who finished with 48 points on the 48-game year.
Steve Mason was again pretty brilliant, making 43 saves in his 100th career win. The Flyers shared this:
Steve Mason made 43 saves, the most for a Flyers goalie since Sergei Bobrovsky made 43 saves at Pittsburgh on April 1, 2012. It’s the most in a game for Mason since he made 47 for Columbus in a 4-3 win at Anaheim on November 19, 2010. The last Flyers goalie to make 43 or more saves while only allowing one goal in the game was Antero Niittymaki, who made 47 saves on 48 shots in a 7-1 win vs. Washington on December 20, 2008.
That hurts and is awesome at the same time, much like tonight’s win and the end to this season. The Flyers played … good … hockey …? over the last couple of games, winning six of their last seven and completely reshaping their draft lottery potential in the process. Awesome that they decided to win some games, but hurts because now they’re going to likely finish 11th or 12th from the bottom instead of in the bottom 10.
The draft lottery is Monday night, and the playoffs begin Tuesday without the Flyers in them for just the second time since 1994. We’ll begin dissecting this season … well, pretty much immediately, so please don’t go anywhere. And if you have any particular points you’d like us to cover, shoot us an email or even do it yourself in the FanPosts.
Thanks for reading all season long. Go Flyers.
