Looking Back: 2010 Philadelphia Flyers
The unlikeliest of playoff runs that came up short.
This is the first of a new series of articles looking back at some of the best teams, moments, or seasons throughout hockey history. There are so many excellent moments throughout hockey history that are worth revisiting, and I hope to capture the essence of as many of those moments as I can. My goal for these write-ups is to bring awesome historical moments to fanbases that may have missed them, or remind us all of moments that made us hockey fans in the first place. Nostalgia is, after all, a powerful drug.
Feel free to send me messages with ideas for future pieces. I love diving into hockey’s incredible past.
Hockey is an amazing sport. It brings out heroes and villains, possibly unlike any other sport we enjoy. Hockey is a fast-paced and kinetic game that possesses a physicality and edge not seen in the other major sports. Football is inherently violent due to tackling, basketball requires a substantial degree of finesse, soccer an otherworldly level of athleticism, and baseball needs a high level of timing and skill.
But hockey requires all of these. On skates, no less.
It is this, along with an 82 game season and a playoff gauntlet not for the faint of heart, that makes for amazing storylines, incredible heroes, and crippling heartbreak.
And on a personal level, one team personifies this more for me than most others in recent memory. It was a scrappy team in the 2009-10 season that made one of the most unexpected playoff runs and almost captured glory in the end, only to come up short.
Such is life for Flyers fans.
2009-10 was an interesting time in hockey. The NHL was about five years removed from a damaging lockout that cost us an entire season (a season that would have been Alex Ovechkin’s first…think of what his goal total could be if we hadn’t gone sans hockey for a whole year). After the lockout, the NHL implemented several rule changes that altered how the game was played. But the game was also getting faster at this point, as speed and skill began to be prioritized over physicality. Granted, the physical nature of the game persisted, but the stereotypical bruiser or enforcer was becoming outdated, and players needed to be able to do more than fight or hit.
Going back and watching games from this era, you can see how much the game has changed even in the last 15 years.
The Philadelphia Flyers of this period were in a transitional period, much like other teams. While other teams began to embrace the speed and skill that we see now, Philadelphia almost seemed to reject it. Which is not surprising if you’ve followed the Flyers for any length of time.
The Flyers were not too far removed from a historically garbage season that had them sitting firmly and distantly in last place in the league. A season that saw the untimely end to the short Peter Forsberg era in Flyers history. The Flyers rebounded in 2007-08 with another unlikely run to the Eastern Conference finals before being tossed aside by the Pittsburgh Penguins. The following season, the Flyers named Mike Richards the new Captain, and he, along with Jeff Carter and Claude Giroux, began to cement themselves as the new face of the Flyers’ future, along with newcomers Scott Harnell, Kimmo Timonen, Chris Pronger, and (current Flyers General Manager) Danny Briere.
2009-10 began on a rocky note, however. Ray Emery was attempting a career revival in goal (who sadly passed away in 2018), but the Flyers themselves were shaky in front of him. The rough start, damaging injuries to key players like Timonen, Briere, and longtime Flyer Simon Gagne, and a coaching change that saw former Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette begat a second half that brought the Flyers to a dramatic final regular season game, setting the stage for one hell of a fun playoff run.
This also says nothing of the goaltending drama that besieged the Flyers, as injuries plagued the crease as well. Ray Emery was injured and sidelined midway through the season. Brian Boucher (who made a return to the Flyers this season) was also dealing with his share of injuries throughout the year. To help, the team also brought back another former Flyer in Michael Leighton (who also fell victim to the injury bug at some inopportune times).
The Final Day
April 11th, 2010 was the final day of the regular season for both the Flyers and the New York Rangers, and only one team was going to keep playing after that. Through some late-season excitement, the Flyers and Rangers faced off in a home-and-home set that ended up deciding the fate of both teams. Had the Flyers won the first game of the two, the last game would have been inconsequential. Alas, the Flyers are not known for making life easier on themselves (again, a recurring Philly sports trait, it seems).
To make matters more interesting was the fact that the eighth seed was already decided, as Montreal had locked up their trip to the playoffs already. Both the Flyers and Rangers were at 86 points, and would finish in a points tie with the Habs with a win, but would earn the seventh seed by having more wins.
April 11th was also the final game officiated by long-time NHL referee Kerry Frasier, which I only learned going back to watch the game on YouTube.
The game began poorly for the Flyers, as New York jumped out to a 1-0 lead, and the Flyers generally just played poorly. A second-period tilt featuring Ian Laperriere seemed to turn the momentum back to Philly, however, who picked up the pace and pressured Henrik Lundqvist. Hank held the Flyers off until the third, when Matt Carle tied the game at 1 on a power play. This score held through OT until a shootout.
What a way to decide a season, ammirite? Also side note: this may be a hot take for some of you, but I watched this OT period and I vastly prefer the old 4-on-4 to the 3-on-3 we get now.
Anyway, shootout heroics by Briere and Giroux, along with great saves by Boucher sent the Rags home and the Flyers to a playoff date with the New Jersey Devils.
Believe it or not, it wouldn’t be long before this was forgotten about, as the season was about to get way more interesting for the Flyers.
Round One
Round one is probably mostly lost to time for a lot of Flyers fans, but it still had an impact on the playoff run to come. The Flyers took the series from New Jersey in five games, but it was a closer tilt than that would suggest. It took unlikely heroics from players like Dan Carcillo to give the Flyers this series win, along with some incredible goaltending by Boucher.
What is probably most memorable from this series is the loss of Laperriere, who…well, I’ll just let this video do the talking. Lots of blood in this one, so queasy stomachs should probably scroll by this:
Laperriere would cement himself as a Flyers icon after this, but this shot ended his season (and effectively his career). Like the Flyers or not, you have to admit that this man was a warrior.
The Comeback
As if the season itself and how it ended weren’t dramatic enough, round two would prove to be almost a season’s worth of excitement rolled up into seven games.
The Flyers drew the Boston Bruins, bolstered by a young Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, and Tuukka Rask in goal. Boston had just come off a series win against Buffalo (yes folks, the Sabres used to make the playoffs), and wasted no time in this series, besting the Flyers in each of the first three games of the series.
The Flyers managed to stay alive in game four, winning in overtime off a deflection goal by Simon Gagne.
I was lucky enough to be at this game— home on military leave, tailgated in the parking lot before the game, and witnessed an exciting Flyers OT win. I laughed off all the fans yelling about a comeback, or “Flyers in 7!” on my way out.
Boy, was I wrong.
Game five returned to TD Garden, and the Flyers managed to shutout Boston 4-0. This was after an injury to Brian Boucher, who had played exceptionally well to that point, brought Michael Leighton into action after being out with his own injury.
Game six…surely Boston clinches it here, right?
Nope. Michael Leighton played out of his mind, and the Flyers held on for a 2-1 win, tying the series at seven, and setting the deciding game seven at TD Garden.
This video will tell you everything you need to know:
For the Philadelphia Flyers, a comeback that they will remember forever. For the Boston Bruins, a collapse they will never be able to forget. - Jack Edwards, NESN Bruins play-by-play.
Before we get to game seven, let me set up the situation for you, dear reader.
Before this moment, only two teams in all of the history of the NHL had come back from being down 0-3 in a best-of-seven series, with the most recent being the 1975 NY Islanders. Even in the years since 2010, only one other team (the 2014 LA Kings) have managed to successfully do it again.
But, in all of North American sports, only ONE additional team (the 2004 Boston Red Sox) had managed such a comeback.
You can understand now why this was such a big moment.
The Flyers certainly didn’t make this easier. If you didn’t watch that video above, the Flyers surrendered three quick goals in the first period, bringing them into yet another 0-3 hole. A late first-period James Van Riemsdyk goal gave the Flyers life, and they brought all that momentum to the forefront in the second period, tying the game back up at 3. A Simon Gagne power-play goal in the third period would be the dagger in the backs of the Bruins, and the Flyers would make history on that day.
It was an amazing game, and capped off an incredible (if aggravating) series. It also gave us this awesome TV spot in the next season’s playoffs:
Side note: The NHL’s marketing was really on fire in this era. The commercials we got around this time were incredible, and they need to make a return to TV spots like this.
Montreal
It’s hard to top that series in terms of straight excitement. The third round against Montreal was interesting because it was the first time the 7th and 8th seeds would meet in a playoff series. It was funny, if nothing else.
Montreal was on its own Cinderella run this season, besting both the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Washington Capitals in seven games, and then ousting the defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games. Either team could have won this series and it would have been an awesome storyline. The fact is that the Canadiens were simply out of gas by the time they met the Flyers, and Philly brought all that grit and momentum into this series that they gained from the Boston win.
The Flyers ousted the Habs in five games, and it was evident that the Canadiens didn’t really stand much of a chance in this one. While they managed a fairly convincing 5-1 win in Montreal in game 3, the Habs only scored two goals in all of games 1, 2, 4, and 5. Michael Leighton was absolutely brilliant in this series.
And it gave Philly fans this moment:
Stopped short
The Flyers managed an insanely improbable Stanley Cup appearance, facing off against a newly rebuilt Chicago Blackhawks. A Cup final that was filled with its own share of odd moments and drama, but ultimately saw the Flyers fall in six games from a weird Patrick Kane OT winner. This series wasn’t without its positive moments for Philly, but those have mostly been lost to time and the fact that they came up only two games short of glory.
I give some credit to the Blackhawks for matching the Flyers’ grit so well in this series, and Laviolette was also just simply outcoached by Joel Quenneville. I also think the Blawkhawks can go f*** themselves, considering what was revealed to have been going on behind the scenes years later.
The Legacy
15 years later, this playoff run still lives in the minds of Flyers fans. For a city with a “love ‘em or hate ‘em” fanbase, the sheer warrior-mindset that was on display through this playoff run is the stuff legends are made of. Had the Flyers actually reached the pinnacle and lifted the Cup, they would’ve gone down in the annals of hockey history as one of the most underdog teams to claw their way to glory.
Sadly, they’re little more than a footnote to the rest of the hockey world now, as most second-place teams are. But for anyone who watched wearing the Orange and Black, it was history. A roller coaster of emotions. A season that almost was, but an epic playoff run for the ages that was worth every bit of the ride.
History was made. Even if it didn’t end the way Flyers fans wanted.