Phanatic Hockey Editor
The latest edition of Phanatic Biweekly delves into the times the Orange and Black came up short throughout their first 59 years, but where the setbacks made some kind of noticeable impact on the direction of the franchise.
Touch some grass, soak up the sun. Grab a beverage and turn off your mind. Here’s the 10 Greatest Losses in Philadelphia Flyers history.
10. Dec. 22, 2023: Red Wings 7, Flyers 6 (SO) - Little Caesars Arena. The countdown begins with a major comeback in Motown. Defense was optional throughout the contest, the first period in particular. Permanent nemesis Patrick Kane scored twice and the Wings were up 5-1 after 20 minutes. Curiously, head coach John Tortorella opted to keep starter Carter Hart in goal for the remainder of the night and from there, he was noticeably better than his Detroit counterpart, James Reimer.
The rally began on strikes from Sean Couturier and Morgan Frost in the 2nd, followed by Garnet Hathaway, Scott Laughton and Owen Tippett with 5:07 left to give the visitors the lead. A late tally from Dylan Larkin and shootout winner from Kane put Detroit in the win column but also put Flyers fans on notice that a big leap forward for this young roster was possible.
9. March 2, 2002: Rangers 6, Flyers 5 - Madison Square Garden. Although Eric Lindros reintroduced himself to the Philly faithful as a Broadway Blueshirt less than 2 months prior, this was his true New York debut.
Still firing on all cylinders after a year away from the game, Big E rifled home 3 goals in a span of less than 10 minutes of play between the 1st and 2nd periods, staking the hosts to a 4-0 lead and posting his first post-Philly trifecta.
But Simon Gagne, working through his 3rd NHL season and counted on to be the brightest young gun in a youth movement, answered twice, Eric Desjardins and Jeremy Roenick followed early in the 3rd and Gagne added his hat trick score with less than 8 minutes to play. Lindros’ career soon faded due to the after effects of repeated concussions, while Gagne went on to record nearly 300 goals in his 11-year Flyers career.
The goalie carousel which saw 3 different players (Brian Boucher, Sergei Bobrovsky, Michael Leighton) man the nets in 11 playoff outings over 2 rounds. The off-ice rampage of Messrs. Carter and Richards. Dry Island. Kris Versteeg.
Ordered to dredge up a franchise goaltender from the highest of heights, then-GM Paul Holmgren sacrificed the club’s two young leaders 48 days later to snag one Russian space cadet. Their leftover cash also managed to lure Jaromir Jagr back to the NHL and, apparently, off all team pictures in CONSOL Energy Arena. The ensuing 93-game regular and postseason was certainly one for the memory banks. We’re still waiting for Claude Giroux to officially take the mantle of “Best Player in the NHL” from Sidney Crosby, though.
7. Nov. 29, 1991: Penguins 9, Flyers 3 - The Spectrum. Three words: “PAUL MUST GO”
Baby, if you ever wondered when there was a time Philly fans didn’t either blindly follow Mister Snyder or simply wandered away in apathy, it was Black Friday during Paul Holmgren’s 4th year as head coach.
Mired in the midst of an 0-7-1 string which included a 7-3 home loss to Hartford less than 48 hours prior, Flyers fans didn’t exactly come loaded for bear when this one started, but were screaming for vengeance by the end. When it was 6-0 Pittsburgh late in the 2nd period, two separate, competing three-word chants began at the end seats, repeatedly and loudly clashing at center ice in a distorted symphony of discontent.
The Sniders, with much face to save, certainly heard the angry herd. Because their choice for a replacement bench boss (Bill Dineen) was incognito somewhere south of the Adirondacks, it took 2 more losses and 6 more days before Homer was officially sent packing. Dineen’s avuncular manner would be a factor in Lindros’ development as a rookie the following season. Holmgren wasn’t a significant player within the front office until well after an exile of 3-plus seasons as coach and GM with the Hartford Whalers.
6. Apr. 16, 2024: Capitals 2, Flyers 1 - Wachovia Center. Who cares whether Tortorella knew or did not know, threw or did not throw, the club’s final game of the 2023-24 season, one in which they needed to win to keep their slim hopes for a playoff berth alive?
It was the most compelling terminal regular season game for the franchise in almost 30 years. Needing a goal and a win to improve their standing, Torts opted to pull the now-dearly-departed Sam Ersson with roughly 5 minutes left in regulation. T.J. Oshie nailed that coffin shut.
At the same time, the fates of the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins were held in the balance and more conspiratorial minds made like Charlie Kelly and started stringing 2 and 2 together with a lot of wishes as connective tissue to come up with a conspiracy theory. Problem is, nobody could really put it past the crafty and mercurial head coach. Lose, but never be boring.
5. March 25, 2025: Maple Leafs 7, Flyers 2 - Air Canada Centre. The exact minute everyone – including Flyers upper management – was done with John Tortorella. Typical for the disappointing Leafs to pile on an inferior foe, but when John Tavares, Auston Matthews and William Nylander all do the Happy Dance on your squad at the same time, someone’s ass had to be grass.
Before this loss, Torts was on record as unwilling to coach a full-on rebuild. After it, the fight between Torts and Cam York was publicized. With assistant Brad Shaw given carte blanche, it was an entertaining 9-game stretch to end the season, giving fans a glimpse of what their young players could do with time, space and a velvet hand at the reins. It was “high-event” hockey at its finest ahead of the sweeping changes that led to the current Tocchet Era.
4. Apr. 2, 1989: Penguins 6, Flyers 5 (OT) - The Spectrum. After failing to win in Philadelphia for 15 straight years, Pittsburgh scored a pair of victories twice in less than 2 months. This one, in the final regular season game loaded with meaning and playoff seeding, happened thanks to the Pens rallying from an early 2-0 deficit then blowing a 5-2 advantage.
Desperate for a win which would vault them up to 3rd place, Holmgren’s decision to pull Hextall and try for a winning goal in overtime, resulted instead with Mario Lemieux notching his personal record 85th goal, 114th assist, 199th point and locked the Orange and Black into 4th place and a date with division-winning Washington.
Historically, it was the last of a still-standing franchise record of 17 consecutive seasons reaching the playoffs. It also unwittingly set up a mammoth division finals series once the Flyers upset division-winning Washington, the first postseason meeting between franchises which were welcomed into the NHL in 1967.
The eventual seven game set to decide Patrick Division supremacy was rife with drama. And while we can make a case that Lemieux’s 8-point night in a 10-7 win in Game 5 of that series might have been a greater catalyst for the Flyers, it doesn’t happen without this Game 80 defeat.
3. November 19, 1985: Islanders 8, Flyers 6 - Nassau Coliseum. What happens when your defending Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender is dead, his countryman and teammate is back in Sweden to attend the funeral and your No. 1 blueliner is out with a lower-body injury while the team is riding a franchise record 13-game winning streak? Push the four-time Cup champions to the final second of regulation before their victory is secured.
Keenan’s Kids defied all logic in the wake of Pelle Lindbergh’s death. They won their 11th straight against the defending Cup champion Oilers on an emotional night whose impact has been dissected for decades. After breezing past Hartford, they were down 4-1 to the Islanders late in the 2nd period the next night and you’d think that luck would have run out. Instead, they rallied for 4 straight goals and a miracle OT win.
Two days later, the Isles – whose then-league record of 15 straight wins was on the line – looked like they would crash the party with a runaway as the North Stars did in January 1980 to stop The Streak. Instead, the visitors, down 5-1 after just 22 minutes, roared back with 4 power-play goals and 1 shortie. Ed Hospodar recorded the only 2 goal game of his entire NHL career. His tally with 2:29 left made it 7-6. Bryan Trottier’s empty netter at 19:59 finally put things to rest, keeping the Isles’ mark secure.
2. Apr. 2, 1972: Sabres 3, Flyers 2 - The Aud. Maybe the most important quote ever uttered (not written on a chalkboard) by anyone associated with the franchise, what Ed Snider repeated to his players on the flight home, as he said to head coach Fred Shero immediately following the worst loss in team history: “Nobody would lose his job over one disastrous goal.”
That one disastrous goal was scored by Buffalo’s Gerry Meehan with 4 seconds left in Game 78, with the Flyers needing just one point to leapfrog the Penguins and into 4th place in the East Division.
Twenty-three days earlier, Shero’s team was in solid playoff footing, 3 points ahead of the Golden Seals with 11 games to go. They went 3-4-3, including a 4-4 home tie vs. the Penguins the day before which put them 2 points up with 1 remaining. Pittsburgh would win the head-to-head season series tiebreaker with a win and Flyers loss. Meehan beat an unscreened Doug Favell with a 45 footer to win the game, Philly’s only defeat in their last 6 contests.
“It was like getting shot,” said Bill Clement in Jay Greenberg’s Full Spectrum.
“I feel dead inside,” admitted Bobby Clarke in the same chapter.
The mercurial Snider decided to take the long view for once, as Greenberg related: “It was unbelievable what happened. But once I got used to it, I realized we had made great strides. I was still totally and completely confident.”
The only move of significance the front office made in the wake of the unreal setback was to secure Bernie Parent from the Blazers in the WHA, which had nothing to do directly with Favell’s error.
Just 777 days later, the Stanley Cup came to Philadelphia.
1. May 31, 1987: Oilers 3, Flyers 1 - Northlands Coliseum. Until the day they win it all, Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Edmonton will stand as the high-water mark for the franchise regarding playoff prowess.
More than any other loss, it stands as a model by which all future Flyers playoff teams will be judged; outmanned and injured, a team with 4 or 5 star players at best took the greatest offensive machine in league history which boasted a half dozen potential Hall-of-Famers down to the final 2 ½ minutes before the championship was decided.
What if Brian Propp’s shot in the 1st period, minutes after Mark Messier tied the game, actually made it all the way through Grant Fuhr’s pads? What if Ilkka Sinisalo didn’t throw an absolute brick on net from 15 feet away with nobody in sight with the game tied, 1-1, early in the 2nd period? What if the puck hadn’t skipped over Ron Sutter’s stick at the Oilers’ blue line with clear ice ahead early in the 3rd period in a 2-1 game?
Legend has it Keenan brought the Cup into the locker room pregame to goose the ultimate visualization for a roster mentally and physically wiped from 26 games in 53 days and 117 since September. Maybe he should have bribed arena staff to poison a few Edmonton pregame meals instead.
Hextall made 40 stops in his 26th playoff game and 92nd appearance of the season, rightfully earning a Conn Smythe Trophy he’d rather not have won. Wayne Gretzky called him the greatest goalie he’d ever faced.
“I’ve never been shot with a bullet,” said Norris Trophy runner up Mark Howe “But it couldn’t hurt any more than this.”
It will be 40 years next spring, and the bullet holes in thousands of fans have healed but never faded.
