Going into their game against the Boston Bruins on Thursday night at the TD Garden, the Philadelphia Flyers knew it was a huge four-point swing in the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Flyers have stumbled recently and are falling quickly from the postseason picture. They entered the game eightpoints behind the Black and Gold in the race for the final wild-card spot.
On Wednesday night, Philadelphia dropped a 5-3 decision to the Columbus Blue Jackets, which meant they were looking at a must-win in regulation against the Black and Gold. Boston took advantage of the Flyers playing on a back-to-back enroute to a 6-3 win to climb 10 points up on Philadelphia in the postseason race, despite losing Pavel Zacha to an injury. After the game, frustration is boiling over with the Flyers.
Travis Konecny shows frustration after loss to Bruins
The Bruins sent an early message to Philadelphia on Thursday night, grabbing a 2-0 lead through the opening 20 minutes and then 5-2 through 40 minutes. As we have learned this season, when Boston holds a lead through two periods this season, they rarely lose. They got an empty-net goal from Marat Khusnutdinov in the final period for the 6-3 win. After the game, Konecny's frustration boiled over when he met with the media.
“I mean, it’s frustrating because I’ve been through this so many times. I just want to make the playoffs. That’s kind of all I look at right now,” Konecny said. “Just try to get points for the team. We need to figure something out.”
It has been a tough tenure for Konecny in Philadelphia, but given how last year was for the Bruins and how this year started, it would have been easy to see Boston having frustration this time of year. The Olympic Break begins in just about a week, and when teams return at the end of February, a crazy stretch run for the postseason will begin. The Flyers have two games remaining with the Black and Gold at home, but just where both teams are in the standings and what's at stake in those two matchups remains to be seen.