The Philadelphia Flyers were one of the NHL’s hottest teams before the coronavirus pandemic halted play on March 12. Now we’ll finally get to see if they will be able to maintain their high-flying level of play after a four-month layoff.
The Flyers — along with other returning NHL teams — will report to training camp on Monday to prepare for the restart of the 2019-20 season.
At the time of stoppage, the Flyers had surged up the league standings to nab the No. 4 spot in the Eastern Conference, winning 10 of their final 12 games to sneak into one of those top spots.
It paid off greatly for them as they get to avoid the NHL’s best-of-five qualifying tournaments that await the 5-12 seeds in each conference, bringing the teams headed to the league’s central hub up to 24. All Eastern Conference teams, including the Flyers, will report to Toronto for their games while Western clubs will head to Edmonton.
Rather than facing elimination in a play-in series, the Flyers will have an opportunity to ramp up to the high-stakes of playoff hockey with a round-robin tournament amongst the top four teams in the East to determine the final seeding.
Their schedule is as follows:
- Aug. 2 at Boston Bruins
- Aug. 6 vs. Washington Capitals
- Aug. 9 at Tampa Bay Lightning
Any ties during the round-robin tournament will be broken by regular-season points percentage, which doesn’t favor the Flyers much. They have the worst points percentage of the four teams at 57.2%. Regardless, the Flyers have a combined winning record against the three teams ahead of them this season, sporting a 5-3-1 record.
A considerable amount of attention throughout training camp will likely be focused on young Flyers goalie, Carter Hart, who will be preparing for his first postseason at just 21 years old. He had been sterling in his last 14 starts before the stoppage, posting an 11-3-0 record with a .929 save percentage and a goals-against-average of just over two.
