Flyers Season Ends With a 1-0 Loss to Caps

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers never admitted that what they were doing was playing with house money, even though it was clear that was what was happening.

Sunday afternoon they finally ran out of steam. Goalie Michal Neuvirth was the last of the fumes, making 28 saves in a 1-0 defeat at the hands of the Washington Capitals in the first round of the playoffs.

Without a goal, nothing else could save the Flyers.

Not God Bless America, not the theme song from Rocky, not their star players, who are some combination of burned out and injured.

A comeback fell short Sunday and the Capitals won the series in six games, avoiding talk about letting another series slip through their hands.

There was plenty of opportunity for the Flyers to get back into the series against the Presidents’ Trophy winning team. The power play usually, well, powers teams in the postseason, but the Flyers went 1-for-24 in the series.

Their game plan was to hold the Capitals off for as long as possible and it got them pretty deep into the series until Nicklas Backstrom scored in the second period.

The bend-but-not-break play allowed the goal when Radko Gudas tried to hit Alex Ovechkin instead of playing the puck and the Washington captain passed to Marcus Johansson, who found Backstrom with a one-timer over the outstretched glove of Neuvirth.

It broke streak of 72 consecutive saves for Neuvirth, who was the Flyers’ best player in the series appearing first in Game 4.