Isaac on the Ice - Flyers Grades at the Christmas Break

NEWARK — The rush is over for the Flyers in a crazy finish of 2016. Over a span of 26 days they played 14 games and enter the Christmas break on a 11-2-1 streak in that time.

Recent success has pushed them to the top spot in the wild card in the Eastern Conference with 46 games to play, five shy of the true halfway point of the season. But every team pauses for a few days, so what better time to take inventory on how the Flyers have done so far?

“This is a hard stretch for the players,” coach Dave Hakstol said before the Flyers’ 4-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils Thursday night. “It’s 36 games in 69 days. It’s basically a game every two days. I can’t put myself in the players’ shoes, but from what I’ve seen that’s a tough road. Guys have done a good job with it.”

All the talk coming into the season for the Flyers was about having a better start than in years past and they barely accomplished that with a 3-5-1 start in the first couple weeks of the season. The reason why they are where they are is the 10-game win streak that pushed them up from the basement of the Metropolitan Division and kept them in line with the top guns.

“We’ve put ourselves in a good position after that amount of time, but it’s not about where you are 35 games in,” Hakstol said. “It matters where you are the last regular-season game. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but guys have done a good job to this point.”

Just how good of a job? The grades are in at the unofficial midway point of the season.

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