Mike Richards

In the end, Giroux ultimately held the keys to his destination. Florida was where he wanted to be. That left the Flyers limited in what they could get in return. If nothing else, the return in the Giroux deal is more of a reality of what the state of the Flyers is and remains after this trade, and the result of years of shortcomings by the organization.

In the nine games the Flyers and Islanders have played since meeting in the playoffs, five have gone to overtime. The Flyers have won all five, including Sunday night on a goal by Kevin Hayes, securing a fourth straight win and a four-point weekend against the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last season.

The Flyers face the Montreal Canadiens in the first round, and there’s certainly plenty of storylines to look at in this series. Here are five to watch for.

The Flyers played their first home game in the Spectrum against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Oct. 19, 1967 and claimed a 1-0 victory. For the next 29 seasons, the Flyers called the Spectrum home, before the concept of a new state-of-the-art arena came to be and the then-named CoreStates Center was built in time for the 1996-97 season.

It is a series that proved why every game of the series matters and how many little moments can shift the momentum or make a team rise to the occasion. Here is a look back at the Flyers improbable comeback against the Boston Bruins in 2010 as we continue our Series in Review series.

Someone’s long drought was going to come to an end. Obviously, we know which one ended and the heartbreaking ending it was for the Orange and Black against the Chicago Blackhawks. But how close were the Flyers to actually winning the series and their first Stanley Cup since 1975 back in 2010? That’s what we’ll look at in this Series in Review.

It will not go down as the most memorable decade in Flyers franchise history, but there were certainly a few great moments from start to finish in the 2010s.

With 10 games remaining on the schedule, it remains to be seen if the Flyers take this win and turn it into some magical last-gasp playoff run that gets them in, but it kept their playoff hopes alive for now.

Six years ago, then Flyers GM Paul Holmgren made a trade that is widely regarded as the worst in franchise history when he sent James van Riemsdyk to Toronto for Luke Schenn. The Flyers president is among the many in Flyers management excited to have JVR back in Orange and Black.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The day the Flyers decided to change the face of their franchise, June 23, 2011, seems like a long, long time ago for Mike Richards. Now a Los Angeles King, Richards was once the captain of the Flyers and had to play his old team early on the next season...