Phil Kessel

The Flyers had a successful 2-1-0 road trip, but had their first lackluster game of the season on Saturday in Calgary. They will be looking to bounce back from that result. The Coyotes have struggled to start, still in search of their first win of the season. As such, the Flyers have to avoid a similar game to Saturday and playing down to the opponent.

For the next few weeks, we’ll take a look back on several playoff series in Flyers history, both won and lost by the Flyers, and review them to see some of the turning points within the series and how the result could have been different. We begin with the Flyers last playoff series back in 2018 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Flyers take on the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night in the final game on the West coast during their six-game road trip.

Winning streaks in the NHL don’t last forever, especially with so much parity in the league. But now the challenge for the Flyers is to not let one loss sink them and put them into a slide after building some solid ground early.

Darcy Kuemper was excellent all night and stymied the Flyers until the final five minutes of the game. The Coyotes 2-0 lead was cut to one with 4:43 to play, but it was enough to end the Flyers winning streak at five games in a 3-1 loss to Arizona at Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers and Penguins are ready to take it outside. Lincoln Financial Field serves as the backdrop as the Flyers look to keep any playoff hopes remaining alive in their final game before the all-important trade deadline. 

It hasn't happened often in the 18 games that Hart has started at the NHL level, but the rookie and the Flyers were out-dueled by the better goaltender. Matt Murray made 50 saves to keep the Flyers at bay in a 4-1 loss to the Penguins that stings, history aside. It marks a serious blow to any playoff hopes the Flyers had left.

The end of the season is now in sight and the Flyers possible final act in front of the Wells Fargo Center crowd was another embarrassing showing with no effort.

It's a series, so one game doesn't make a series. But this one was certainly telling. There's no way to truly know if this was a sign of things to come in the series until Game 2 on Friday, but much like the four regular-season meetings between these two teams, one team was clearly superior.

The Flyers get a tough draw in the defending back-to-back Stanley Cup champions in the Pittsburgh Penguins, Kevin Durso has a full preview inside.