April 04, 2026
Alexander Wohl/Imagn Images
Owen Tippett matched his career-high 28 goals during Friday night's crucial Flyers win over the Islanders.
A big-time dud was met with a greater answer.
The Flyers went up to Elmont and shut down the New York Islanders, 4-1, on Friday night, bouncing right back from the wall of a 4-2 loss to Detroit that they skated into the night before, and pulling themselves to within just a point of the Isles for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
They have 88 points now through 76 games, bringing them up to speed with Ottawa, Columbus, and Detroit – who were each off on Friday – in the chase for the Eastern Conference's second Wild Card spot. New York, meanwhile, is only hanging on to their 3-seed with 89 points through 77 games completed.
The Flyers are in this. They certainly haven't made it easy, but they're closer to the playoffs than they've been all season, and really, in years. And they'll have six games left to try and sprint to the finish line and into the postseason, beginning Sunday back at home against the Boston Bruins.
"This is where we wanted to be at the start of the year," said defenseman Travis Sanheim, who turned in an excellent effort Friday night. "We're not done yet. A lot of work ahead."
But Friday night against the Isles felt like it just dumped a whole lot of fuel onto the fire.
The Flyers can do this.
Owen Tippett scored the opening goal with a great sweep of the stick at the defensive blue line that sprung himself and Travis Sanheim into a 2-on-1 rush up the ice that left the Islanders and their netminder Ilya Sorokin tied up.
Alex Bump, in his return to the lineup, peeled around from off the offensive wall and fired a shot that zipped right over Sorokin's shoulder and in.
Then Matvei Michkov, who had a particularly brutal game against Detroit the night before, had a loose puck fall right to him in front of the New York net that he ended up banking off of Sorokin's numbers from behind the goal line to put the Flyers up, 3-0.
Midway through the third, after the Isles found their way on the board via a Jean-Gabriel Pageau goal, Bump and Michkov both came back to spin the puck around in the New York zone and set up Sanheim cruising in with a pass all alone.
The defenseman took the puck in, took one more stride, and effectively put the Islanders away with another shot to beat Sorokin and go back up three.
Islanders head coach Patrick Roy, looking for anything to happen for his team, pulled Sorokin for an extra attacker with well over seven minutes left still to play. The Isles had 19 shots on goal when Roy made that call. The Flyers took away nearly every look and stepped into every lane to allow them just two more (even though they couldn't manage to score on the empty net themselves), which Dan Vladar stopped without issue to close out another big performance in the crease from the No. 1 goaltender.
Anyone who stumbled against Detroit on Thursday night rose to the occasion on Friday against the Islanders – in short order, too, because of the back-to-back.
And anyone who wasn't in seemed to step right back out there and found a way to make a difference.
"A lot of resilience from our team," head coach Rick Tocchet said after the Islanders win. "I just loved the energy, especially early. It's a tough building to come into. They had a couple days' rest, and then I thought when they pulled their goalie, we handled the pressure pretty good. We used the bench. Everybody contributed tonight."
And they're back in this because of it.
The Flyers are still walking a fine line, though.
Every game left from here on out is carrying a "must-win" weight to it, and there's going to be scoreboard watching when it comes to the Isles, Blue Jackets, Senators, and Red Wings, knowing, too, that there's going to be one more likely major contest between the Flyers and Wings in Detroit next Thursday.
The Bruins back at home on Sunday also represent a tough matchup, as they've pulled away with the No. 1 Wild Card seed and are 6-2-2 in their last 10 games.
But the Flyers, after everything, are still in this, and maybe at this point, that's all they really need to know.
"It's just our heart," Vladar said. "We are willing to play for each other. We care about each other, and we just wanna extend our season. But obviously, you know, it's still gonna be a grind. So we're not getting too high, and we're still trying to battle and get ready for the next one."
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