2012 NHL Playoffs: Philadelphia Flyers' Least Wanted Matchups

With Saturday’s win over the Montreal Canadiens, the Philadelphia Flyers clinched a playoff spot for the fifth consecutive season, allowing the team to look ahead to its postseason road to the Stanley Cup.

Currently, Philadelphia sits in fifth place in the East, a tough position that will require the Flyers to play an away series against a dangerous second-place team in the Atlantic Division.

Any playoff matchup is difficult, but the Flyers have a short list of teams that would make the road to a championship more grueling than others. Here are five teams the Flyers do not want to face in a playoff series.

Buffalo Sabres

Any good hockey fan knows that the most dangerous team in the playoffs is a hot one, and that label goes to the Buffalo Sabres this season. With five games to go, the Sabres have a two-point lead on the Washington Capitals and look poised to make the playoffs, having won five games in a row.

Goalie Ryan Miller is the catalyst for the surge, winning 10 games in March, tied with Ilya Bryzgalov for the most in the league. Running into a hot goalie like Miller could spell doom for the Flyers’ offense, no matter how potent it has been during the regular season.

Buffalo entered the playoffs last year as a seven seed and nearly took out the second-seeded Flyers. For the teams to meet this playoff year, both teams would likely need to reach the Eastern Conference Final, barring a series of dramatic upsets or the unlikely event of the Flyers winning the Atlantic Division.

No matter the scenario, the Sabres will be coming into the playoffs hot, and that can make even the best hockey squad seem vulnerable.

Boston Bruins

The Bruins have been hot and cold this season, but being the defending champs, the Bs will prove to be one of the most well-prepared hockey teams in the playoffs.

Goaltender Tim Thomas is 4-1-0 in his last five starts and will likely return to his immovable object status once the playoffs come around. Young scoring sensations like Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand have another year of experience under their belts, and the team’s solid defensive and offensive corps make them one of the more well-rounded teams in the league.

Boston is also one of the most vicious teams in the league, so even winning the series can be considered a Pyrrhic victory. The Flyers may be so battered after a battle with Boston that they are unable to go much further in the playoffs.

The Bruins got redemption against the Flyers, who humiliated Boston with a 3-0 comeback in 2010, by sweeping Philadelphia in the second round of the 2011 playoffs.

It is unlikely these teams will meet until the second or third round of the playoffs, but you can bet that the Flyers have the Bruins in the backs of their minds as the countdown to the playoffs nears zero.

St. Louis Blues

Given that the Flyers can only face St. Louis in the Cup Final, a matchup against the Blues (or any other Western Conference team) would be a welcome problem for the Flyers.

However, St. Louis has proven to be one of the most unstoppable teams in the league this year. The Blues are on track for a President’s Trophy and have tied a modern-era record with 15 shutouts this year. They sit atop the most competitive division in all of hockey.

Beating the Blues would require the Flyers to win low-scoring games, and goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov would have to play nearly as well as Brian Elliot and Jaroslav Halak.

For all of the offense’s success and Bryz’s impressive performance of late, concerns about facing a shut-down defense and goalie tandem like St. Louis’ is a major concern for the Flyers.

Should Philly make it to the Final, a matchup against a team like Vancouver or Detroit might be a better draw for the Flyers.

New York Rangers

“You can’t beat us.”

Those were the chants booming through Madison Square Garden the last time the Flyers and Rangers met. The statement was as agonizing as it was true.

The Flyers have yet to beat the Rangers this season and have failed to do so in seven consecutive meetings dating back to last year. Some combination of Henrik Lundqvist, Ryan Callahan and Brad Richards has proven to be far too much for the Flyers this season.

Figuring out an opponent in the playoffs can be extremely difficult, but the Flyers have not yet managed to figure out the Rangers in a regular-season environment. The teams meet one more time before the postseason, with the Rangers in a bit of a skid, looking over their shoulders at the Penguins and Flyers.

This final regular season game could be a telling one, but if the Flyers drop an eighth straight matchup, instead of looking for a shot at redemption in the playoffs, it might be better for the Flyers to pray for someone else to take care of the Blueshirts.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Given the recent playoff history between the Flyers and Penguins, it is unlikely the Flyers would want to take on Pittsburgh in the playoffs even if Pittsburgh were an eighth seed on a cold streak whose captain was sidelined with a concussion.

As it is, the Penguins are riding an incredible hot streak since Feb. 19th and have a chance to snag the first seed in the East, and now have a virtually complete roster with Sidney Crosby finally returning to form.

On top of it, Evgeni Malkin is the league’s leading scorer, and he and James Neal sit second and fourth respectively in goals.

And of course, most of that success came before the game’s best player returned to the ice.

Pittsburgh will almost certainly go into the playoffs as the most dangerous team in the NHL, a squad that nobody in the postseason wants to face.

Throw in an intrastate rivalry that has seen the Penguins eliminate the Flyers the last two times the teams met in the playoffs, and you’ve got the potential for plenty of insult to be added to injury.

Of course, should these teams meet (and a first-round matchup is quite plausible), the Flyers will be as prepared as possible. And as intimidating as this Pens team is, there is nothing as exhilarating as the prospect of taking down a rival.