Philadelphia Flyers: Does Late-Season Performance Really Predict the Future?

Sam Carchidi‘s column on philly.com today started with the following:

Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen, a 12-year NHL veteran, said he has never seen a team excel when it limps into the playoffs. But right now, with 12 regular-season games left, the Flyers are limping. Badly.

Now, there is no one in Philadelphia who likes to push the panic button faster than Carchidi, but it got me thinking. Does a team’s level of play at the end of the season have a direct correlation to how it performs in the playoffs?

But before we attempt to answer that question, we must address another subjective question: what is considered “excelling in the playoffs”? Some would deem going to the Stanley Cup finals as a success, while others believe that anything outside of a championship is a failure.

However, for the purposes of this examination, we will consider Stanley Cup winners only, since that is the Flyers stated goal after reaching Game Six of the finals last season. It is worth noting that last year’s Eastern Conference champions were 4-3 to close the season, but only 5-8-2 in their last 15 games.  

So I investigated all five Stanley Cup winners since the lockout and it revealed the following:

2005-06 Carolina Hurricanes—Lost four of their last five games and were 9-8-4 in their last 21 games; finished second in the conference.

2006-07 Anaheim Ducks—5-3-2 in their last 10 games; finished second in the conference.

2007-08 Detroit Red Wings—12-3-1 in their last 16 games; however, they lost 10 of their previous 11 games; finished first in the conference

2008-09 Pittsburgh Penguins—6-1-1 in their last eight games; finished fourth in the conference

2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks—6-0-1 in their last seven games; however, they lost seven of their previous nine games; finished second in the conference

A few things standout from this research.  

1) Carolina, and to some extent Anaheim, proved that you don’t have to be clicking on all cylinders at the end of the season to win a Stanley Cup.

2) Two of the three teams that were on fire at the end of the season, Detroit and Chicago, also had massive losing streaks late in the year. I’m sure very few fans or media members in Detroit thought the Red Wings had any chance to win another Cup when they went 1-8-2 in February. The same goes for Chicago when they were 2-5-2 in late March.

3) You don’t necessarily need to win your conference to win a championship, but you want to finish in the top four seeds. The Flyers are not playing well right now, but barring a huge collapse, they will likely finish with home advantage in the first round.

So perhaps the Flyers' recent struggles aren’t as meaningful as some would lead us to believe. They could go on a run in the last 12 games, like the Red Wings in 2008, and this topic would be a distant memory.

That being said, even if they finish up the season going 6-6, they would be 9-6-2 in their last 17 games, which would put them on par with last year’s Cup winning Blackhawks. 

The only thing that’s certain with 12 games remaining is that the Flyers are going to be in the playoffs. And, of course, everyone involved would prefer that they were in sync before they start.

However, the statistics show that it’s probably wise to just buckle up and enjoy the ride, because it’s close to impossible to know what is going to happen until the postseason begins.

Visit http://crackingeggsofwisdom.com for Flyers game analysis as well my takes on other sports and pop culture.