My friend Dominic and I just got home from a week-long golf trip to Ireland. What a dream week: four rounds of golf on some of the world’s finest links courses, plenty of creamy pint of Guinness, delicious food. It was magical! One night, following a morning round of golf, we had an impromptu pub crawl around the town of Killarney, mixing our creamy pints with rounds of darts, live Irish music, and talking with locals and American tourists alike. 

One of Killarney’s most famous pubs is J.M. Reidy’s, a jovial joint with two stages for live music. Reidy’s was our third or fourth stop that night. We walked in out of the Irish rain, and I had to do a double-take. Because sitting at the bar, thousands of miles from home, was a man wearing an orange jersey. I couldn’t believe my eyes: in Killarney, Ireland of all places, was a man with a Philadelphia Flyers jersey. On a golf trip. In May 2026. 

And so in May 2026, in a pub on Killarney’s Main Street we struck up a conversation with Scott and his friend Rick about golf, about growing up in Philadelphia, and yes, about the Philadelphia Flyers. Which is remarkable in itself, of course. But even more remarkable considering the Flyers were in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This, after MoneyPuck.com gave the Flyers just a 3.8% chance of making the playoffs on March 18^th, with just 16 games left in the regular season. 

Things have been pretty bleak for my fellow Philadelphia fans and I over the past decade. The Flyers last made the playoffs in 2020, missing for five straight seasons from 2021-2025, which tied a franchise-worst drought. The team was rarely competitive over that stretch, only threatening to make the playoffs once in 2024. 

In the middle of that stretch of mediocrity, long-time captain and franchise icon Claude Giroux was traded away, franchise goaltender Carter Hart was charged with sexual misconduct dating back to his days on Team Canada’s World Junior Championship team, top-5 draft pick Cutter Gauthier refused to play for the Flyers and demanded a trade, and former general manager Chuck Fletcher was (rightfully) booed and heckled at a season ticket holder event. 

The 2025-26 season got off to a strong start, with the Flyers in playoff position most of the first half of the year, led by strong efforts from newcomers Trevor Zegras and Christian Dvorak and solid growth from young defensemen Cam York and Jamie Drysdale. But as we’ve seen the past several years, they regressed back to the mean. Between January 8^th  and the Olympic break on February 5^th, the Flyers lost 12 of 15 games, 7 of those games by 3 goals or more. 

Things looked so desperate that one noted local independent hockey journalist was quoted as follows:

January 31: “I’m ready to blow it up down to Martone and Michkov. Keep Martone, Michkov, Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, and the goalie in the KHL right now. Start over with the rest.”

February 26: “We need to have a conversation about the Flyers. Just that I’m ready to blow it up and get really awful. Fire sale. The Rangers are wisely doing it, but they already have a 1D / 1G.”

March 6: “We’re just gonna be mediocre for a while. They still foolishly believe they can contend.”

(Editor’s Note: The Editor can neither confirm nor deny that the Editor WAS said noted local independent hockey journalist. A good journalist never reveals their sources, after all!)

But after that now-famous 3.8% tweet from MoneyPuck.com, the Flyers went on a tremendous run. They swept their 3-game California road trip against Anaheim, Los Angeles, and San Jose (a rarity for those who know how poorly these West Coast swings typically go for the Flyers), and won 9 of their next 12 games. By April 7^th, with four games to go, that 3.8% probability of making the playoffs spiked to 62.5%. And on Monday, April 13^th, the Flyers successfully clinched a playoff birth for the first time in six seasons in a dramatic shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes. Eerily similar to the 2010 Flyers’ shootout victory on the last day of the regular season to clinch a playoff birth. With a Flyers goal, followed by a clutch stop in South Philadelphia. 

And that shootout victory set up a date with destiny: our fierce rivals to the west, the Pittsburgh Penguins awaited us in the first round. The Battle of Pennsylvania is one of the NHL’s longest and strongest rivalries, and especially so since the growth of the Penguins’ core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang from the mid-2000s on. The teams met four previous times in the playoffs from 2008-2018, with the 2012 first round series filled with tons of goals, fights, brawls, hits, hatred, and ultimately, a 4-2 series win for the Orange and Black. It was the single most entertaining playoff series I’ve ever seen in hockey.

The 2026 first round series with Pittsburgh reminded me a lot of that 2012 series; the Flyers came out swinging against Pittsburgh, literally and figuratively. They played like the “Broad Street Bullies” of days old: physical, fast, in your face. But they also played a lot like the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles: the underdogs, who everybody wrote off following a slew of injuries. They embraced their identity and fans took to them. For the first time in a long time, the Flyers were fun again. 

And for the first time in six long years, dating all the way back to Episode 21 of the Tour de NHL, playoff hockey was genuinely fun again. There were nightly texts back and forth to various Flyers fan friends about how fun the team was, how likeable they were, how amazing Dan Vladar was in goal, how hilarious that Trevor Zegras celebration was, how ridiculous that Porter Martone shot was. There were frequent FaceTime calls to my friend Kyle in New York, rocking his Flyers ski cap while tending bar at Standings on the Lower East Side. There were Instagram chats to fellow Yardley neighborhooder and hockey superfan Dylan about the wild atmosphere at Xfinity Mobile Arena, as he attended every home playoff game. And yes, there was a Guinness-fueled hype session with Scott and Rick at JM Reidy’s in Killarney. 

The Flyers dispatched the Penguins in six games, after Cam York slipped a shot through traffic and over goaltender Arturs Silovs’ shoulder. That goal sent York’s stick flying into the crowd, 20,000 Flyers fans into a South Philadelphia frenzy, and one noted local independent hockey journalist into a celebratory sprint around the living room. For all the talk of Crosby, Malkin, and Letang and their potential Stanley Cup swansong (and rightfully so, they’ve played together for 20 seasons on the same team), the upstart Flyers emerged victorious. 

Last night, the Flyers’ remarkable 2026 run ended with an overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. It wasn’t meant to be: the Canes are by far a much stronger, deeper, and faster team that deserved to win the series. Carolina is now 8-0 in the playoffs, and looks very much like a Stanley Cup championship squad, one that I will be pulling for as the playoffs progress. But there’s a lot to look forward to for the Orange and the Black.

Last season’s trade for Trevor Zegras looks like a solid move; he put up career highs in games played, goals, and points and looks like he LOVES playing in Philadelphia. He’ll fill in a key top-6 forward role for years to come. So too will Christian Dvorak, a center signed as a free agent in 2025 who also blew away his career high in points. Rookie forward Porter Martone clearly looks the part, putting up 15 points in 19 regular season and playoff games at 19 years old.

And goaltender Dan Vladar played his butt off to get the Flyers into the playoffs, and through the Penguins series. He was unquestionably the team’s MVP this season, and gave us a great explanation for the Flyers’ success:

“I can still continue to do the same things, still being positive because I feel like good things happen to good people, and we are good people in here, so we deserve this.”

I don’t know what next season will bring for the Philadelphia Flyers. But I know this team is fun again. This team is hungry again. And this team brought together a fanbase who so desperately needed this playoff run to reignite the fire and passion we have for our beloved Orange and Black. Borrowing from Kurt Russell at the end of 2004’s Miracle,

“A group of remarkable young men gave (Flyers) nation what it needed most. A chance, for one (postseason), not only to dream. A chance, once again, to believe.”