‘We’ll grow from it,’ and more takeaways from the Flyers’ season-ending loss vs. Washington

John Tortorella didn’t know until after the Washington Capitals scored an empty-netter to give them a 2-1 lead, and an eventual win, that the Flyers had already been eliminated.

His team’s season actually ended just seconds prior to the T.J. Oshie game-winning goal with Sam Ersson pulled for the extra attacker. The Flyers needed a win to hopefully keep their season going but with 3.3 seconds left in regulation of their game against the Montreal Canadiens, the Detroit Red Wings got a goal on a wing and a prayer from David Perron. By tying things up and sending the game to overtime — Detroit would win in a shootout — they eliminated the Flyers.

So with that, the 2023-24 Flyers season comes to an end. Here’s what the players said following the season finale.

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You’d think an eight-game losing streak at the end of the season that cost the Flyers the postseason would change the trajectory for the last three games. But not this squad. As this team has shown all season in games, they did not give up and once again mounted a comeback. Unfortunately, the runway was shortened.

“I heard the word quit,” Tortorella said Tuesday morning, referencing the media. “Not a chance. I’ll tell you right now there wasn’t a [darn] second those guys quit. You got to be really careful how you use that word. No matter what context you want to put it in, at who, what, wherever. They didn’t quit for a second.”

And they didn’t quit against the Capitals. After Oshie scored with 3 minutes left in regulation, they had six shot attempts, including a shot by Ryan Poehling from 10 feet out as they pushed for an equalizer.

Quick reminder, Ersson is just a rookie. And in his first full season in the NHL, the goalie appeared in 51 games, including 49 starts. As Tortorella has said repeatedly in the last few weeks, he was not slated for anywhere near that. But the 24-year-old mostly stood tall in net.

“I feel like I wanted to play more,” Ersson said. “Obviously, played a lot, especially in the second half of the year, but that’s the type of player I want to be. I want to play a lot of games. It’s tough. We wanted to play more. We did a lot of good things this year, and obviously, I think we came up short.”

Against the Capitals, he stopped 16 of 17 shots, with the lone goal by Alexander Ovechkin being a lucky deflection from a point shot. It was his third straight game where he allowed one goal or less — he shut out the New Jersey Devils on Sunday — which showed his resilience after not winning his previous six starts.

“That is one of the most encouraging things of it all is that the last three games that Erss can go home in the summer with that,” said Tortorella Tuesday afternoon. “What was it, his 51st tonight? That’s ridiculous how much we played him. But he gets to go home feeling he rebounded and he found himself again. That’s very encouraging.”

It’s been well-documented how Sean Couturier’s season has gone. Returning from a back injury that required two surgeries and almost two years off the ice, Couturier played like a bat out of hell to start the season. But midway through he started to struggle and, after being named captain, he was even a healthy scratch on a couple of occasions.

“For me personally, it’s obviously, I think a little disappointing with the way I played in the second half of the year. It wasn’t good enough,” he said. “I wish I could have made a bigger difference. I just got to keep working, learn through it, and bounce back next year, I guess.”

Questions have been raised about whether he played too much at the beginning of the season. But if the Couturier who appeared at the start returns for a full 82 games next season, the Flyers will be in a good position and there could even be another Selke for the trophy case.

The message from the veteran defenseman, who scored the lone tally for the Flyers, was pretty simple after the game: the locker room is special, he loved playing in Philly — even if for a short time after being acquired at the trade deadline — and the experience the young guys have now received is undeniable.

“Coming into a game like tonight there was no nerves because I’ve seen it all,” he said. “And then I think if you have players on this team that haven’t seen something like this and they go through it like they did, it’s going to help them in the long run. I mean, those nerves will be a lot lower and you know what to expect in tight games like this. So it’s great for those guys. While it wasn’t officially a playoff game, this stretch of games was huge for their development.”

» READ MORE: ‘This one hurts’: The Flyers can only think ‘what if’ after falling agonizingly short of the playoffs

Indeed. Several players had never seen a postseason let alone a must-win game — or stretch of games — before. Not only did they gain that experience but they’ve also learned that playoffs aren’t guaranteed even when a team has been in good position for much of the season.

But a few of those young players did not see any time in the third period — or most of the game.

Bobby Brink played just 7:37 in the game but did not see the ice after the 7:54 mark of the second period. Morgan Frost’s last shift lasted six seconds in the second period and he did not play beyond the final 29:54 of the game. He played 8:02 total. And veteran Cam Atkinson played his lowest number of minutes this season — just 4:41 — with his last shift coming less than five minutes into the middle frame.

“It’s too bad some guys didn’t play, but I ended up shortening the bench pretty quickly because I thought other guys needed to get on the ice more,” Tortorella said. When asked if it was something these guys didn’t do or the guys were doing, Tortorella said: “Both.”

Although the end result is a tough one, the Flyers should hold their heads high because the expectations were not too high for this group. And why would they have been? They were coming off a year in which they finished third from the bottom in the Eastern Conference and 26th in the league and were adamant that the rebuild was on.

But they embraced the underdog mentality and for a good chunk of the season were in playoff position.

“From the start of the year, I think everyone was counting us out,” Laughton said. “Probably had that eight-game losing streak at the worst time of the year; couldn’t really regain that ground and it’s what cost us. We played pretty good hockey, pretty stingy hockey for most of the year. This one hurts though. Been in the playoffs all year and you get out, it’s tough. It’s a tough pill to swallow. This one is probably the toughest.”

» READ MORE: Danny Brière and the 2010 Flyers fondly remember playing for a playoff spot in Game 82

Yes, the wounds are somewhat self-inflicted, due to the losing streak, but as Travis Konecny told The Inquirer on March 26 before the Flyers’ 6-5 overtime loss to the New York Rangers “I think the one thing that we want to be able to hang our hats on is that we did all the right things.”

It took a little bit of time but they righted the ship. In the last three games, they allowed just three goals, scored six, and held the opposition to an average of 21 shots on goal.

As the alternate captain said: “We’ll grow from it.”