The scrappy Flyers’ playoff hopes fittingly come down to Game 82: ‘Ya gotta believe’

Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw said it best, “Ya gotta believe.”

OK, yes, he said it for a different baseball team that shall not be named, but the message still rings true for the Flyers because, as another baseball player said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

The Flyers’ eight-game losing streak is now a thing of the past. With consecutive wins for the first time since winning four straight out of the All-Star break, the Flyers are officially back in the hunt for a postseason spot. In fact, for a few minutes Saturday night, after a 1-0 win against the New Jersey Devils, they were back in playoff position as they jumped the Pittsburgh Penguins into the second wild-card spot.

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It was a short-lived moment as the Washington Capitals soon claimed the spot with their win, but the Flyers have made their matchup with the team from the nation’s capital on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Center (7 p.m. on NBCSP) quite interesting. The two squads are tied in points, along with the Detroit Red Wings, although the Flyers have played one more game.

“The stretch that we had probably came at the worst time and [we] couldn’t pick up a couple extra points there — which would have been huge at this time,” center Scott Laughton said. “But we’re not looking back, we’re looking forward. We continue to compete and guys are fighting for each other and we have all year. We’re going to try and get in here [to the playoffs] and a huge game coming up.”

The past is the past. Now all eyes are on the future and the last game of the regular season, because why wouldn’t the Flyers’ playoff hopes come down to Game 82? It is not the first time the Orange and Black would get in on the last day either; but unlike in 2010, the Flyers may have to wait until the Penguins’ game against the New York Islanders on Wednesday is decided.

Whatever comes to be, it certainly helps that the Flyers have refound the version of themselves that had them in the playoff picture for a good chunk of the season. And now they’ve been able to shake off the bad to still aim for their wildest dreams.

Once the darlings of the NHL — for their unexpected success — the Flyers, as goalie Sam Ersson put it, “Us as a whole team, we have gotten back a little bit to what we do best and really believing in our structure.” Structure has been a widely-used term these days around the Orange and Black. They lost it for at least six games with poor defensive play that saw them allow five goals to the Chicago Blackhawks, six to the Columbus Blue Jackets — and their awful cannon — and nine to the Montreal Canadiens. Three bottom-dwelling teams. Woof.

But now they have refound their structure. The shot-blocking, power-killing, transition gurus are officially back. Against the New York Rangers in their 4-1 win Thursday, all four of the Flyers goals came off the rush. In each of the last two games they ate pucks left and right (41 combined blocked shots), and Saturday night they got their NHL-best 16th shorthanded goal.

“It was just, you know, getting back to believing and we know where we’re at,” said winger Travis Konecny, who scored his NHL-leading sixth shorthanded goal. “We’ve talked in the room about, as long as we go home after the last three and say we gave it our best shot, it’s all you can do. You can feel it in the room right now, guys want to prove that we should be in the spot we’re at.”

Sitting in the visiting locker room at Madison Square Garden on March 26 before the Flyers’ 6-5 overtime loss to the Rangers, Konecny said something similar. “I think the one thing that we want to be able to hang our hats on is that we did all the right things,” he said. It took some time but they are now doing that.

And in case Konecny and his buddies were wondering if they will be able to hang their Flyers-branded hats comfortably in the end, the roar at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday night is a good indication they can.

“It feels good to win at home like that, hear the crowd like that at the end. Gives you a nice jump,” Laughton said.

Maybe, just maybe, this will give the Flyers not only a jump Tuesday but will help expedite the rebuild the organization is undertaking. After all, a rebuilding team isn’t supposed to be sniffing the playoffs — yet here they are.

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Coach John Tortorella has spoken often in the last few weeks about wanting his guys to get experience playing meaningful games. Well, the past few weeks have been chock full of those. Up until their win on Broadway, however, they weren’t up to the task. Now they’ve topped the No. 1 team in the NHL and beat a Devils team that was on the opposite end of the spectrum — expected to make the playoffs but floundered.

“Gives us a chance to fight another day,” defenseman Erik Johnson said. “Obviously, we all know that we need a little bit of help but I think if you asked us or a lot of you [the media] if we had a chance at playoff in Game 82, I think a lot of people would say that a feather in this group’s cap.”

A chance in Game 82 is definitely a nice feather in the cap. A playoff spot would be better.