Philadelphia Flyers’ success isn’t a surprise to them

Joel Farabee didn’t understand the negativity.

As he walked into Philadelphia Flyers training camp last September, he saw a locker room that had become even more tight-knit over the summer. He saw key players like center Sean Couturier, now their captain, and winger Cam Atkinson finally healthy again. He saw a coach in John Tortorella who demanded effort every game — the last guy you’d expect to lord over a last-place season.

Yet the Flyers had been effectively counted out in preseason predictions. Their .457 points percentage in 2022-23 was seen as a harbinger of rough seasons to come. And it wasn’t coming just from media or fans: Team management had candidly communicated that the Flyers were rebuilding and not a Stanley Cup contender this season.

But that’s not what Farabee saw before the season. That’s not what a lot of his teammates saw either. And they weren’t happy about what they felt was disrespect from the rest of the NHL.

“We just came in with that F.U. attitude,” Farabee told ESPN. “Just seeing all the media, and everyone else, having us in the bottom five or bottom three in the league, whatever it was, I think it just fueled a fire and motivated us to stick it the doubters.”

Through 57 games, the doubters have been stuck. The Flyers are third in the Metro Division with a 30-20-7 record (67 points), trying to make the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2020. Instead of tabulating their lottery odds, as many anticipated, it’s their playoff odds that are getting the most attention: a 76.8% chance of making the cut as of Thursday, according to Stathletes.

“There was a chip on our shoulder from the beginning of the year. People were always saying that we were supposed to be one of the worst teams in the league,” defenseman Sean Walker said. “Once we started to win some games, we felt like we could be successful this year. And then we started actually doing it.”

TO A MAN, the Flyers say that training camp was where the belief started. The team had lost a few veteran players in the offseason, including trades that shipped out center Kevin Hayes and defenseman Ivan Provorov. Expectations were low for what was seen as a rebuilding campaign.

But Tortorella believed they could be better than that, and it started with team chemistry.

“For me the most important part of our summer prior [to the season] was our locker room. You could see early on that our locker room was together,” he said. “It’s just something you feel. It’s hard to explain how you see it. There’s no analytic for it. It’s just your gut and how you watch how they act.”

It’s something veteran defenseman Marc Staal experienced as one of a handful of new faces on the Flyers this season, signing in Philadelphia after helping the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final.

“When I got here, guys already had a really good culture and a good room and everyone enjoys each other’s company,” he said. “We’re able to push each other while still keeping each other accountable and having fun at the same time.”

“I knew the projections of what the Flyers were supposed to be. I didn’t really believe when I saw it,” Staal continued. “I looked at their lineup; they were getting players back, good goaltending. I was just like, they’re not far off, and that’s been proven that over the season.”

The word “belief” is heard a lot around the Flyers. It’s a mantra from Tortorella, a catchall word that refers to everything from desire to win to confidence that success can be achieved.

“The word ‘belief’ is huge for us. We’re not a team of stars, and we certainly don’t have things figured out here as the beginning of our process of rebuilding this. But belief brings in a lot of good things,” said Tortorella, in his second season with the Flyers and 22nd as an NHL head coach. “If you have the effort and you have the mindset that we’re going to do this together, you can stay competitive in this league.”

But at some point, belief isn’t enough. There has to be proof of concept to reinforce it.

For the Flyers, that came early. They started the season 3-1, including wins over the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers. Then came an overtime loss at the Dallas Stars and a tight 3-2 loss at the Vegas Golden Knights. The wins didn’t start arriving en masse until November, but those early efforts were fortifying.

“I think that first road trip, going into Dallas, Vegas [and playing other] top teams, we were right there,” Staal recalled. “We had some big wins, really close games, and I think that started to kind of build like, ‘Hey, we’re competitive every night. We have a chance.'”

ONE THING EXPECTED to be a drawback for the Flyers might have actually helped bond the team: the lack of true star players. Sure, Travis Konecny has 27 goals and Couturier is considered one of the better two-way centers in the league. But as Tortorella said, and Farabee reiterated, it’s not a team of stars.

“Obviously we’re one of those groups where it takes all of us to win games. We don’t have the one guy that’s going to score four goals and win us the game. It takes everybody, and it’s every night,” Farabee said. “We go into every game believing that we’re going to win the game, so I don’t think we overanalyze too many things. I think the good thing about our group is we kind of just go out there and play. We compete really hard. We’re hard to play against. I think if you have those attributes as a team, you give yourself a chance to win every night.”

New Jersey Devils coach Lindy Ruff said the Flyers are a “hard team to play against” as an opponent.

“For me, they’ve been a highly competitive team almost every night,” he said. “You’ve got to compete for all the ice you’re going to get in every zone. They’re defending well, and they’re playing the game quick. They’re creating some really good opportunities.”