The Flyers are trying to stay grounded despite the added pressure of the playoff race

NEWARK, N.J. ― Picture it.

Edmonton, Alberta, 1987. The night before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. A young Rick Tocchet is getting ready for one of the biggest games of his career.

“I changed my routine before Game 7. The night before, I went to bed earlier. I didn’t go to dinner. I had room [service]. I changed what I usually did, and I had an awful game in Game 7. I didn’t play well,” the Flyers bench boss recalled recently.

The Flyers lost, 3-1, to the Edmonton Oilers, who had beaten them in five games two years earlier in the final. Tocchet would go on to win a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a player in 1992 and two more as an assistant coach in 2016 and 2017.

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“When I went to Pittsburgh, I did my routine. I was more relaxed, and I had a really good series. So just because the moments [are] so big, you don’t change things. ... I think what you do is you’ve just got to stay in the routine.”

This type of lesson is invaluable to a young squad that is on the precipice of leading the Orange and Black to its first playoff appearance since the 2020 COVID-19 bubble and first in Philly since 2018.

Of the 25 active players on the roster — quick reminder that after the trade deadline, there is no 23-man roster maximum as long as teams remain, but the team does have to be cap-compliant — 12 have played in a playoff game. Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, Christian Dvorak, Garnet Hathaway, Luke Glendening, Dan Vladař, Carl Grundström, Noah Juulsen, Nick Seeler, Owen Tippett, and Garrett Wilson have all gotten a taste of the heightened intensity the postseason brings.

Of that group, only Couturier, Konecny, and Sanheim have done so donning Orange and Black, while Wilson (10 games), Tippett (six), Seeler (five), Juulsen (two), and Vladař (two) all have minimal postseason experience.

But that also means 13 haven’t seen the postseason yet, including rookies Alex Bump, Porter Martone, and Denver Barkey, and veteran Rasmus Ristolainen, who, at 816 games, has the NHL active record for most regular-season games played without reaching the playoffs.

The veterans don’t necessarily seek out the younger players, but when it comes up, they try to remind them to just stay in the present.

“TK does a good job of that,” forward Trevor Zegras told The Inquirer. “Whether it’s sarcastic or not, his saying that he’s been going with for the past month: ‘It’s just another game.’ It’s smart, like, why change something now?”

Konecny said he’s just going about his business and that it “doesn’t matter if it’s a 50th game or the 75th game, I do the same thing.” Exactly. Why change anything when you’re rolling?

On March 4, Money Puck gave the Flyers an 11% chance of making the playoffs with 22 games to go. Entering Tuesday, they are third in the Metropolitan Division — one point up on the New York Islanders and two points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets, with a game in hand on New York. They now boast a 54.2% chance to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, according to the same outlet.

“I think we knew we needed a run, to be honest,” said Couturier, the captain who mentioned in February, before the restart after the Olympics, that the Flyers may have been down, but they were not out.

“We were behind in the standings,” he said. “We put ourselves back in a good situation. Now we can’t let down. There’s still five games left, five big games, we’ve still got to approach it one game at a time.”

Martone’s father, Mike, told The Inquirer during his son’s NHL debut that his message to the 19-year-old has always been “Be where your feet are.”

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It’s what the Flyers are doing right now, too.

“You look at the standings. Obviously, you want to know where you’re at, but as of right now, I can’t control whether we’re going to get into the playoffs or not today,” Konecny said Monday after the Flyers took their annual team picture and practiced at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

“Tomorrow, I can try to help that with the game — every shift, every opportunity, every battle, every wall play — that’s something you can do to contribute to helping. And then, whatever happens in [Tuesday’s] game, hopefully, we get the win, but if not, then move on to the next game.

“You just live day to day, game by game, and do your best dialing in and [being] detailed in those moments, and hopefully everything works out in your favor if we continue to do the right things.”

Tuesday: Flyers at New Jersey Devils, 7 p.m. (ESPN)

Thursday: Flyers at Detroit Red Wings, 7 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Saturday: Flyers at Winnipeg Jets, 7 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Monday: Carolina Hurricanes at Flyers, 7 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Tuesday, April 14: Montreal Canadiens at Flyers, 7 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)