Another over-extended NHL exhibition season ended Saturday evening in Boston for the Flyers, who appear better than many of us would have guessed a few months ago.



Steve Mason was superb in a 1-0 overtime loss (see story).



Sure, it was only preseason, but if you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic about Dave Hakstol’s club making a repeat appearance in the playoffs, we have two names for you — Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny.



They might provide the critical difference on a bubble team.



Now the bad …



Radko Gudas tempted fate — something he does with uncanny regularity — with a borderline hit on the Rangers’ Jimmy Vesey last week and avoided a suspension.



I would be stunned if he’s given yet another reprieve from the Department of Player Safety after his late, blindsided hit on Bruins’ rookie Austin Czarnik on Saturday.



Czarnik was injured and didn’t return. Don’t be surprised if Gudas misses the opening three-game road trip to start the season, which means the Flyers' precarious roster situation just got more precarious.



With apologies to Bill Lyon, here are 10 things I think I think.



1. In the final couple exhibitions, Hakstol did a lot of experimenting, mixing up his lines with unusual combinations. The fact Konecny worked all four lines — and with every veteran center on the club — showed how thorough a look this teenager was going to get. General manager Ron Hextall wanted every nook ‘n cranny of his game explored and that happened. Konecny is in.



2. The general populace has been down on Matt Read for a couple years now. He knows it, too. But Hextall believes there are 20-plus goals in that stick for the foreseeable future and has backed him all along, even saying last week he felt he had a “good” camp. With Brayden Schenn suspended for the opening three games of the season, Hakstol has auditioned a number of people on the left side of the first line with Claude Giroux. Read was the latest Saturday in Boston. Alas, he didn’t impress.



3. The power play has been very good some nights and very average on others. The Flyers still get a little too fancy with the puck and turn it over, but the fact remains, the movement is there and so are the good scoring chances. Power play should be better this season. It finished 11th last season.



4. Everyone knows how hideous the penalty kill was last season and the year before and the year before that. Boyd Gordon was brought in to eat up shorthanded minutes that would normally go to Giroux, thereby saving him for more worthy enterprises on offense. The right-handed Gordon had a reputation for being an excellent draw and it showed throughout camp. Win the draw, you start with the puck and don’t chase the play. His presence alone should significantly boost the PK, which looked miles better in preseason. The Flyers killed off 29 of 31 power plays — 93.5 percent.



5. Mason was very strong throughout camp. He had 10 saves — nine different shooters — in the first period alone against Boston. Mason came into camp saying he wanted to regain his No. 1 status and go for the prize — the new, long-term contract either he or Michal Neuvirth will get after this season. Mason, who had a spectacular point-blank save on Brad Marchand late in the game and then denied Patrice Bergeron in overtime, appears in midseason form and unlike seven other teammates, he didn’t play in the World Cup.



6. Nick Cousins earned a spot on the roster and clearly had a better camp than Scott Laughton, who likely would have been sent back to the Phantoms were it not for an injury. Cousins showed some versatility moving from center to left wing and played up and down the lineup and on the power play in Schenn’s role.



7. The only way Gudas is going to learn from his mistakes is to get tagged with a heavy suspension of more than three games or this is going to happen repeatedly this season. And why is this reminding me of Zac Rinaldo, who got waived this weekend? Could it be because he never learned his lesson, either?



8. The Flyers finished 4-2-2 in exhibition. Better than last fall? Best since going 4-2-1 prior to the 2011-12 season. Yet, they still struggled to put that little black disc into the big, white net. Where have we heard that concern before? The Flyers played eight games and their leading scorer had six points. What does that imply?



9. It goes without saying that Provorov made the roster. Under better circumstances, my gut tells me Hextall would prefer to send Konecny back to junior for more seasoning, despite how well he played and the fact he led the club in scoring with six points. He is easily the most exciting forward on the roster and he plays a fast, physical style. He is among a select few on the team who has a scent to bee line to the net with the puck.



10. Finally, thanks to Ryan Spooner, we avoided a shootout to end yet another, all-too-long preseason. That would have been an infamnia, as we say in Italian.