(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we're bound to lose some friends along the journey. We've asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The bloggers and fans who hated them the most. Here is Jason Rogers of Japer's Rink, a Capitals fan, fondly remembering the 2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers.)

(Again, this was not written by us. Also: This is a roast and you will be offended by it, so don't take it so seriously.)

BY JASON ROGERS (Find him on Twitter here.)

It's an unseasonably warm day in Philadelphia, and the world is ending.

Alien invaders, or maybe giant bugs, or even perhaps the Russians, are laying waste to the city. Independence Hall lies in ruins, shrouded in tattered tourist pamphlets and the collected indifference of decades of field trips. The Liberty Bell, fused back together by the unfathomable heat of an errant death ray, no longer shows any crack, and is forever divorced from the hearts of Philadelphians as being “too prude or somethin'.”

From amongst the rubble, Flyers GM Ron Hextall emerges. Wiping dust from his suit and someone weaker's anonymous blood from his goatee, he surveys the scene. He spies two invaders and cross-checks one clean in half with his goalie stick. He trips the other with the shocking dexterity of Little Bo Peep sent to SWAT school. His downed foe mutters something that sounds like “trapezoid” and vanishes.

Hextall whirls around and cranes his neck up to see a new wave of better, faster, stronger opponents encircling Philadelphia. One after another they fire shots, destroying building after building, institution after institution, leveling the city and leaving nothing but smoldering remains and a palpable lack of hope.

Surveying the destruction, Hextall takes a long drag of a gnarled cigar and spits.

“Whatever, it was a rebuilding year anyway.”

* * *

What can you say about the Philadelphia Flyers' 2015-2016 season that hasn't already been said about the Donner Party? “Who thought we'd even make it this far?” “Our roster is young and meaty.” “No one can say we weren't hungry.”

“Playing with house money” is a lovely self-assurance but something only gamblers say, and only when they're losing. It is the self-awarded participation ribbon of professional sports, and sure doesn't catch the light like a trophy does. To be content with a first-round exit in the Stanley Cup playoffs is the hallmark of a broken city, beaten down and demoralized by years of futility and being told cheez whiz on a meat Kleenex is a point of pride.

The Flyers' 2015-2016 season began with the blockbuster, franchise-resurrecting hire of a coach with no professional coaching experience. Dave Hakstol, the apparent lovechild of an isosceles triangle and a weasel, was brought in from the University of North Dakota.

View photos Philadelphia Flyers newly-hired head coach Dave Hakstol steps down from the stage after speaking at a news conference, Monday, May 18, 2015, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum) More

Many wondered if a place of such cultural desolation and unflinching irrelevance would present a culture shock, but no: Hakstol quickly adjusted to life in Philadelphia. Ask any Flyers fan and they'll tell you that his year was a nonstop rocket ride to the top, a meteoric parabola of unfettered success and surpassed expectations, a crazy go-go rollercoaster of dreams un-dared to be dreamt, culminating in any franchise's ultimate goal of fifth place in the division.

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