Here’s the best-case scenario in Flyers’ regular-season finish

It sounded crazy when the Flyers were in the midst of a 10-game losing streak and Dave Hakstol kept citing that half of those games were lost in overtime or a shootout so the Flyers got a point. Fast forward to the last week of the regular season and they’d be in deep trouble without those five points.

There’s four games left and as imperfect as the Flyers are, their odds of returning to the playoffs are very good.

As evidenced by recent games, the best thing the Flyers could get in the final week of the regular season perpetuates the long-lived stereotype of Philadelphia: they need some consistency between the pipes. The best shot of that is if Brian Elliott can return for a couple of those games and be their Game 1 starter, but that’s a tall order for a guy who hasn’t played since Feb. 10. He has been on the ice recently, but his recovery has now surpassed the six-week guestimate the Flyers made after surgery to repair a core muscle on Feb. 13.

If there’s not enough time for Elliott to return and be a real option in the playoffs, the Flyers may still survive as they have in the last couple of weeks, walking the tightrope of the Eastern Conference playoff race. Here’s a guide to the final week of their regular season.

When they could clinch

According to sportsclubstats.com, the Flyers have a 96-percent chance to make the playoffs. Hockey-reference.com’s algorithm says it’s more like 94.8 percent. Bottom line is it’s almost a certainty and it could happen as early as Tuesday.

The Flyers’ “magic number,” the amount of points gained by the Flyers or lost by the Florida Panthers, is seven.

In order for it to happen Tuesday, the Panthers would have to lose games at Boston and at home against the Carolina Hurricanes with the Flyers beating the Bruins on Sunday afternoon. Then the Flyers would have to gain one more point against the Panthers when they play in Brooklyn Tuesday and the Panthers are at home against the Nashville Predators.

If Tuesday was the day the Flyers clinched, it would pose an interesting situation where the two remaining games don’t make an impact in terms of qualifying for the playoffs, but still could matter in terms of which team they’d face in the first round.

Who they could play

The Eastern Conference playoff race is so close in different spots that the Flyers could play any one of five teams in the first round: the Washington Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins, Columbus Blue Jackets, Boston Bruins or Tampa Bay Lightning. There’s even still a chance for the Flyers to have home-ice advantage in a potential first-round series. If the Flyers win out, the Capitals lose out and the Flyers jump both the Penguins and Blue Jackets, there’s even the chance — albeit minuscule — that the Flyers finish first in the Metropolitan Division.

Most likely, according to both sportsclubstats.com and hockey-reference.com, is that the Capitals will remain the No. 1 seed in the division and the Flyers finish as the top wild card, pitting them up in a rematch of two years ago. The next most likely scenario is that the Flyers face the Penguins in the first round and start on the road. There’s a much smaller chance, according to those algorithms, that the Flyers would jump the Penguins and get home-ice in such a scenario, in part because the Flyers would not win a tiebreaker against Pittsburgh even if they win all four remaining games in regulation.

There’s a 17-percent chance, according to sportsclubstats.com, that the Flyers drop to the last wild card and have to play either Boston or Tampa Bay. There’s a much smaller chance that the Flyers face the Blue Jackets, as either a No. 2 or No. 3 seed.

How they match up

It goes beyond just the 3-1-0 season series against Washington that says the Caps are the best matchup for the Flyers in the first round. The Capitals aren’t as deep as they’ve been in years past, they have goaltending uncertainty of their own recently and the Flyers have done a decent job containing Alexander Ovechkin this season. The league’s leading goal scorer has two in his four games against the Flyers and is a minus-8 in those games. Add that to the pressure in Washington for a team that has lost in the first round for three straight years and the Flyers would likely have their best chance of success in the U.S. capital.

Columbus would probably be the next best matchup because they are also on the top-heavy side. Ex-Flyer Sergei Bobrovsky, winner of two Vezina Trophies since leaving Philadelphia, has the potential to make life hard on his former team, though.

Both Boston and Tampa Bay are deep enough to make any team have big-time matchup problems in the playoffs and have goalies with the potential of stealing a series, but the worst matchup for the Flyers is clearly the Penguins. They’ve had big trouble this season in stopping both MVP candidate Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, not to mention losing all four games to their in-state rival.

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com

Up next: vs. Boston Bruins

When: 12:30 p.m., Sunday

TV/Radio: NBC/93.3 FM

