Dave Isaac

@davegisaac

VOORHEES — With 20 games remaining on the Flyers’ schedule, they don’t just still have a pulse; they could be on the verge of a surge that propels them back into the playoffs after missing out last season.

Their last two wins have come without Jake Voracek, the team’s second leading scorer. They’ve also won without captain Claude Giroux and survived a stretch of 12 of 14 games without No. 2 center Sean Couturier.

“I wouldn’t only say we’re confident, but we’re ready,” rookie phenom Shayne Gostisbehere said. “We know what’s at hand every night. We’re not taking any nights off. We can’t afford it. If we’re going into overtime or a shootout, we need points. We need two points every night.”

It also helps when opposing teams don’t. The Pittsburgh Penguins had a game in hand on the Flyers until Tuesday night when they lost to the Washington Capitals. The Flyers remain three points back of their cross-state rivals for the last wild card spot.

“You realize what the other teams are doing and what the scores are but you just have to worry about yourself and what your next game is,” alternate captain Mark Streit said. “That’s (Thursday) against Edmonton. That’s a huge game like every other, but we have a good feeling in the room here and play with a lot of confidence going in the right direction.”

Perhaps the biggest thing the Flyers feel they have going in their direction is their reaction to in-game adversity.

They had a 4-1 lead against the Calgary Flames Monday night until the Flames scored two quick goals and all of a sudden the win was in jeopardy.

“As a team we realize you don’t want to put yourself in a situation like that obviously, but once it happened, everybody stayed calm and we stuck with our system and our plan and we finished the game strong and got two points and that’s all that matters,” Streit said. “I think everyone realized in the locker room what we need to change for (Thursday).”

A playoff spot is very much within reach for the Flyers, although they don’t talk about it like it is and many deny watching the standings like a hawk even though that’s undoubtedly the case.

“I think we’ve been playing some good hockey. Not just because we’re winning, we’re playing the right way,” Giroux said. “That’s why we’re getting the wins.

“Everybody’s stepping up. Good teams do that. There’s always a line stepping up, players stepping up. We need to keep going like this.”

General manager Ron Hextall stood pat at the trade deadline Monday and the Flyers got a win that night. They may be a little more comfortable going forward that there is no need to fret about packing bags for the rest of the season.

“We like our group,” Couturier said. “We believe in ourselves. We believe in each other. That’s all that matters. We just need to go out there one game at a time and do our job, play a full 60 minutes. We’ve got to kind of learn a little bit from that last game in the third period, that little letdown. We can’t have that happen at this time of year. We’ve learned from it and now we can go be better the rest of the way.”

Facing McDavid

Last time the Flyers took on Edmonton Oilers star rookie Connor McDavid, he fell awkwardly into the boards. He is such an important part of that team that TV personality Don Cherry basically accused the Flyers of trying to hurt him on the innocuous play.

Now that the teenager is back and is on a tear, the Flyers have to watch out. He scored less than 30 seconds into Edmonton’s overtime win in Buffalo Tuesday night and notched another one to win the game.

“It’s gonna be fun,” Gostisbehere said. “Facing (Buffalo’s Jack) Eichel the other week was pretty fun. They’re both tremendous players. I think we saw (Tuesday) night how fast he is. He’s a fast guy, so we might not be doing the backwards crossovers too much, might just turn around and go forward. He’s a tremendous player. He’s one of the best for a reason.”

McDavid has 12 goals and 19 assists in 28 games.

Loose Pucks

The Flyers will wear patches on their jerseys in warmups for the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, sign the jerseys and make them available for auction at auctions.nhl.com. … Go to the Courier-Post website for the latest edition of the Loose Pucks podcast featuring an interview with Hextall. … The Flyers were joined on the ice Wednesday by former captain Bobby Clarke. With an alumni game coming Sunday, Clarke, 66, wanted some extra work.

Dave Isaac; (856) 486-2479;disaac@gannettnj.com.

Up next: vs. Edmonton Oilers

When: 7 p.m., Thursday

TV/Radio: CSN/97.5 FM