PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers competed most of the season, and held a playoff position for nearly as long. In the final few weeks of the regular season, they simply collapsed. 
On Tuesday night, the Flyers lost to the visiting Washington Capitals, 2-1, a win that gave they Caps a ticket to the post season as the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.
The loss confirmed the Flyers will miss the playoffs.
The Flyers needed a regulation win to keep their hopes alive. Philadelphia pulled the goalie with minutes left, and T.J. Oshie hit the empty net with the winner with three minutes left on the game clock.
“It feels really good, honestly,” the Capitals’ Dylan Strome said. “Obviously to do it on a back to back, tough building, tough team to play against. They’re fast. They controlled play for a decent amount of the game, decent parts of the game, but I thought we hung in there. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel really good.”
It had not been necessary to pull the goalie, the Detroit Red Wings had eliminated the Flyers when they went to extra time on Tuesday in a win over the Canadiens.
“It was kind of surprising, actually,” Oshie said. “Skating down the ice, I didn’t even know the goalie was out until it looked like ‘Hath’ was trying to block a shot there. So, it felt good. It was such a great game. It’s kind of unfortunate that that’s the way it had to end, but they obviously needed a regulation win, so it’s understandable. But that was a tough battle, that was a tough fight out there for us.”
Charlie Lindgren made 27 saves in the win.
“This was a high-stakes game,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “Started off very tentative, but then I felt we got on the attack. Give them credit. They defended well. They defended a lot. And we just couldn’t find our way.”
Alex Ovechkin staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead at 18:08 of the opening stanza.
Erik Johnson tied it 1-1 at 12:29 of the middle frame.
“I think once you start playing with the lead, it changes up things,” the Flyers’ SCott Laughton said. “… We kept playing, grinded, second period especially thought we turned it on, created some momentum for ourselves. They get an empty-net goal.”
The Flyers ended the season 38-33-11, losing nine of their last 11 matches.
“From the start of the year, I think everyone was counting us out,” Laughton said. “Probably had that eight-game losing streak at the worst time of the year. Couldn’t really regain ground and that’s what cost us.”
Samuel Ersson made 16 saves in the loss..
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