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There is maybe nothing more appropriate for the Philadelphia Flyers to finish this majorly disappointing season in a place that has never seen the Stanley Cup raised by their team. A team that is so synonymous with the idea of a rebuild filled with tanking that has delivered them consistent failure, and now we need them to do something that they haven’t done a whole lot of recently: Win a hockey game.

Yeah, let’s just cut to the real purpose of this game. There is no more masking the fact that what the Flyers need is to lose this game. Going down this stretch, any point they earned had some silver lining — Tyson Foerster going off, a full-team effort, etc. — but tonight there will be none no matter what happens. Matvei Michkov could break Darryl Sittler’s record of 10 points in a single game and we would probably still complain about how this win altered the Flyers’ Draft Lottery odds.

Okay, we probably wouldn’t because that would be awesome, but this game does hold a whole lot of meaning. As we went over yesterday, this game can significantly shift where this team stands in the Draft Lottery this year. if the Flyers win in regulation tonight, it means they have the seventh-best odds in the upcoming Draft Lottery; the game goes to overtime, it’s sixth, and if they lose in regulation it leaps up to the fourth-best odds. That is a dramatic jump for just one single game. It’s a big one.

Devin Kaplan’s debut

There is not a whole lot to focus on about this Sabres team — they’re young and will clearly try hard — so might as well just get right to the Flyers talking points.

Devin Kaplan is making his NHL debut tonight after signing his entry-level contract earlier this week. The right winger from Boston University didn’t really show off his offensive game while in college, so it is projected that he will be in the bottom half of the lineup anyways, but we aren’t sure where. We know that Karsen Dorwart is coming out of the lineup, so that leaves the Flyers with just three actual centers, so we are purely guessing that Garnet Hathaway will suit up down the middle and will be flanked by Nic Deslauriers and the newcomer Kaplan.

We can’t see them shifting up the other lines too much, so that’s our guess. But hey, he’s wearing No. 68 so we actually have the American Jagr on our hands.

Who will score the final goal of the Flyers’ 2024-25 season?

This could be a fun little bit of trivia that would make every single person groan as they recall what a terrible time this season was aside from watching Matvei Michkov. Who will be the player that will score the final goal of this terrible season?

Will it be Michkov adding to his goal totals? Tyson Foerster continuing his hot streak and finishing as the team’s goal leader? Maybe Nic Deslauriers can score one off his butt? The possibilities of who and how are in the thousands.

Ivan Fedotov getting final start of the Flyers season

Aside from Kaplan making his debut, the other interesting note about the lineup is that Ivan Fedotov will be in between the pipes for this final game of the season. While it could be interim head coach Brad Shaw just letting Sam Ersson go into the offseason with one fewer game of fatigue under his belt, the decision instantly led us to a couple of theories and one might be a little more tinfoil-hatty than the other.

Maybe the most obvious one is the fact that the Flyers are putting the worse goalie of the two (Kolosov probably wouldn’t have started no matter what) that they are subtlety trying to edge closer to a regulation loss to secure that higher draft pick. Why else put Fedotov in there unless you are trying to increase the probability of you losing a hockey game?

The other theory that is a little more out there is that the team knows what the future holds for Ivan Fedotov. The gargantuan goaltender has been nothing but a good presence off the ice. It’s just the actual playing hockey part where he has been failing at. So, maybe general manager Danny Briere has already had a conversation with the Russian netminder about his future and how this will be his last game as a member of the Flyers organization. The most probable outcome in this fake scenario is a mutual termination of his final year of his contract for next season and he goes back to being a good KHL starting goaltender. To send him off and as a best-wishes message, they are giving him the final start of the season so he can be on the ice and not on the bench for what could be his last game in the NHL. Doing right by a player that went through so much to come over here and try his best to make it in North America. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out and this is where we are.

Please, don’t just assume that is right but it’s just a theory that we now have to wonder about because of this lineup decision.

UPDATE: The Flyers are now going to be starting Aleksei Kolosov in net against the Sabres. So, basically everything still applies but he’s an even worse goalie than Fedotov and could also still be heading back home for good.

Philadelphia Flyers

Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby BrinkMatvei Michkov — Sean Couturier — Travis KonecnyJakob Pelletier — Ryan Poehling — Owen Tippett

Nic Deslauriers — Garnet Hathaway — Devin Kaplan

Nick Seeler — Travis SanheimCam York — Jamie Drysdale

Egor Zamula — Emil Andrae

Ivan Fedotov

(Sam Ersson)

Buffalo Sabres

Zach Benson — Jiri Kulich — Tage ThompsonJJ Peterka — Ryan McLeod — Jack QuinnJason Zucker — Peyton Krebs — Alex Tuch

Isak Rosen — Noah Ostlund — Sam Lafferty

Mattias Samuelsson — Rasmus DahlinBowen Byram — Connor Clifton

Jacob Bryson — Jacob Bernard-Docker

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen

(James Reimer)