The Flyers stomached their largest margin of defeat of the season on Thursday, but that won't take away what Dave Hakstol's team accomplished prior to the holiday break.
Hakstol referred to the 4-0 debacle against the Devils as a "hard one to sit on" entering a five-day intermission. Sure, but then again, the Flyers were playing the second game of yet another back-to-back set and are 11-2-1 over the past 14 games.
"It's our ninth back-to-back and we've been outstanding in every one of them," Hakstol said postgame Thursday. "Tonight was the first time it caught up to us just a little bit. That's going to happen."
The Flyers are at 20 wins before Christmas for the first time since the 2011-12 season. And they've done so playing 36 games in 70 days and going 12-5-1 through back-to-backs.
"This group has been a bunch of warriors," Hakstol said.
"This group has played hard. They have played frickin' hard over the last 69 or 70 days. … It kind of stinks to have to sit on that [loss] for four days, but we'll flush it out immediately and get ourselves ready to get going here in four, five days."
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The Flyers have a lot to like at the break.
In 2015-16, they ranked 22nd among the NHL with 2.57 goals per game. So far this season, the Flyers are sixth with 2.94.
Their power play has produced the league's second-most goals.
And the team's defensive focus and coverage are vastly improved from the first month and change of this season. Through the first 18 games, the Flyers scored 62 goals and went 8-7-3. Over the next 18 games, the Flyers went 12-1-5 but scored 48 goals, which demonstrates the importance of the Flyers' defensive growth.
"We didn't really like the ways thing went the first month of the year - not just the amount of goals that we were giving up, but the amount of opportunities and the type of opportunities," Hakstol said pregame Thursday. "That needed to tighten up. We're probably not scoring quite as much over the last 20 games as we did previously to that, but we're playing a little tighter defensively. With how close and how tight the margin of error is to win or lose games, that's probably been the difference."
Despite the improved stretch, the Flyers are still looking to get healthy. With five players recovering from injury, the break is welcomed.
"It's going to help us out," Wayne Simmonds said. "Probably have some guys that are banged up, this week will help out, we'll come back fresh and start the unofficial second half of the season."
The Flyers will enjoy the time off. The brawl-filled loss, though, won't be forgotten upon their return.
"A game like that going into a break, you don't want to have especially after the roll we were just on," Brandon Manning said. "You want to leave it on a good note and build. It'll probably be on our minds a couple days.
"You look at our last two or three [games], you want to be better. If you look at the big picture, we're sitting in a pretty good spot, I'm happy with that. Every game is so important, and heading forward, it's going to be the exact same way."
Like always, Hakstol is hungry, not satisfied.
"We've put ourselves in a good position," he said before Thursday's loss. "But it's not where you are 35 games in, it matters where you are after the last regular-season game."
