Claude Giroux

There were lots of empty seats at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night, and few good scoring chances for the Flyers or New Jersey Devils. Welcome to late-season hockey for two teams on the verge of being eliminated from the Eastern Conference playoff picture. The Flyers continued a recent trend: Another team ended a long losing streak against them. New Jersey snapped a 10-game skid as Martin Brodeur notched his 121st career shutout to defeat the Flyers, 3-0. Brodeur, who has more shutouts than any goalie in NHL history, had gone 10 straight games (0-6-4)

WITH THE FLYERS' pipedream playoff odds dwindling by the day, opportunities will begin to crop up for players to continue playing in May - though it won't be in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Instead, quite a few Flyers likely will receive invitations to represent their countries in the World Championships in Stockholm and Helsinki from May 3-9. According to someone familiar with Hockey Canada executive director Steve Yzerman's thinking, both Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds appear to be high on Canada's wish list.

ILYA BRYZGALOV slammed his stick on the crossbar after watching Matt D'Agostini's shot bounce out of the net as quickly as it entered, simultaneously letting out one last gasp of frustration as the Flyers' maligned season drew its last breath. Any previously exaggerated reports of the Flyers' death were finally confirmed. Not even a miracle will help the Flyers avoid watching the Stanley Cup playoffs go on without them for the second time since 1995. After Thursday night's sleep-inducing, 3-0 shutout loss to the visiting Devils, the Flyers are seven points back of a berth with four games to play.

Consecutive wins have revived playoff talk for the Flyers. But they still face long odds in earning one of the eight Eastern Conference spots. Coach Peter Laviolette accurately described the Flyers' plight after Tuesday's 4-2 win over the New York Rangers. "We're in a hole," he said. "We put ourselves here, and we accept that. " And it's a huge hole. But the Flyers remain alive. The Rangers own the eighth and final spot with 46 points. The Winnipeg Jets also have 46 points but, like the Flyers, have played 43 games, one more than the Rangers.

SIMON GAGNE is not old - by sport or society standards - at age 33. Yet, after 794 NHL games and 109 Stanley Cup playoff games, there are days when his body betrays him. He has endured at least four career concussions, groin injuries, a double hernia repair and a scary surgery to remove a 2-inch bony mass in his neck. "You wake up and you feel it," Gagne said. "You look at all of the stuff you have gone through - the playoffs, all the games you've had to play, all of the injuries, the surgeries.

WITH THE HEAD coach apparently returning for at least the start of next hockey season, and the general manager likely to survive the Flyers season that wasn't, this star-crossed team seems poised for yet another franchise-shifting decision. And wouldn't you know it, it revolves around a goalie. Alas, who to use their amnesty buyout on - Danny Briere or Ilya Bryzgalov? From a performance standpoint, Briere seems to be the no-brainer. He's 35, just back from a concussion, just a few months removed from a hand injury suffered while playing in Germany, which began his worst season since he was an underachieving kid in Phoenix.

MONTREAL - Ten goals. Ninety-four penalty minutes. Three misconducts. One fight. One match penalty. One concussion. And when it was all over, one lonely hat littered the Bell Centre ice as bleu, blanc et rouge-clad fans streamed into the chilly Montreal night as bewildered as fans back in Philadelphia after watching Scott Hartnell's hat trick lead the Flyers to a shocking, 7-3 win over the second-place Canadiens. Where was that effort all season? After scoring just three goals in their last four games, the Flyers exploded for an outburst against the Canadiens that matched their season high set on Feb. 18 vs. the playoff-bound Islanders.

MONTREAL - Forget the rumors about Peter Laviolette's being fired after the season. It sounds as if the Flyers' fiery coach is staying. Without formally announcing it, general manager Paul Holmgren gave Laviolette a strong vote of confidence in Montreal on Monday. Asked whether he planned to make a coaching change after the season, Holmgren was succinct. "I haven't even thought along those lines," he told The Inquirer in a phone conversation. "I think it's been a difficult year because of the [injury]

MONTREAL - The Flyers' offense, which had vanished for four consecutive games, magically reappeared Monday night at the Bell Centre. In the first two periods, the Flyers scored twice as many goals - six - as they had in their previous four games combined (three). The offensive eruption, sparked by Scott Hartnell's seventh career hat trick, enabled the Flyers to end a four-game losing streak and jolt the Montreal Canadiens, 7-3. In case you are still interested, the Flyers are seven points behind the eighth-place New York Rangers with six games remaining.

FACING increasingly daunting odds to qualify for the playoffs — seven points back of a spot with four teams to overcome — Flyers captain Claude Giroux was the first to say it on Friday. Giroux was asked how his teammates will find motivation over the final eight games. "Our job is to win games," Giroux said. "It's tough already; we're not making the playoffs. " It was the first time any Flyer had acknowledged that the incredible odds will be almost impossible to overcome, even though they have not been mathematically eliminated.