The Flyers tried to get to Game Seven with one arm tied behind Ivan Provorov’s back and couldn’t do it. Of course not. Claude Giroux had three points in the series, Jake Voracek three, Wayne Simmonds two, Shayne Gostisbehere one and yet here were the Flyers up 4-2 in the second period of Game Six on the strength of . . . . what?

Their depth? Yeah, right. Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim and Oskar Lindblom–until the latter two were benched– played like the kids going through it for the first time, which they assuredly were. Val Filppula had one amazing game out of nowhere. So the better question than how the Flyers were doing it was how long they could keep it going. And we got that answer in Game Six fast as we had in Games One, Three and Four: Another quick burst of Penguin goals–albeit spread out over an intermission–put away the series.

It ended, 8-5, after some frustrating calls and non-calls, none of which went Philadelphia’s way. Really, though, the Flyers were doomed from the time Provorov went up the tunnel before the final minute of Game Five with his team trying to hang on to a one-goal lead; two days before this smart, skilled and indefatigable gem fanned on an unpressured D to D pass and gave away the tap-in goal that put Pittsburgh ahead for good.

“As long as my arm is attached,” said Provorov about his resolve to play. No good deed goes unpunished in the playoffs, especially for a team that didn’t have the depth of experience and hockey intelligence to hang with a two-time Stanley Cup champion, one able to finish off the Flyers on Sunday without Evgeni Malkin, a top-five forward in the league.

Really, who besides Provorov and Sean Couturier, who heroically scored a hat trick on a torn MCL, showed up for Philadelphia each and every game they played? Andrew MacDonald did, so boo him first chance you get next season, why don’t you. Filppula checked in for one game out-of-nowhere and Konecny and Patrick for just one goal each.

In retrospect, maybe the Flyers weren’t doomed from the minute Provorov got hurt, but actually when Brian Elliott, who gave his team a reliable season in goal, was lost to core-muscle surgery in early February. He came into this series with a warmup of only two regular season games, practically no time to get comfortable. Backup Michael Neuvirth tried to ride to the rescue late, too, off his usual truncated season.

So even with its considerable foundation of a contender laid, this team still became a house of cards, too easily blown down. Before the series began, we didn’t believe the Flyers would win, but certainly thought we would see the Penguins’ shortage of back line depth exploited more often like it was in the first 32 minutes yesterday. But a team can’t sustain that when its stars are playing without confidence. And the players required to carry a team are more likely to scuffle¬–for a game or for a series– when there are not enough guys behind them who can score and make the opposition choose its poison.

“I need to be better,” said Giroux, no responsibility ducked, and no reason for despair, either, going forward. Ask Bryan Trottier, whose Islanders went down in consecutive crushing semifinal losses until Butch Goring arrived and the team won four Cups and 19 straight playoff series. Ancient history? Okay, then ask Sidney Crosby, who was held to four points, and Malkin, who had zero, when the Rangers ran over the Penguins in five games in 2015, the year before this Cup run began.

It happens to the best of them, veterans sometimes, promising rookies all the time. If there was any blunder that changed everything in a 13-goal closeout game, it was by Patrick, who, overeager to create a rush, left the zone too quickly on Radko Gudas’s lob to the blueline. Patric Hornqvist countered quickly off the turnover to cut Philadelphia’s lead to 4-3.

The Flyers got no breaks from the refs in a horribly called third period. But that didn’t cost them the series anymore than did the accident of Jake Guentzel’s birth. Good player, but he put away four goals against a team ready to cave. Or, at least the Flyers were this time around, better luck with injuries and bounces the next.

On elimination day, it is easy to say how far a team came during a season. That’s because they all claim it. Much harder is proving that the following season, when some slip back. But the Flyers, who improved by 10 points, have more good pieces than they had a year ago, when they had more than the year before. Hard to say anybody besides Provorov and Couturier went out on their shields. But, disappointing as some of big guys were, nothing really happened in this series to give Ron Hextall reason to change his methodical game plan.

The guys whose contracts are up—Filppula and Brandon Manning–very likely will be gone, Manning to be replaced on the back line by first-rounder Sam Morin, Filppula to be replaced as a third-line center by, well, that’s the key question. This team must get deeper up the middle or risk what occurred here happening again and again.

Know this: with Provorov and Konecny one year away from having to be paid big bucks and Patrick needing to be taken care of in two, Hextall is not going to succumb to any pressure to acquire a veteran better than Filppula, unless that guy is good and can’t find better than a one-year deal somewhere else. Next up is another kid from Lehigh Valley, Mikhail Vorobiev, with Morgan Frost and German Rubtsov, two first-rounders of considerable promise, likely still a couple years away.

Brick by brick. Hope you didn’t throw one through your set yesterday, Flyer fan, as the cursed Penguins won again. It is a rite of passage; the Flyers, set up to fail this time, will be better for the experience the next. Hextall is not going to speed up the clock out of fear that Giroux, Voracek and Simmonds will be past their time when a young defense is mature enough to win. Simmonds has a year left on his deal. Trading him now for picks or younger pieces, isn’t going to bring a Cup any sooner. And anyway did Crosby, 30, look like he was on the downhill in this series?

The vast majority of NHL personnel guys believe the Flyers are a coming team, with young goalies on the way capable of stopping that merry go round, Disappointing as was this series in many ways, nothing that happened in it should or will change the plan.

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