While the playoff push boiled, the Flyers said it like it was their mission statement.
We control our destiny.
Here we are, Game 82 next on the docket, and the Flyers remarkably still do.
Ironically yet fittingly, though, their fate remains up in the air just as much as they control it heading into the final hurrah of the 2017-18 regular season.
Would the Flyers have it any other way?
"We knew it was going to come down to that," Jakub Voracek said.
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It didn't have to, but the Flyers needed assistance Thursday and couldn't get the helping hand. They picked up a heart-racing, stomach-turning 4-3 win over the Hurricanes at the Wells Fargo Center in the season's penultimate game (see observations). That was step No. 1 to punching their playoff ticket Thursday. They also required a Panthers' loss to go with it and Florida didn't cooperate, beating the Bruins, 3-2.
As players one by one trickled into the dressing room, they didn't seem too concerned about scoreboard watching with the Panthers and Bruins still duking it out, tied at 2-2 in the third period. In fact, the Flyers were quite emotionless.
"I don't think anyone was really paying attention," Travis Konecny said. "I think we've got our own business to worry about."
This season, they haven't been fortunate enough to relax much anyway.
"We're not trying to get up, get down," Konecny said at the time. "We know that there's still another game being played right now."
For them now, too — one more coming up, gushing with importance.
The Flyers (41-26-14, 96 points), grasping to the Eastern Conference's second wild-card spot, lead the Panthers (42-30-8, 92 points) by four points for that final berth. They're also just one point behind both the Devils and Blue Jackets, so plenty can change (see standings).
But as the playoff picture remains a bit cloudy, what's crystal clear is the Flyers' simplest way into the bracket.
Just win.
That will be the team's obvious goal Saturday afternoon when it hosts the Rangers, the Metropolitan Division's last-place club, which has gone 9-18-4 since Feb. 1.
"I mean, before the season starts, if you tell us we've got one game to win to make the playoffs, I think anybody would take it," Sean Couturier said. "So it's kind of a huge challenge, big game coming up, exciting and we'll be ready."
If the Flyers happen to lose in regulation, then the whole control-our-destiny message goes out the window and into the Panthers' lap. Florida has two games left — Saturday night vs. the Sabres and Sunday night at the Bruins. Those two will mean everything or nothing depending on the Flyers' final result beforehand.
"The game is in our hands on Saturday," Voracek said.
Right where they want to be.
"We control our own destiny," Shayne Gostisbehere said. "We don't have to worry about anyone else."
The Flyers almost had to worry until they pulled out a roller-coaster victory in the final six minutes of regulation Thursday against a non-playoff team.
"Tonight was right down to the wire," Dave Hakstol said.
So is the regular season — and why not?