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Flyers' Gostisbehere's confidence grows, but too late for this season | Donnellon

'WE'RE A confident bunch right now," Shayne Gostisbehere was saying after practice Wednesday. "And it's showing." It's a strange and bittersweet way to wind down a strange and bittersweet season. Just when they have all but run out of games to make any of it matter, the Flyers have won three of their last four, finding some of the answers that have eluded them for most of this underwhelming and unsatisfying season.

'WE'RE A confident bunch right now," Shayne Gostisbehere was saying after practice Wednesday. "And it's showing."

It's a strange and bittersweet way to wind down a strange and bittersweet season. Just when they have all but run out of games to make any of it matter, the Flyers have won three of their last four, finding some of the answers that have eluded them for most of this underwhelming and unsatisfying season.

Jordan Weal, seasoning in the minors for most of the year, is providing desperately needed secondary scoring. Claude Giroux, finally acknowledging that his offseason hip and groin surgery affected his play, has created late-season hope that his better days are not all behind him. And Gostisbehere, trapped for much of this season inside a sophomore slump he steadfastly refused to blame on his own offseason surgery, has finally emerged over the season's final weeks to resemble the player who triggered last season's unlikely playoff run.

Gostisbehere scored in Sunday night's 6-2 romp in Pittsburgh and set up Brayden Schenn's power-play goal Tuesday night against Ottawa with a blistering one-timer from the point that was his calling card when he entered the league two Novembers ago: leveraging almost at knee level, his shaft bending like a golf driver as the puck is launched.

It was a welcome sight. And a teeth-gnashing one. Why now? Why not 20, 30 games ago, when ground could be gained?

"I don't feel different - there's no light switch going on and off," he said at one point, but some of what he said before and after that seemed to contradict that claim.

Told that Giroux, in acknowledging his own post-surgery struggles, suggested Ghost too had been affected, the Flyers defenseman said this:

"You can look at it like that. I look at it a different way. I mean, I'm a no-excuse guy. I think it's more confidence.

"I've been through an injury way worse than to my hip and groins. I went through an ACL. It's one of the most debilitating injuries you can possibly have for an athlete. I think I had a pretty good year last year coming off the ACL. But it's a lot different. You can always say, 'Oh, yeah, it's the injury, that's it. But I think, for me, it's just looking in the mirror and realizing, 'OK, go put the work in.' "

Gostisbehere did. Particularly on the defensive side. His more egregious mistakes this season tended to emanate from tentative play - again suggesting uncertainty surrounding the hip and abdomen. He was a healthy scratch five times this season.

"Something I'm not proud of," he said.

"But it's how you react and how you come back from it. That's the biggest thing, I think. You know, I think I did learn a lot this year. It's a growing year, obviously. It's something that happens. You've got to battle through adversity."

Said Flyers coach Dave Hakstol: "He's done a good job working through things. It's a learning process. It's a growing process. Growth is not easy. He's still a young player in the league. I'm sure it will help him as he moves forward."

That's the take-home once their playoff hopes are officially extinguished: a growing year, a learning year, a building year. An unrestricted free agent, Weal can continue the strong argument to be re-signed this summer. Gostisbehere and Giroux can use this final stretch of good hockey (finally) to further re-establish their self-confidence heading into the summer.

Granted, not what anyone had in mind during the 10-game winning streak in the fall. But from a longer view, maybe not as bleak as how it looked just a few weeks ago.

Notes

Nick Cousins, recovering from an "upper-body injury" believed to be a concussion, skated again during an optional practice Wednesday. He said that he had been cleared for contact and that he was "pretty close" to 100 percent. Asked through a team publicist his status, general manager Ron Hextall relayed he was "day to day."

donnels@phillynews.com

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