Can the Flyers sustain their winning play? GM Danny Brière says ‘it can go in both directions.’

The Flyers won their season opener on the road against powerful Vancouver, prompting cautious optimism for the rebuilding franchise. It took them seven games to win again, and that cautious optimism transformed to a stark realism.

They since have gone 11-5-2. Matvei Michkov, a 19-year-old Russian, is the co-favorite for Rookie of the Year. Rapscallion forward Travis Konecny is having a career year, as is his best friend and namesake, enigmatic defenseman Travis Sanheim. As former franchise goalie Carter Hart awaits trial on sexual assault charges in Canada, Sam Ersson, Ivan Fedotov, and Aleksei Kolosov have provided passable netminding. Combustible coach John Tortorella has been the steady hand at the tiller.

The momentum is real: They were 4-0-1 in the five games preceding an odd five-day break, which ends Thursday night against the visiting Florida Panthers.

How did this happen? Can it sustain?

“It can go in both directions,” second-year general manager Danny Brière told me Wednesday. “There’s a few players who can give us a little bit more. There’s a few players who have given us a lot, and could drop back and find a slower pace. I really don’t know where we’re gonna go in the last two-thirds of the season.”

» READ MORE: Q&A: Flyers president Keith Jones talks Matvei Michkov, prospects, the goalie situation, and more

Deep breath.

“We’re excited we’re in position to make a run at the playoffs, but again, with the youth that we have, the lack of experience, it can go in many different directions.”

We witnessed that last season, when the Flyers lost nine of their last 11 games and barely missed the playoffs. That’s why the optimism remains cautious, and will remain so until Game 82 is over.

“When you miss the playoffs by a point or two, you see how important points are at the start of the year,” said forward Scott Laughton, an alternate captain. “How far it can get you. Consistency is key in this league. Guys have brought that. Tough start when you go 1-5, but we’ve found ways to pick up points.”

It’s been more than just picking up points. It’s been nightly play with an edge. It’s been refusal to quit when things look bad; the Flyers have been involved in 10 overtime games, and they’ve won seven of them.

» READ MORE: Matvei Michkov and the Flyers are thriving in OT. But John Tortorella still sees room for improvement.

“We play to the end. We keep trying if we’re losing,” explained Tortorella, who acknowledged that it wasn’t always late heroics in regulation from the Flyers that forced overtime: ”We have some resiliency. ... We’re going to have to learn to play with the lead.”

Michkov has scored the winning goal in three of the overtime games, which is not only tied for most in the league but also tied for the most-ever by a teenage rookie in a season. He leads rookies with nine goals and 19 points, but he might not be the biggest surprise.

Neither are Konecny’s 13 goals, 17 assists, and 30 points, which put him on pace for 42 goals, 55 assists, and 97 points, all better than last season (33/35/68), which earned the 27-year-old winger an eight-year, $70 million contract extension.

No, the biggest surprise has been Sanheim, who this season finally ascended to the level the Flyers hoped he’d reach when they drafted him 17th overall in 2014 and then signed him to an eight-year, $50 million extension in 2022. He now is a No. 1 defenseman, a demanding leader, and a producer. His five goals and 10 assists have him charging toward career highs in both categories, and he ranks fourth in the NHL in average ice time at 25 minutes 30 seconds, about 5 minutes more per game than his career average.

» READ MORE: The Flyers tried to trade Travis Sanheim in 2023. Now, he’s a bona fide No. 1 defenseman and poised to make Team Canada.

With all due respect to Laughton and captain Sean Couturier, the Travii are the core. That’s why they made Team Canada for February’s 4 Nations Face-Off.

“We both recognize our place on the roster. We want to win here. We love it here,” Sanheim said. He indicated that the pair have discussed how important they are: “We communicated that we want to push ourselves and lead this team.”

For the moment, their leadership means relevance. If the season ended Wednesday, the Flyers would hold the last wild-card playoff slot based on points. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2020, and, frankly, they didn’t expect to make it either last season or this.

“I think it’s very fair to say that we’re a little ahead of schedule,” Brière admitted. “Obviously, Michkov has played better than anybody expects and has scored bigger goals than anybody expected a teenager to score. Travis Konecny taking another step forward. Travis Sanheim stepping up and giving us tremendous hockey in the last month.”

“It’s been fun to see. Now, we understand that there’s still a lot of work ahead of us.”

Exactly what sort of work has gotten them here?

“We’re spending a lot less time in our D-zone, and when we have been there, our goaltending’s been good,” Laughton said. “Our defense has been a ton better at getting pucks up and we’ve done a better job of sustaining entries and playing on our toes, being predictable.”

What else?

“We’ve had more chances to step up in the neutral zone and the offensive zone and killing plays earlier,” Sanheim said. “That usually leads to more rush chances for us. We’re a pretty good rush team. We’ve figured out our D-zone, structure-wise as well, working as fives [five-man units], blocking shots. Those areas have helped us create a little more offense, where we were lacking early in the season.”

The Flyers averaged 2.29 goals in their 1-5-1 start and they’ve averaged 3.00 goals since. More markedly, they allowed 4.43 goals per game in those first seven games and just 2.78 goals since. (All not counting the ghost goal awarded from shootout wins and losses.)

They’ve gone from god-awful to pretty good. Is that good enough?

“There’s more there yet for us to find,” Sanheim said. “There’s still another level for our group to get to, and for individual guys to get to. There’s a lot of guys who want more. I’m excited to see how guys push here over the couple of months to get their game to another level.”

Maybe Couturier can regain the 0.91 points-per-game average he carried from 2018-20. Injuries and age — he’s nearly 32 — have slowed that rate to 0.64 over the last four seasons. Maybe Laughton, 30, can regain that nightly grit that made his fourth-line play so significant. Maybe the return from injury by defenseman Cam York and Ersson’s imminent return will give them a boost. Depth has played an outsized role in the story of the season: York’s understudy, Emil Andrae, a 22-year-old call-up, has meant to the defense what Fedotov and Kolosov have meant to the goaltending.

At any rate, it’s nice to have the Orange and Black back, if only to measured degrees, and if only for 25 games.

So far.