The Flyers spent the last week on the road for a four-game road trip. It couldn’t have started in poorer fashion. A shutout loss to Tampa Bay was as lifeless as they come.

How did the Flyers respond? Three straight wins to close out the trip and the month of November, and that has certainly made things interesting in the standings. 

Here’s this week’s Flyers Files:

At Thanksgiving…

American Thanksgiving is usually a marker for potential playoff success. Teams that are holding playoff positions at that time, roughly 21-25 games into the season, are usually the ones that remain in the conversation for the rest of the regular season.

This season is a little different. It’s an absolute logjam in the standings. Only the top five teams in the NHL standings as of Sunday morning have more than 32 points. Eight teams are sitting at 25 points or lower. So that puts 19 teams in the range of 26 to 32 points. A three-game winning streak or pointless streak could easily transform the standings for any team.

Which is why the most recent road trip is so important for the Flyers. They lost 3-0 to Tampa Bay on Monday in the first game of the trip. With Florida, the Islanders, and New Jersey still left on the schedule, it could have easily been a forgettable trip and knocked the Flyers down to the bottom of the standings.

Three wins and six points later, and the Flyers, now at 31 points, wake up third in the Metropolitan Division standings. They are tied for seventh in the league in points. They are tied for sixth in points percentage. 

There’s a long way to go in the 2025-26 season, but so far, the Flyers are joining the conversation and being competitive, and that’s certainly more than most could have asked for as this season began.

Shootout Success

For nearly two decades, shootout has been a dreaded word for the Flyers. Since its implementation in the 2005-06 season, no team had struggled more in the end-of-game skills competition than the Flyers. Entering the 2024-25 season, the Flyers had 160 games go to a shootout and a 60-100 record in those games, a .375 winning percentage that ranked last in the league.

In the last two seasons, no team has gone to a shootout more than the Flyers: 14 times. They have an 11-3 record in those games, including a 5-0 record this season after Friday’s win over the Islanders. The .786 winning percentage ranks first in the league.

Two big reasons for that are Trevor Zegras and the goaltenders.

Simply put, Zegras is a shootout cheat code. In four shootout attempts this season, he has scored every time. It’s started to draw conversation in an Olympic year to giving him roster consideration just for potential shootouts, a la T.J. Oshie. In his career, there’s been no one better than Zegras at the shootout. 

Zegras has 17 goals on 25 shootout attempts, a 68 percent success rate. To put that in perspective, some of the best shootout performers in NHL history don’t come close to that level of success.

Patrick Kane has more shootout attempts in NHL history than anyone at 133. His success rate is 39.8 percent. Alex Ovechkin has 127 shootout attempts. His success rate is 29.1 percent. Oshie? 47.1 percent. Pavel Datsyuk? 40.8 percent. Jussi Jokinen? 38.5 percent.

Sure, 25 shootout attempts for Zegras is still a small sample compared to the others in that group. But right now, the shootout is pretty much automatic for Zegras, and that’s been a big boost to the Flyers.

Now to the goalies. This season, Sam Ersson has been in goal for four of the five shootout wins. In the last three seasons, Ersson leads the league in shootout wins with 12. His save percentage in the shootout over that time is .792, sixth among goalies with at least five shootout appearances.

Dan Vladar got the win in his only shootout as well, to go along with his stellar play the rest of the season.

A big reason the Flyers are where they are in the standings is because five points have come via shootout wins. That sentence didn’t seem possible not that long ago.

Plenty to Go Around

With the exception of Monday’s shutout loss to Tampa Bay, the Flyers have certainly started to find multiple ways to score goals. In the last eight games, they have 27 goals.

Tyson Foerster and Zegras are up to nine each, tied for the team lead. Matvei Michkov and Owen Tippett are now hot on their heels with eight each. Travis Konecny has only five goals, but 19 points in 24 games. 

So there are plenty of players you can look to for scoring help. Consistency is still a big part of the equation, and the Flyers have to find it to reach the level they desire, but there are building blocks there that can be difference-makers, and that’s a good place to start.

Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN. Follow him on social media @Kevin_Durso.

Philadelphia Flyers Uniforms Through The Years