The Flyers are just shy of two weeks into the season, but already, Tuesday night’s home game against the Seattle Kraken exists in ‘must-win’ territory.
Because the Flyers already did a lot to put themselves there, or rather, didn’t do anything.
They lost to the visiting, and defending champion, Carolina Hurricanes 4-1 on Sunday night, dropping to a winless 0-5-2, which is now their worst start in franchise history.
And it was more of the same. They got outshot, they got outhustled, they got outworked, and soon enough, they were all out of fight.
It took more than four minutes before Carolina goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov saw any work, and it was just a slow and light wrister from Christian Dvorak straight into his pads. The Flyers only challenged him with 18 more shots after that, while Hurricanes stars Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and old friend Shayne Gostisbehere tilted the ice downhill for themselves and helped to pile on 30 – which snowballed into three goals through the second period and then a put-away fourth by Mark Jankowski in the third from right in front.
None of it’s been good enough. Not even close. And now the immediate spiral to begin the year feels like it’s quickly reaching a point where the Flyers won’t ever be able to recover, unless they suddenly snap out of it and just get that first win.
So it has to be Tuesday night against Seattle, or it might be too late. Maybe it already is.
“It’s just…it’s basic hockey right now,” captain Sean Couturier said after Sunday night’s seventh straight loss. “One-on-one hockey, we’re dumb, honestly. We’re not winning battles – enough battles – we’re making the wrong reads…I don’t know, we’re slow. We’re playing slow. We’re not making the right reads, we’re not winning battles, we’re not winning races, so we’re just making it harder on ourselves.”
Like they launched themselves headfirst into AP stat, which, speaking of stats…
• The Flyers’ eight goals for after seven games are tied for last in the NHL with the Calgary Flames, who are also winless
• Their minus-20 goal differential is dead last in the NHL
• They’re carrying a staggering minus-106 shot differential, which is the worst in the NHL by a large margin (the next closest is Vancouver at minus-62…by 44 shots)
• Their 31.69 expected goals for percentage ranks 31st, only ahead of the San Jose Sharks at 30.40 percent, per Natural Stat Trick
• Their 33.04 high-danger chances for percentage is also sitting at 31st in the league, and also just ahead of San Jose at 26.88 percent, per Natural Stat Trick
• Their 19.6 total in expected goals against is the highest in the NHL, one more time via Natural Stat Trick
• And the 2026-27 Flyers’ 0-5-2 start through seven games goes beyond the previous worst franchise starts set by the 1999-00 Flyers, who went winless through their first six games (0-4-1-1), and the 2008-09 Flyers, who did the same (0-3-3).
Both of those latter teams made the playoffs, though. The 99-00 Flyers went all the way up to Game 7 of the conference finals against the Devils, and the 08-09 Flyers turned it around before bowing out against the Penguins in the first round (but with something much greater on the horizon coming a year later).
And both of those latter teams had something crucial.Â
The 99-00 Flyers had a 40-goal-scoring John LeClair, a 91-point-totaling Mark Recchi, an endlessly skating Eric Desjardins, a young Simon Gagné, and while they still had him (baggage aside), Eric Lindros.
The 08-09 Flyers had a 46-goal-scoring Jeff Carter, a relentless and young Mike Richards, a veteran Gagné, and an on-the-rise Claude Giroux, among others.
They had clear difference makers.
But the Flyers right now? They thought they were going to have a young nucleus ready to take a leap off of internal growth alone after a playoff breakthrough from just a few short months ago.Â
But Porter Martone, Tyson Foerster, and Owen Tippett each have a single goal, and have mostly struggled to work their way in toward the front of the net. Alex Bump was sent down to the AHL, Denver Barkey only just got back into the fold from injury, Trevor Zegras has fluctuated from center to wing and back again, and lines have already gotten shuffled around from further injury (to Travis Konecny, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Cam York), stagnation, and the organization just looking for any kind of spark, which on Sunday night, resulted in defensive prospect Oliver Bonk getting a look as a top-pairing defenseman, just to get overwhelmed.
Eric Hartline/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Trevor Zegras doesn’t have a goal yet this season.
Matvei Michkov, who worked all summer to prevent another tumultuous season on his part, currently leads the Flyers with two goals. But that isn’t much either, and even he had his ice time dialed back to below 13 minutes against the Hurricanes.
No one, right now, is making a difference here. And it feels like it’s all ending a season before it even really started.
“We just need to consistently win battles and play the right way,” Couturier said. “We can’t skill our way out of this one. We have a lot of talent, but we can’t skill ourselves out of it. We’re gonna have to work, and grind, and it starts with next practice. We gotta figure it out.”
And it feels like it has to be figured out by Tuesday night, before it is too late…maybe it already is.
“Can it get better? Yeah,” said head coach Rick Tocchet, who is drawing the increasing ire of a fan base that expected better of this team for the first time in forever. “It has to, or you find other people. You can’t just lose those battles all the time.”
“I think that is probably the worst part of the start,” said forward Trevor Zegras, who fully backed Tocchet and the belief in the rest of the team, but was just as frustrated with his own effort, “is how much we care for each other…
“But that’ll be the reason why we turn it around, too. We’ll figure it out.”
They have to. Otherwise, by the weekend, there might be no turning back.
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