The past couple of years have been rough for Philadelphia Flyers fans, but this year was different. The Flyers made the playoffs, and won a playoff series for the first time since the 2020 bubble season.
After years of turmoil and sadness, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. This “New Era of Orange” might not just be a catchy slogan, but the actual direction of the Flyers.
Now, it was not all sunshine and rainbows this season, as a lot of ups and downs made this season a very contentious one for Flyers fans, but looking back at it all together there was a lot of “good” this past season. Yes, there was also some “bad” and of course, as always, some “weird.”
This is The Good, The Bad, and The Weird of the Flyers’ 2025-2026 season
Good: Trevor Zegras
Well, that was an awesome trade this offseason from Danny Brière, huh? Bringing in Trevor Zegras from the Ducks was a bit of a gamble at the time, but banking on a highly skilled player bouncing back in an bigger role paid off as Zegras had the most goals (26) and points (67) he’s ever had in a season this year. His play all season was great and had two of the coolest celebrations on the team this year.
I have a feeling Trevor Zegras is going to be a Flyer for a looooooooooooong time.
Good: Dan Vladař
Another gamble this season from Brière paid off as the Flyers finally found stability in goal with Dan Vladař. Vladař was the team MVP this season after a career where he’s mostly been seen as a backup or 1B guy at best. Well, that changed this year as Vladař finished the year with a .906 SV% and a 2.42 GAA, both the best of his career. What did Vladař do in the playoffs you ask? The answer is he got better. Vladař in the playoffs had a .922 SV% and 2.18 GAA. He also shutout the Pittsburgh Penguins twice in the first round, one of those shutouts being the 1-0 OT victory in Game Six that sent the Flyers to the second round. He stopped all 42 shots he saw.
Hopefully Vladař is able to somewhat repeat his performance from this season next year. If he can, then the Flyers might finally have found their goalie for the next few years.
Bad: Winning in Regulation
Not everything this season was good, and the Flyers did NOT win in regulation much this year. Of the Flyers 43 wins, only 27 of them came in regulation. The rest came in either overtime or…
Good: The Shootout
Well… the Flyers have become a team that dominates at the shootout. Anyone who’s ever watched this team probably never thought those words would ever be written, but here we are. The Flyers had FOURTEEN (14!) games go to the shootout this season. The Flyers won TEN (10!) of those games.
Only three teams went to a shootout more than ten times this past season: the Flyers and the Kings both went to a shootout 14 times, while the Penguins went to a shootout 13 times.
The Penguins won three shootouts. The Kings won five.
The Flyers won ten. Super cool, but not sustainable over multiple seasons.
Bad: January
Since we just spent a lot of time talking about winning, lets talk about the other side: losing. Let’s specifically talk about the stretch of hockey that had Flyers fans back on tankathon.com again for a little while. The Flyers had a 4-8-3 record in January. They won 4 of their 15 games. They had a goal differential of -19 for the month (for context their second worst month for goal differential was in November; they were -3 that month). They were a bad hockey team pretty much the entire month. Fans were irate at this point, and not just because of the losing…
Bad: Michkov’s ice time
Matvei Michkov lead all rookies in goals in 2024-2025. He also lead the Flyers in goals in 2024-2025. There were some reports this past summer of a car crash in Dubai he was involved in, which may have been the reason behind his ankle injury that had him coming into camp out of shape to start the year. But still as the season went on, Michkov was seemingly being suppressed by Tocchet in games, even being benched multiple times in the third period. It felt like malpractice development from the Flyers coaching staff. Fans were annoyed and disgruntled at this, but it wasn’t the only thing that people were upset with the coach for.
Bad: Rick Tocchet pre-Olympic Break
I’ve had my problems with Rick Tocchet this season, as I’m sure a good amount of the fanbase has as well, but there were two different Tocchets this season for the Flyers.
Let’s talk about pre-Olympic Break Tocchet to start. There were three main points where Tocchet and the fanbase had differing opinions for the first 75% of the season.
Sean Couturier needed to be moved down in the lineup: this became more and more obvious as the season went on. Sean Couturier is a great guy who has had a very, very good career in the NHL. While we can agree that in the past Couturier was a top-three to top-six forward, after multiple surgeries, his body is not what it used to be. Tocchet refused to take Couturier out of the top-six and off of the power play.
Trevor Zegras should be developing at center, not left wing: it was made clear to Flyers fans by Brière that Zegras was traded for to help plug the hole the Flyers had at center. Zegras might not have been the solution for the 1C role, but when the team’s best center at the time of the trade being Noah Cates, any help would be useful. Tocchet must’ve missed Briere’s memo, because he immediately put Zegras at LW for most of the season. Fans started begging to see Zegras with some of the more skilled wings around him just to see what he could do. This was supposed to be a developmental/testing the waters season, and for Zegras to not even be tried at center besides late in blowouts felt like the mishandling of a player that was brought in for a completely different reason.
Matvei Michkov: whether it was his ice time, his position in the lineup, what side wing he was on, or even the coaches handling of everything in the media, fans were not happy with how Michkov and Tocchet’s relationship seemed to be going. His ice time was cut a lot for seemingly dumb reasons. Michkov was constantly being played with more grinder-type guys than with offensively skilled guys, which is where he thrives. He was continuously being put on the left side of the ice, which resulted in his scoring numbers going down even more than they were already. And then in the media… there were times where Tocchet seemingly kept throwing Michkov under the bus to the media as the season went on. Some things obviously people read too much into sometimes, myself included, but there was specifically one interview where there weren’t many words that were up for interpretation.
Bad: Carnival Interview
Totally not concerned about the answer from Rick Tocchet about Michkov’s ice time from PHLY pic.twitter.com/8j5KTdn0AU
This answer was the boiling point of the Michkov discourse. Brière had to host an emergency press conference two days after to put water on the fire that Tocchet had lit amongst the fans. This seemed like a situation that was only going to end one way, with either Tocchet or Michkov left. But Brière made sure cooler heads prevailed and the Flyers made it into the Olympic Break in one (somewhat damaged) piece.
Good: Rick Tocchet post-Olympic Break
I have no idea what happened during the Olympic break, but everything that was a problem in Flyerland seemingly went away after the Olympics. Lets look back at the three main points where Tocchet and the fanbase had differing opinions for the first 75% of the season again.
Sean Couturier needed to be moved down in the lineup: this happened and it was much better for both Couturier and the Flyers. The Flyers were able to play their younger skilled guys with each other more and it resulted in some fun flashes of the future. Couturier’s game also thrived in a fourth line role, and he became a better hockey player overall when buying into that role.
Trevor Zegras should be developing at center, not left wing: this also happened and Zegras exploded down the stretch playing great hockey, winning faceoffs, and looking extremely comfortable playing center in the big games at the end of the season. His ability to center two wingers with speed and size (Tippett/Forester) was shown and it is now known he can be the 1C on a playoff team, and probably a 2C on a true contender.
Matvei Michkov: Michkov was given more ice time. Michkov was given better line mates (mostly because Brière traded away Bobby Brink, but still). Michkov was put back on the RW and led the team in scoring the last 20 games of the season. And finally Tocchet kept his mouth shut about Michkov to the media. Whether that was because Michkov was playing better or because he was told by someone in the front office to cool it, we will have no idea.
Tocchet also reportedly got help from Peter DeBoer about the Flyers’ defensive structure. Down the stretch the Flyers were very sound defensively, to the point the highest scoring offense in the NHL was shut down by the Flyers in the first round of the playoffs.
Okay, let’s take a break from the serious topics for a second and go over all the weird from the season.
Weird: The Tim Saunders Game
Let me paint you a picture. It’s December 18th. The Flyers are playing in Buffalo against the Sabres and are losing. You’re driving in your car and Tim Saunders sends you to commercial break… or so he thought…
I was one of those people in my car wondering if what I heard actually happened. It did, and it was HILARIOUS! Well, at least the fans found it hilarious. The Flyers did not find it as amusing, it would seem.
Weird: Flyers-Penguins OT with two disallowed goals and the Crosby/Zegras ejections
This game was funnily enough a peek into the series that we would get in the first round of the playoffs. This game, though, was a mess.
Kicking off the NHL Frozen Frenzy night, the Flyers and Penguins played old school Flyers vs. Penguins hockey. The game went to overtime… and the Penguins won on a delayed penal-
Wait. No they didn’t. Evgeni Malkin touched the puck as the fourth skater before the goalie made it to the bench. The play was whistled dead and the Penguins got a power play. The Flyers killed it however and then the FLYERS ended up with a power play! Owen Tippett came back the other way 4 on 3, passed it to Tyson Foerster… and the Flyers won on the overtime goal from Foerst-
Wait. No they didn’t. The Penguins challenged the goal and it was called for offside. The end of the period started to come, and we were all looking forward to watching Sidney Crosby and Trevor Zegras in the shooto-
Wait. Zegras and Crosby just got ejected during a major scrum at the end of overtime. Wish we could see what’s going on though… ESPN is shoving the beginning of Stars-Capitals down our throats for some reason.
Stars-Capitals stayed on screen until the literal last shot of the shootout. It was awful to try and watch.
I kid you not, I have not seen an overtime that much of a mess in my life.
Weird: Serial Cannoliing
Tony Escargot.
If you know this name, you know where I’m going with this. If you don’t, sit back and let me tell you a story of the Serial Cannoliing of 2025-2026.
It was a tough time on the internet as a Flyers fan halfway through the year. Fans were at each others’ throats over Rick Tocchet, Danny Brière, Matvei Michkov, Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Sam Ersson, Owen Tippett, and God knows who or what else.
There was one glimmer of hope though. A lovely mystery man named Tony Escargot started sending cannoli to people. I’m not kidding. No one knows who this man is, how he was able to find so many people home addresses or places of employment, or how he was able to fund the cannolis for an entire season.
Tony will find you.
Tony will deliver delicious cannoli to you on a silver platter.@JoyOnBroad & @ctherien6 – that cannoli is for you. @AntSanPhilly is not allowed to have a single bite.
By the power vested in Tony Escargot & the Philadelphia Flyers fanbase, Tony hereby declares one, Michael Bartner, a receipt of sweet, beautiful cannoli from Tony Escargot.
But it was super fun to do this for him and the fanbase loved the cannolis, and a Flyers Game 3 win.
Weird: WIP Talking Hockey
This wasn’t really a weird thing, it actually just sucked and I didn’t know where else to put this.
You could tell that besides Hunter Brody (and an occasional Al Morganti hit) that the people working at WIP had no knowledge of the team. In fact, the ONLY time they had talked about the Flyers in the past two years was for an afternoon show bit where all the hosts did were try to dunk on the Flyers and make fun of the one guy at WIP (Brodes) who watches them.
Either pay attention to the team and actually talk about them, or bring people in who know what they’re talking about. I don’t need to know what hot take Hugh Douglas or Joe Giglio is going to pop up out of nowhere about the Flyers because they don’t care. The same with Spike Eskin and Jack Fritz (the two guys who constantly made fun of the Flyers and kept saying that the people Hunter Brody was mentioning on the segment were “not real names”). WIP sucks the fun out of everything, especially when they have zero knowledge of anything.
Learn the sport, they’re probably going to be the second best team in the city for the next five years. Get used to it.
Alright, two last goods to end the season, because they are the best ones.
Good: Porter Martone
We all knew this kid was going to rock, but we didn’t know he was going to rock this much this early. In only nine games played to end the year, Porter Martone had ten points in those nine games. He scored four goals in that stretch, one of them being an overtime winner on Easter for his first-ever NHL goal. He also averaged 17 minutes of ice time. Not bad for a rookie thrown right into the fire.
But how did he do in the playoffs? He had five points in ten games played. Not as great as the regular season, but for his first playoffs as a rookie? That’s pretty good. Did I mention that he also had the game winning goal in both games one and two, on the road, against the Penguins? More than pretty good for a rookie.
Oh he’s also only 19 years old. The Flyers have a good one in Martone.
Good: Playoffs
I mean, when the season started who expected this outside of the locker room/front office. Even halfway through the season most of the fans thought the team was dead. What they did after the Olympic Break, with ten games left in the season, was remarkable.
10 games left. 84 points. The Flyers had to jump two teams. One was three points up. One was five points up. I still can't believe it. pic.twitter.com/mmxCx6CqNQ
And then not just making the playoffs, but winning a round against your biggest rivals was euphoric. There were so many moments from the series Flyers fans with hold onto until next season. But once next season starts, all of that is gone and the team will need to prove to us that it wasn’t a one-year wonder.
