A new season on the horizon and the excitement of it all filled Xfinity Mobile Arena on Wednesday night, and then that energy was almost immediately dissipated as the Philadelphia Flyers suffered a 7-0 defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Wednesday’s game is now the biggest season-opening blowout in Flyers history, and it was the largest regular season shutout victory by the Penguins over the Flyers since 1988. That’s not exactly the hot start to the season everyone had hoped for.
The first postgame question asked to Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet was simply, “What was that?” Tocchet replied, “I don’t know… you saw it. I honestly don’t have an answer.”
The Penguins outshot the Flyers 38-19 in this contest. Philadelphia recorded no more than 7 shots in a period, both in the second and third. There was a 17 minute interval between the first and second periods in which they didn’t have a single shot on goal.
Inept offense aside, the Flyers could not hold off the Penguins when they had the puck either, nor could they effectively cover defensively, nor could they even cleanly complete a simple line change. Pittsburgh seemed to constantly have possession of the puck and rarely made any mistakes while capitalizing on just about every poor play from the Flyers. If there were any 50/50 pucks to be had when the Penguins weren’t whipping it around the ice or shooting it past Dan Vladař, it was the visitors who still came away with them.
“I don’t know if we won a battle tonight,” said Tocchet. “And when you don’t win battles, they have the puck. They outcoached us tonight, they outplayed us, they did everything better than us tonight.”
The team’s slogan for a second consecutive season is “Brick by Brick”, and unfortunately the entire foundation looked to have collapsed before the cement on the first piece was even dry on Opening Night.
Dan Vladař
Vladař wasn’t solely to blame for this loss, but he didn’t look particularly good to start this season after being the team’s hero last year. The Flyers gave up a ton of quality chances and he did stop a few of them while others found their way past and into the net. He ended the night with 31 saves and a .816 SV%. One goal he’d particularly like to have back, though, is Nick Robertson’s shorthanded marker that went off the boards and off his skate before it trickled across the goal line.
Considering how poorly the rest of the team played, you can’t solely crucify Vladař for this performance, but how he responds in his next start, which likely will be Saturday night against the Carolina Hurricanes, the team that ended the Flyers’ 2026 postseason run with an overtime shot that bounced off Vladař’s glove and in, will be really important to watch.
“I know for us up front, we need to do a lot better,” said Travis Konecny postgame. “We put the D in some tough spots and we put Vladdy in a tough spot. Vladdy, he didn’t deserve to go through that tonight.”
Special Teams
The power play still can’t score and the penalty kill gave up two goals on four Pittsburgh power plays. That’s not exactly how the Flyers drew things up pregame.
The Flyers apparently learned very little from last season’s power play woes and still tried the method of (mostly) settling for outside shots that could either maybe find their way through netfront traffic or get deflected in. They had six combined shots on goal during their three man advantages. Two shots on goal each power play isn’t going to get things done, and for a team that’s been at or near the bottom of the league in power play percentage over the last six seasons, this was not an encouraging start.
The penalty kill seemed to have little to no structure, which was the case for Philadelphia’s coverage pretty much the entire game, but in your season opener at home against your biggest rival, you have to dig in and simply find ways to be better and step up regardless of the score. However, the Flyers didn’t seem to get that memo when facing the Penguins’ power play.
The Line Change Goal
This was especially egregious. The forwards don’t recognize the play, everyone is getting on and off too slowly, and I still can’t figure out exactly what Trevor Zegras was doing. This goal was lazy and showed a complete lack of urgency and awareness by the Flyers and basically set the tone for how the rest of the night went.
Up Next
The Flyers head up the Turnpike to take on the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center on Thursday night. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00pm ET on ESPN+/Hulu.
