Tonight, the Philadelphia Flyers (3-2-1) visit the Ottawa Senators (2-4-1) at the Canadian Tire Centre. The opening faceoff is scheduled for 7pm/ET.
On Monday, the Flyers added a consecutive victory to the win column on home ice. They handily defeated the Seattle Kraken, 5-2. Philadelphia provided the Kraken with their first regulation loss. Owen Tippett continued his hot streak with a two-goal performance.
“The second one was kind of a bit of a roller. I see guys going to the net and just throwing it there. The first one, I don’t need to say much about that one. It’s just kind of a lucky bounce all over.” – Owen Tippett; 10/20/2025
He’s not the only player who continued to stand out. Sean Couturier notched a pair of assists, and Trevor Zegras extended his point streak to five games, contributing a secondary assist on a power play redirect by Noah Cates. Rick Tocchet shared an interesting quote on Zegras and his drive to be the best hockey player he can be:
“I pick his [Trevor Zegras] brain. He’s a smart kid. What I like about him [is that] he knows there’s more. He texted me last night, ‘I want to watch some video with you.’ He wants it. You can tell. He feels there’s plays out there that he can make even more, and I agree with him. It’s like I said, you just chip away.” – Rick Tocchet; 10/21/2025
The Senators (29th) rank well below the Flyers (15th) in the NHL Standings. Ottawa has the edge on offense (total goals scored), on the power play (26.1%), in shots on goal per game (29.6SOG/GP), and at the faceoff dot (61.2%). Philadelphia is the better defensive team (goals allowed and goals allowed per game), including the penalty kill (83.3%). Maintaining defensive structure and winning key faceoffs will dictate who wins this game.
“It’s something that we’ve preached from training camp; not running around, make sure you stop in your areas. When you do that, it makes it harder for the other team. When you run around, that’s when you start getting multiple shots. Now, the Carolina [Hurricanes] game, I thought a lot of shots we gave [were on] the outside. They’re a heavy volume shot team. It’s really hard to play those guys and have low totals, but for the most part, guys were in their spots. We probably practiced defensive zone coverage almost every day here in the last two weeks, and I think it’s helping us.” – Rick Tocchet; 10/21/2025
A victory tonight for the Flyers would officially put them on their first win streak of the 2025-2026 NHL Regular Season.
Injury Report: Philadelphia Flyers
Injury Report: Ottawa Senators
Where: Canadian Tire Center; Ottawa, ON
When: 7pm/ET
Last Game PHI: 10/20/25; 5-2 W; vs. Seattle Kraken
Last Game OTT: 10/21/25; 3-2 OTL; vs Edmonton Oilers
Philadelphia Flyers
Matvei Michkov is slowly but surely finding his footing. He picked up his second point of the season, a secondary assist on the game-winner by Travis Konecny. Egor Zamula accepted the crossing pass upon his entry, leading to the easy dunk in by Konecny.
“The Michkov [Matvei Michkov] play to Zamula [Egor Zamula]: you don’t dump the puck in there. You let the kid make a play, which he did. There are times when we just don’t have anything. I felt the last two, three games, we’ve actually taken a page out of Florida’s [Panthers] book; getting the puck deep, coming up with the puck, and then having some offensive zone time. We’re still trying to find that balance, like in the second period, we got a little lazy [when] we’re up four to one. We started to turn the puck over. That’s the stuff we just got to keep working on as a team.” – Rick Tocchet; 10/21/2025
Christian Dvorak will center the line including Michkov and Zegras. Of the top nine, this is a line that had its share of struggles and flashes of brilliance. They haven’t been truly ‘connected,’ as Tocchet would put it, but Michkov is working his way through his struggles.
Zamula is coming off his best performance of the season with Noah Juulsen after Tocchet provided more minutes to the third pair. The heavy emphasis on defense is showing on the ice, and it’s alleviating some pressure off of Travis Sanheim, who still leads all NHL defensemen in average minutes per game (26:44TOI).
Dan Vladař remains the hot hand and will make his third consecutive start, aiming to put Philadelphia on its first official win streak of the 2025-2026 NHL Regular Season.
Lineup: Philadelphia Flyers
Tippett-Couturier-Konecny
Forster-Cates-Brink
Zegras-Dvorak-Michkov
Grebenkin-Ābols-Hathaway
York-Sanheim
Seeler-Drysdale
Zamula-Juulsen
Vladař
(Ersson)
Lineup: Ottawa Senators
Stützle-Cozens-Batherson
Amadio-Pinto-Giroux
Cousins-Greig-Perron
Lycksell-Eller-Zetterlund
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Jensen
Kleven-Matinpalo
Ullmark
(Meriläinen)
