Photo Credits: FNG’s Rob Windfelder
The Flyers have already faced the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers three times this season. The Panther won game one in Florida on October 9th the opening night of the Flyers 2025-26 NHL season. That night Dan Vladar stopped 32 of 34 shots in his 1st regular season start with the Flyers.
The two teams met up again this time in Philly on October 13th. The Flyers won the second game of the series 5-2. This tilt was actually closer than the final score may lead you to believe. The Flyers scored twice on the empty net in the final minutes of the contest. Vladar again in the net stopped 24 of 26 shots for the win. This game also marked Rick Tocchet’s first win as the Flyers new head coach.
Tonight the Flyers won the 3rd and final meetup of the season by the score of 4-2. So the Flyers are already finished their season series against the two time reigning Stanley Cup Champions. After winning the rubber match in Florida the night before Thanksgiving the Flyers take the series two games to one. Quite an accomplishment for the rebuilding Philadelphia hockey club.
Takeaways
Dan Vladar
It’s safe to say without the spectacular goaltending of Dan Vladar in the opening period this could have been a completely different hockey game. The Panthers dominated the second half of the 1st period outshooting the Flyers 15-7. Florida had the Flyers back on their heels as they swarmed creating an onslaught of dangerous opportunities. They just kept coming at the Flyers but Vladar was up to the workload making several challenging saves.
Brad Marchand scored the only goal of the period and the Flyers were lucky to get to the 1st intermission down by just one goal.
Emil Andrae
Emil Andrae has been playing some pretty solid hockey since being called up from Lehigh Valley. Tonight he was the catalyst that made this game winnable for the Orange and Black. Carter Verhaeghe had scored early in the 2nd period to give the Panthers a two goal lead.
Andrae and his defensive pairing Jamie Drysdale were moving the puck well in the Florida zone. Andrae unleashed a wrist-shot through traffic that illuded goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to get the Flyers on the board 7:57 into the 2nd period.
Just 3:16 later it was again Drysdale to Andrae who fired a slapshot from the top of the slot that was redirected in front by Matvei Michkov tying the game at two.
Game Plan
All four of the Flyers goals tonight came about by getting traffic in front of the net and firing the puck through it. Sergei Bobrovsky is one of the best goaltenders in the game. If he can see the puck he’s probably going to stop it.
The other night in Tampa the Flyers were going up against another great netminder in Andrei Vasilevskiy. They spent the entire game trying to set up the perfect shot and ended up getting shutout 3-0. Before the Flyers switched up their approach tonight they took attempting to create the perfect shot to the extreme, bordering on the absurd actually.
Christian Dvorak was on a breakaway, he back-passed to Sean Couturiere effectively downgrading a breakaway into a 2-on-1 situation. Couturiere then attempted to pass it back to Dvorak and they never got a shot on goal. You can only respect a goaltender so much before you start doing all the work for him.
Shoot the puck
With just 46 seconds left in regulation Tyson Foerster fired a wrist-shot through traffic that Bobrovsky could not track breaking the tie and giving the Panthers little time to respond.
After the ensuing faceoff the Flyers held the puck in the Florida zone, keeping Bobrovsky trapped in the net, and keeping the Panthers from getting an extra attacker out onto the ice.
With just 25 seconds left in the game Christian Dvorak intercepted a clearing attempt and quickly fired a shot from the high slot through traffic in front of the net. Sean Couturier redirected the shot past Bobrovsky capping the Flyers lead at 4-2. Redemption.
Extra Credit: As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday we are about a quarter into the NHL season. The Metropolitan Division is so tight just 5 points separate the 1st place Devils and the last place Rangers. The Flyers are currently in 6th place just 4 points out of first.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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