This past weekend we got to see the Flyers play consecutive games against the top team in the Metropolitan Division. Sunday evening was the second game of a home-and-home back-to-back mini-series between the Flyers and the Carolina Hurricanes.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the effort put forth by the Flyers this weekend show a much improved team that is competing on a different level than we’ve become accustomed to over the past few seasons.
The Hurricanes won the first game in Philly 4 to 3 in the shootout. It was a well played hard fought hockey game. To quickly summarize; The Flyers took a 2-0 lead in the 1st period. Carolina came back in the 2nd, took the lead in the 3rd, Flyers tied it up to force the overtime. Carolina won in the 4th round of the shootout.
Game Two Sunday Evening
By the time the shootout concluded on Saturday night it was almost 10:00 PM and snow was just beginning to fall as fans were leaving the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philly. The Flyers and Hurricanes had just 19 hours to get to get to Carolina, get some sleep, and get back on the ice for the 5:00 PM faceoff on Sunday.
The plot line was similar but the details were slightly different. The home team took a two goal lead early in the 1st period. The Flyers scored one late in the 1st period. Tied it up late in the 3rd to force the overtime and lost by a goal in the shootout. Meghan Reilly has an excellent breakdown of the details here.
Take Aways
The Carolina Hurricanes are stacked with talent. They’ve finished either 1st or 2nd in the Metropolitan Division every year since the 2020-21 season. The last time this team did not qualify for the playoffs was 2016-17. In other words these guys are the real deal and the Flyers gave them a legitimate run for their money all weekend long.
The key to both of these games was Carolina’s goaltending. Pyotr Kochetkov’s shockingly aggressive approach to the shootout on Saturday won them the game. Brandon Bussi put out a monster performance in Sunday’s rematch. Bussi and his defensive core set up an absolute force field in front of the Carolina net. This is not a slight against either of the Flyers goaltenders, they both played well. The Canes masked men just stole the show and deserve the credit.
The Flyers strung together clusters of dangerous opportunities throughout Sunday’s game especially in the 3rd period and somehow the puck would not go into the net. Without Bussi’s truly impressive performance there would have been no overtime needed. The Flyers playmaking ability in the Carolina end during the final surge was a level up from what we have seen out of this team in quite some time.
You were not watching them set up the play and waiting to see the results. The plays were moving swiftly, getting pucks to the dangerous areas around the net, and making connections, redirections, and solid attempts at times quicker than the eye could follow.
Big Picture
Let’s be frank, the Flyers are a rebuilding team and this is not the finished product but is it safe to say at this point that they are headed in the right direction? Their 16-9-6 record leading up to the Holidays would seem to be solid evidence of that. Let’s also be honest, based on our conditioning we’re all just waiting for the wheels to fall off.
Last season by February the team looked like they were a lock to see post season action for the 1st time since 2019-20. By mid March they had totally crashed and burned. They started dismantling the club for future returns leading up to John Tortorella’s infamous quote “I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season.”
Last year we saw the rebuild hit the final stages of demolition. Scott Laughton, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, these guys had been the building blocks of the old guard. It wasn’t till the off-season that we started to see some of the returns and get a glimpse of things to come.
Brick by Brick
A guy who has been a cinder block in the “brick by brick” strategy so far has been the addition of Trevor Zegras. Zegras came to the Flyers in a trade with the Ducks for Ryan Poehling, a 2nd round pick in 2025, and a 2026 4th round pick.
Poehling is a solid veteran center, the kind of reliable player you may really end up missing down the stretch. Fortunately that is a hole that has already been filled very nicely with the addition of Christian Dvorak. Dvorak was signed as a free agent and is currently the team’s 3rd highest point leader.
Zegras is the team’s points leader with 32 points in 31 games and the highest scorer with 13 goals. He has been a game changer literally.
He scored the tying goal in Sunday night’s game against Carolina with just 1:52 left on the regulation clock. The Flyers were plugging away when Travis Konecny spotted him at the side of the net and threaded a perfect cross slot pass. Zegras was in just the right place at the right time as he so often is. Brandon Bussi didn’t stand a chance. Christian Dvorak picked up the secondary assist.
Konecny and Zegras combined for a similar goal in Saturday night’s contest. Way back in training camp when we first got to see these two guys clicking at the practice facility you could already tell this could turn out to be a lot of fun. Travis Konecny is 2nd in points for the Flyers this season with 27.
Another huge addition to the Flyers line-up has been goaltender Dan Vladar. He has been a stabilizing factor in the net for the Flyers so far this season. The past two seasons the Flyers have been cycling through a collection of netminders to find a tandem partner for Samuel Ersson. It’s been a bumpy road and last season the Flyers had the worst combined goals against average in the entire NHL.
Vladar has been the difference in so many games so far this season. Last year even when the team was in the melt down phase many of their losses could have been avoided if they had just gotten that big save when they needed it. Ersson has had some good games this season and it looks like having a reliable goalie to share the work-load has had a positive impact on his performance.
That being said Vladar has proved himself to be the go-to netminder for bigger challenges. Like the second game of a home and home back to back against the leading team in the Metro Division. The 3rd period of Sunday night’s game had that playoff type of intensity to it. And the Flyers were up to the challenge.
Let’s not get ahead of our selves until we see where this is all headed. And it may be an odd time to bring this up after two consecutive shootout losses. …but at some point you gotta admit, something is happening here.
Next Up: Flyers in Montreal Tuesday night 7:00 PM.
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