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For just the second time this season, the Philadelphia Flyers (22-14-8) have lost back-to-back games. On Monday, the Tampa Bay Lightning completed a sweep of the three-game regular season series — including back-to-back games in Philly over the last three nights. After trouncing Philadelphia 7-2 on Saturday, the Bolts breezed to a 5-1 victory in the rematch.
Pontus Holmberg (7th goal of the season), Jake Guentzel (20th), Brayden Point (PPG, 11th), Brandon Hagel (PPG, 222nd) and Nikita Kucherov (ENG, 23rd) scored for Tampa Bay. Kucherov extended his point streak to 10 straight games (all Tampa wins) and nine in a row with multi-point outputs. Backup goaltender Jonas Johansson stopped 19 of 20 shots.
Christian Dvorak (9th) notched the lone Philadelphia goal, temporarily reducing a three-goal deficit to two. Dan Vladar stopped 21 of 25 shots.
Here’s the good (it’ll be short), the bad, and the ugly from Monday’s game.
The good
- The Flyers had a stretch of about 10 minutes in the second period — starting with the Dvorak goal — in which the club had a legitimate change to draw within 2-1 and make a game of it.
- The Flyers dominated the faceoff circle (23-6) through two periods, including Couturier going 11-for-12. That’s about all the Flyers’ dominated, however.
- Philadelphia’s players stuck up for one another in a very chippy game.However, there was far too much 4-on-4 and special teams play against a Tampa team that’s been red-hot on the power play of late and is a very good 4-on-4 club.
- Dvorak showed pass and then shot on a 2-on-1 to give the Flyers’ their lone goal of the game.
The bad
- There’s a laundry list here: puck management, one-and-dones in the attack zone, lost battles, just OK goaltending from Vladar (Samuel Ersson was subpar on Saturday). Special teams were so bad they have to go in the “ugly” category.
- Matvei Michkov (15:23 TOI) continues to struggle on both sides of the puck.His last non empty-net goal was back on Nov. 26th in Florida.
- Except for the Anaheim game (especially the first period) and Trevor Zegras has hit his first rough patch of the 2025-26 season. He’s forcing low-percentage plays that aren’t there to be made. Dating back to the New Year’s Eve loss in Calgary, Zegras is pointless in five of his last six games. Each of the last two games against Tampa were below the standard he’s set this season.
- Vladar wasn’t awful but the Flyers needed a save on the early first period seeing-eye goal by Holmberg in particular.
- The Flyers missed the net — or failed to get even a shot attempts off — on many of their better looks in each of the last two games.
The ugly
- The Flyers had some momentum going after the Dvorak goal. Philly had back-to-back power plays with a chance to cut the gap to 3-2. Instead, they failed to get as much as a shot on net. The momentum died and then the Bolts’ Hagel scored a power play goal in the last minute of the period.
- The penalty kill (2-for-4) came up every bit as small as the power play (0-for-2).
- The Kucherov empty netter was a gimmme.
Flyers postgame reaction
Head coach Rick Tocchet
Veteran defenseman Nick Seeler
