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Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers (0-(0-4-2) are home on Sunday to take on Rod Brind’Amour’s Carolina Hurricanes (4-1-1). The Flyers are still in search of their first win of the young 2026-27 season.
This is the second of four meetings between the Flyers and Hurricanes this season. It’s the second and final one in Philadelphia. The teams will rematch in Raleigh on January 15 and April 5.
On October 3, a tremendous goaltending performance from Joseph Woll enabled the Flyers to take one point. Unfortunately, the Hurricanes prevailed in overtime, 3-2. Owen Tippett and Matvei Michkov scored in regulation for the Flyers, who took a 2-1 lead into the third period. Former Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere netted the overtime winner on a power play goal after Philly failed to convert their own OT power play.
On Saturday afternoon, the Flyers were on the wrong end of a 5-1 score in Boston. Porter Martone scored Philly’s lone goal, temporarily cutting a three-goal deficit to 3-1 in the third period.
The Hurricanes, meanwhile, have won four games in a row. They are coming off a 5-2 road win in Chicago on Saturday. Jackson Blake and Jordan Martinook each had a goal and an assist. Sebastian Aho (shorthanded) also scored, while Mark Jankowski scored for the third straight game. Brandon Bussi earned the win in goal with 24 saves.
Projected Goalie Matchup
Flyers: Joseph Woll (0- 1-2, 2.61 GAA, .927 SV%)
Hurricanes: Pyotr Kochetkov (2-0-0, 1.95 GAA, .895 SV%)
Flyers scoring leaders
Points
Travis Konecny — 3
Matvei Michkov — 2
Travis Sanheim — 2
Sean Couturier — 2
Trevor Zegras — 2
Goals
Matvei Michkov — 2
Tyson Foerster — 1
Porter Martone — 1
Owen Tippett – 1
Travis Sanheim — 1
Rasmus Ristolainen — 1
Assists
Travis Konency — 3
Trevor Zegras — 2
Sean Couturier 2
Five players — 1
Where to Watch
Time: 7:00 p.m. EDT
Venue: Xfinity Mobile Arena
Networks: NBCSP and NHL Network
Team Toyota Spotlight: Entire Process Needs a Reset
This single most-asked question about the Flyers this month: What’s wrong with this team?
Short answer: Other than the goaltending, pretty much everything.
In-depth answer: The entire on-ice process has been way off target. Let’s break down four areas. We will touch on special teams in an upcoming Spotlight.
Puck management
The Flyers have struggled considerably to get — and retain — the puck in five of the six games so far. The lone exception was Thursday’s game in Ottawa.
The Flyers have lost far more 50-50 puck battles than they’ve won.Meanwhile, they’ve been plagued by turnovers including 22 giveaways against Boston on Saturday. Philadelphia wilted quickly against the Bruins’ high-pressure forecheck. The Flyers also committed numerous unforced turnovers.
Team defense
One of the Flyers’ biggest strengths last season was defending lateral plays in their defensive zone and shutting off attempted backdoor set ups. They also took away attacking lanes through the middle.
That has not been the case through six games this season. For the Flyers to turn things around, they need to fix their defensive zone play immediately.
Meanwhile, after the Olympic break last season, the Flyers were one of the NHL’s stingiest teams through the neutral zone. They did a fine job at preventing clean entries and in forcing turnovers that led to transition chances.
That, too, has not been in evidence this season. Much of the talk about the team, undertstanday, has been about the Flyers’ offensive woes. However, things that create counterattacking chances in the first place have to be fixed before Philly even gets transition offensive chances.
Entries and retrievals
This is yet another area — an offensive facet, in this case — where the Flyers have been woefully inadequate early this season. The team has struggled to move up ice with pace as a connected five-man unit. The head-man passing has been subpar. Quick-up plays have been few and far between.
When a club fails to execute 15-foot to 18-foot passes with precision, it becomes very hard to attack with pace on the rush. Instead, plays get broken up or turned over in dangerous areas.
Alas, the other means of generating attack — putting the puck behind the defense and either retrieving it with pace (Carolina’s specialty) or physically winning a small-area battle to come away with the puck — has been a struggle, too.
The result is that either the puck never gets over the attacking blueline at all or it’s a quick one-and-done sequence that puts Philly right back on the defensive.
The physical game
Something rare (and unwelcomed) happened in the Boston game on Saturday. Normally, when a team gets outshot by a wide margin, the club registers more hits than the other side.
That was not the cast on Saturday. Credited hits in Boston favored the Bruins by a 25-21 margin. That speaks to an inadequate competitiveness level overall.
It should be noted that shot attempts favored Boston by a 64-37 margin on Saturday. Again, this speaks to being too easy to play against when the Flyers even got outhit under these conditions. It is unacceptable .
The Flyers blocked 18 Bruins shot attempts. One would normally expect more blocks given the number of shot attempts. This plays back into the open lanes the Bruins had available.
60th Anniversary: Today in Flyers History
In the first regular season game played in franchise history, the Philadelphia Flyers lose a 5-1 decision atthe Oakland-Alameda Coliseum to the California Golden Seals, a fellow first-year expansion club, on October 11, 1967.
The Flyers trailed 1-0 at the first intermission. Bill Sutherland scored the first goal in franchise history, briefly tying the score at 1-1. Forward Leon Rochefort and defenseman John Miszuk earned the assists at 10:07 of the second period.
In a preview of goaltending heroics in years to come, Bernie Parent kept the team in the game early, stopping 19 of the first 20 shots he faces before the Seals opened the floodgates. Parent finished with 28 saves on 33 shots in a losing cause.
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