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The Philadelphia Flyers have four games this week, all on home ice. The Flyers are 4-3-1 overall. Home ice improvement was a key goal heading into the regular season. So far, so good. The Flyers are 4-1-0 so far at Xfinity Mobile Arena this month. Meanwhile, the season started out with nine of the first 12 games (including the current five-game homestand) at home.
Put another way, more than one-quarter of the team’s entire home schedule (11 of 41 games, 26.8 percent) will be finished by Nov. 12. That makes continued home success vital for the team to keep their head above water before the holiday season approaches.
Tue: Flyers vs. Penguins (6-2-1)
The Penguins have overachieved right out of the gates under new head coach Dan Muse. The cross-state archrivals have averaged 3.56 goals per game (7th in the NHL) so far. The ageless Evgeni Malkin (12 assists and 14 points) and Sidney Crosby (six goals, 11 points) have led the way. As with the Flyers, goaltending was a major sore spot last year. However, so far, new additions Arturs Silovs and returnee Tristan Jarry have both done their part. The team defense has played better, too.
X-factor: The Penguins play three games in four nights this week. They host St. Louis (3-4-1) on Monday before they head southeast to Philly. After the B2B, they head to St. Paul to play the Wild on Thursday. The Flyers have the on-paper “fatigue factor” edge on Tuesday. However, that’s meaningless if Tocchet’s team reverts to the way they played in last Thusday’s loss in Ottawa.
Inside the Numbers: Watch the special teams battle on Tuesday. The Penguins’ power play tops the NHL in the early going this season, scoring once for every three opportunities (33.3 percent) on the man advantage. Meanwhile, the Flyers’ PK ranks in the top one-third so far at 87.1 percent. Conversely, the Philadelphia power play has been sporadic so far (16 percent) and allowed two shorthanded goals. I would not be surprised if the club starts power plays for a while with PP2 on the ice. The unit with the Noah Cates line, Trevor Zegras and Cam York has played better than the obstenstive first unit (Matvei Michkov, Travis Konecy, Sean Couturier, Owen Tippett and Jamie Drysdale).
Thu: Flyers vs. Predators (4-4-2)
This in another game between two non-playoff teams from last season. However, the Preds gave the Dallas Stars a tough battle on Sunday before going down to a 3-2 home loss to Dallas on Sunday. Jonathan Marchessault and Spencer Stastney built a 2-0 lead before the Stars rallies for three unanswered goals. So far this season. veteran two-way center Ryan O’Reilly is off to a strong start this season. Meanwhile, key defenseman Roman Josi remains week-to-week with an upper-body injury. In light of his absence, Nashville’s “hockey .500” start through 10 games is a decent opening.
X-factor: Tuesday’s game will be Nashville’s third match in four nights. If the Flyers execute properly, they have the chance to wear down the Predators over the first 40 minutes of the game. With four games this week, the Flyers may split the goaltending duties in half. Dan Vladar will likely start against his former team, Calgary, giving Samuel Ersson the Toronto game. It’s anyone’s guess which player gets the net on Tuesday and Saturday.
Inside the numbers: The Predators rank 21st in expected goals percentage (47.97%) at even strength, but 25th in actual goal share (45.45%). Considering their power play is just 9.7 percent so far and Josi is unavailable to run the point, the Flyers have an edge if they maintain their overall play so far at home.
Sat: Flyers vs. Maple Leafs (4-4-1)
The Flyers have had little success against Toronto in recent years, either at home or away. However, the post-Marner Leafs have been a Jekyll-and-Hyde team so far this season. Meanwhile, William Nylander should return to action on Tuesday after leaving last Friday’s game witha lower -body injury.
X-factor: With the arguable exception of Toronto’s Oct. 14 win over Nashville, Auston Matthews has yet to truly take over and dominate a game so far. Moving forward, that’s inevitable. The Flyers need to make sure the breakout performance doesn’t come at their expense. Meanwhile, Nylander (14 points) and John Tavares (five goals, 12 points) remain deadly threats.
Inside the numbers: Sometimes raw numbers — or even analytics — paint a distorted picture versus the eye test. However, in this ca 3.6se, all three reflect the Maple Leafs’ inconsistency so far: The team’s 3.44 goals per game average is acceptable (especially with Mitch Marner’s subtraction). Conversely, the team’s 3.67 goals against average is both deserved and untenable. At times, the Leafs have looked highly disorganized. At others, the goaltending had let down.
Sun: Flyers vs. Flames (2-7-1)
The Flyers lost both games against Calgary last season. Ryan Huska’s team missed out on the playoffs last year via tiebreaker with the Blues. They opened this season with a come-from-behind shootout win over the two-time defending Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers. Therafter, until Sunday night, almost nothing went right. The Flames, when they could score at all, often led first. However, it never amounted to consistent play over three periods. The team struggled hideously to finish off chances. Finally, on Sunday, the Flames deservedly grabbed a 5-1 win over the Rangers.
Two interesting notes from Sunday: Matt Coronato was a healthy scratch (he’ll be back next game). Former Flyer Morgan Frost moved from third-line center to first-line right wing with Nazem Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau. The line played well, accounting for each of Calgary’s first two goals of the game. Later, ex-Flyer Joel Farabee notched an assist. He’s still looking for his first 2025-26 regular season tally.
X-factor: The Flames’ power play seem to be getting in sync with rookie defenseman Zayne Parekh running the point. Meanwhile, Nazem Kadri has looked more like the 2024-25 version of himself in the last two games after stumbling out of the gates. Lastly, Jonthan Huberdeau and Mikael Backlund were sorely missed but are back now. In other words, beware the “trap game” scenario after playing Toronto. This Calgary team is much more dangerous than their record suggests. That’s especially true if Dustin Wolf is on his “A” game as he was on Sunday.
Inside the numbers: This is hard to believe but true. The Flames set an unwanted new NHL record by scoring first in five of their first nine games but not coming away with a single point (0-5-0) in any. Lack of overall scoring made each and every miscue loom large. Calgary suffered a blowout loss in Vegas but seven of their other eight regulation/OT losses were winnable games. Sunday’s win over the Rangers marked the Flames’ best 60-minute performance of the season.
Flyers assign Luchanko to Guelph
Flyers 2024 first-round pick Jett Luchanko opened both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 campaigns on the NHL roster. If the rules allowed for it, the 19-year-old center would be with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms this season. Alas, the Collective Bargaining Agreement partial adjustment to the AHL/CHL age rule will not take effect before the 2026-27 season.
Luchanko is too advanced for the CHL, at least in terms of his playmaking and 200-foot games. He’s not quite ready for regular NHL duty yet. Moreover, he still needs to develop at least modestly more of a shooting mentality when he has the puck. There’s nothing wrong with being primarily a distributor but Luchanko has taken pass-first mentality to basically pass-only. He only had one shot on goal during his brief stint this season.
The fact that the OHL’s Guelph Storm replaced Luchanko as captain this season points toward a trade to a contenting team. Ultimately, that benefits their team (Guelph isn’t as awful as last season but they have a long way to go). It benefits the player’s development to be surrounded by players with skill and higher hockey IQs. Lastly, it would benefit the Flyers. They don’t want a lost developmental year with the teenage forward.
Due to injury, Luchanko missed Development Camp, the Summer Showcase and Rookie Camp. He started out behind the 8-ball at NHL camp. So far, the last six weeks haven’t gone as hoped. Thankfully, there’s still sufficient time to get his developmental year on track. Team Canada is still likely to include the player on its World Junior Championship roster.
Flyers Daily: Mondays with Meltzer (October 27, 2025)
In this’s week’s Mondays with Meltzer, Jason Myrtetus and I discuss this past week of Flyers hockey and look ahead to a 4 game home slate this coming week. We also discuss the progress of the Flyers team defense and goaltending. The club has given up 15 less goals then at this time last season, the emergence of Trevor Zegras, breakdown of Jamie Drysdale’s advanced numbers, discussion on the eye test and feel of the team.
It’s not like he dominated in the OHL last year….i see it as a good thing that he can go back and work on parts of his game that needed it… the O is still a really good training ground. Sure it would be nice to see him against more talented older guys, but it’s also good for a kid to build his confidence against kids his own age.
Luchanko did, in fact, dominate the OHL last year. He created scoring chances by the bushels. The only reason why he had “just” 35 assists in 46 games was, to steal an old Roddy Piper line, his teammates “couldn’t score a date with a $100 bill stapled to their foreheads”. So many times last year, Luchanko would create 4/5 Grade A chances and end the night with one assist because they had no one who could finish. In a way, it was almost a good thing because it forced him to shoot a little more. But he’s still pretty hard-wired to be pass-first (which is fine but he can’t be just about “pass only” as a pro).
He still did very well. He finished 56th in scoring despite missing 20ish games. His pacing for a full season would have put him in the top 25. That similar to someone like a Robert Thomas.
I dont think they should have entertained him on the Flyers roster. He should have been back in OHL already. He’s already missed out on 13 games he could have been working on his game instead of sitting in the pressbox or playing 4th line minutes