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The Philadelphia Flyers are in the midst of a nine-of-ten game stretch of home matches on the October schedule. The outlier match comes Thursday night on the road against the Ottawa Senators. The Flyers (0-1-1 to date on the road) will look for their first road win of the 2025-26 season. The team is 3-1-0 so far at home.
The team travels to Ottawa on Wednesday but otherwise has a day off. Rick Tocchet’s squad practiced on Tuesday at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. The most interesting pending decision for Thursday is whether Dan Vladar starts in goal for the third straight game. Otherwise. it seems likely that Tocchet will dress the same lineup that garned an impressive 5-2 win over Seattle on Monday.
Owen Tippett – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Trevor Zegras – Christian Dvorak– Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Nikita Grebenkin – Jett Luchanko – Garnet Hathaway
Cam York– Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
Egor Zamula – Noah Juulsen
Dan Vladar
Samuel Ersson
Extra skaters: Adam Ginning, Rodrigo Abols, Nicolas Deslauriers.
Flyers Box +1 Starting to Click
It’s still too early to draw big-picture conclusions about the 2025-26 Flyers. However, here’s one promising early trend: shot suppression. Flyers players seem to grasp their responsibilities in the box + 1 zone coverage system Tocchet favors. Key indicators:
- The Flyers rank in the top one-third of the NHL in fewest shots allowed per game (25.5 average, 9th).
- Over the last three games, the Flyers allowed just 15 (vs. Winnipeg), 16 (vs. Minnesota) and 22 (vs. Seattle) shots on goal.
- Per Natural Stat Trick, the Flyers rank seconds in the NHL for fewest expected goals against at 5-on-5.
- Goalie performance and team defense walk hand-in-hand. When a goalie can better track the puck, even tougher saves become more doable. Vladar’s numbers so far reflect this. Samuel Ersson had a rough game plus some bad luck in the loss to Winnipeg. However, he looked sharp in the overtime loss in Carolina.Oc
October hockey: Tippett, TK, and Michkov
Once again, the “it’s too early to judge” caveat applies. October hockey (much like April baseball) is all about creating a building block for a good season. It’s not a reliable predictor, good or bad, for the season itself.
The difference: In baseball, the nickname “Mr. October” is a compliment. Ask Reggie Jackson. In hockey, it’s a reminder of how much season is left to play. Ask former Montreal Canadiens (and Flyers) forward Brian Savage. He perennially got off to scorching hot offensive starts and then leveled off thereafter. Savage received the unwanted sobriquet “Mr. October”. It wasn’t fair to the player and his main role, but it stuck. Meanwhile, Claude Lemieux and, later, Daniel Briere became known as Mr. Playoffs because their production jumped to elite levels in April, May and June.
Flyers forward Owen Tippett has a career history (so far) of being a streak scorer. When hot, he’s had stretches of five-to-10 games where he scores in bunches. Conversely, he’s had ice cold spells of roughly 10 t0 15 games at a time where he can’t buy a goal. Last season, partially due to injury, Tippett had a rough final quarter of the season.
So far in 2025-26, Tippett is off to a great start. He has notched fived goals through six games. Meanwhile, he has goals in three straight games. Tippett enjoyed a two-goal effort against Seattle on Monday. Moreover, he’s getting his shot attempts on net: 16 shots on goal in the last four games.
It’s encouraging for sure. It’s also October.The same goes in reverse for Travis Konecny and Matvei Michkov. Even if they hadn’t respectively had strong games on Monday, it would still have been too soon for hyperbole and panic.
Konecny has been a fast starter offensively in recent years. This season, he started slowly until Monday’s game. Now, the aim is to build from it in Ottawa. The same goes for Michkov.
Flyers Daily:York, October Saves
In the latest edition of Flyers Daily, Jason Myrtetus speaks with Flyers defenseman Cam York. After starting the season on IR, York is getting back to the form he displayed during an excellent training camp. Offensively, York enjoyed a three-assist performance against the Kraken on Monday. Myrtetus is also joined by Flyers goalies Ersson and Vladar. They discuss the October Saves initiative to raise money for cancer research and treatment.
