After two straight overtime losses that followed the Philadelphia Flyers‘ disastrous season opening defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins, a case could at least be made that the club was slowly but steadily trending upwards.
That case cannot be made any longer.
Close on the scoreboard to their opponents throughout but rarely close in terms of territorial play, the Flyers fell by a 4-1 final score to the Tampa Bay Lightning to drop to 0-2-2 on the season. Despite the lopsided nature of the score, it likely undersells the degree of Tampa Bay’s dominance: they outshot the Flyers 36 – 14 and never once trailed in the game. Andrei Vasilevskiy continued his mastery over the Flyers (13 saves) but he was rarely needed — Philadelphia barely ever even had the puck.
It’s a continuation of a season-long trend for the Flyers, who have been wildly outshot in each of their first four games and are a combined minus-82 in terms of overall shot differential thus far in 2026-27. Dan Vladar did rebound from his poor performance in the opener (32 saves on 35 shots) but it was not nearly enough to lift the flailing Flyers to victory.
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9 Comments (8 conversations)
Marc
I don’t recall ever seeing a team start like this… What did they do all summer and in training camp? Most sports utilize some flavor of Captains practices/skates. Did Couturier organize these?
jonas
Great job, Tocc!
Randy
Lookin’ good on Tankathon, though! (Hope they hear this as a rising comment, get their poop in a scoop, and put it to bed).
Michael Sheahan
Looks like we can now see why Torts was so down on York. As a matter of fact, all three players from the Ducks, now on the Flyers have played soft. The rest of the team mostly continues to look like they are afraid of their own shadow.
Right now, the Flyers look like lunchtime for the rest of the league, as they have put up next to no offense whatsoever. Trading away both Nicky D and then Garnett Hathaway looks like a very bad move as too many opposing players are crushing some of our players every game with no retribution. At this rate, I’d say Tocchet will be lucky if he is still employed by Christmas. This is NOT a gentleman’s game, It is kill or be killed, and most nights that is what is happening to the Flyers. I’d say a visit to the locker room before the next game or a direct address to the team might be a good idea for for Briere. He needs to remind these guys how quickly they can have a much different situation and not to get too comfortable as they seem to be right now. What a mess…This organization appears way too patient with a real lack of effort by the players and a lack of structure being implemented by the coaching staff.
Matt
Yeah the team really needs Nick D. and Hathaway. That would solve the problems long term.
Anthony Gray
Having watched hockey for decades, but not really having the knowledge base to critique the team on X’s and O’s, I can confidently say the eye test is alarming me. Turnovers are a major problem as well. I’ve never seen as talented a team play so poorly.
Scott Parker
They need to shake up the lineup. Right now, because of injury, they are just plugging guys in. But someone like Barkey could provide a spark.
Bob MCH
Well, this is one way of acquiring a 1-C, tank into a top five draft spot, with the Toronto pick they own as more ammo. This team does not start like this if it had a superstar 1-C and 1-D. But they chose to rebuild (retool) around the fringes instead of doing the proper approach of tanking into the top five for two or three seasons and drafting three studs. Been espousing the tank strategy for years now, knowing full well, the build around the fringes strategy would land them in mediocre crud for a decade at best. If you want a cup, you gotta get the studs, and the draft is realistically the only way to accomplish this, given a rising cap environment.
David LaVeck
You said it all Charlie, this team is not good in any zone and the score really is reflective of their game which is poor.