Watch PHLY Flyers Postgame

The Philadelphia Flyers continued their frustrating ways on Monday night, falling in uninspiring fashion to Metropolitan division rivals, the New York Islanders.

On Friday night, the Flyers showed energy, resilience and the ability to go toe-to-toe with the Colorado Avalanche, the best team in the NHL. Then, the Orange & Black came home and reminded fans they aren’t close to serious contenders, putting up very little resistance against a team in direct playoff competition with Philly.

Ugh. So glad I shaved my head for this team.

Oh, and Ilya Sorokin picked up his fifth career regular season shutout against the Flyers. He kills them regularly. He came in with a career .944 career save-percentage against Philly, and it just went up, stopping all 21 shots he faced. Sorokin leads the league with six shutouts this season.

First period

Highlight: Not much. The Flyers got an early power play off of Noah Cates drawing a hold against Maxim Tsyplakov just over three minutes in, and Matvei Michkov’s “second” unit was pretty impressive, despite not scoring. So, of course, when Philadelphia got another power play later in the period, it was the Trevor Zegras “first” unit who came off the bench to begin the man advantage, and they paid Rick Tocchet back by immediately surrendering a short-handed goal. Sam Ersson mishandled a high flip, just letting it bounce off him and towards the corner as he made his way back between the pipes, which seemed to surprise Bobby Brink and Jamie Drysdale, both beaten to the puck by Casey Cizikas, who threw the biscuit into the middle for an undefended J-G Pageau. Pageau scored easily for the period’s only goal with neither Flyers back-checker anywhere close to make a play, perhaps expecting the two low-men to have come away with the puck. Other than that, not a ton happened.

What I wanna see next period: Get physical to gain more possession possession. Turn possession into chances. This team should be buzzing after a weekend off and a huge win over the Colorado Avalanche on Friday. A little more aggression and urgency. Jamie Drysdale had a wide open lane to the net in the first period and stopped and tried a cross-crease dish to Zegras, which hit a skate and never made it, rather than driving from the corner and trying to beat Ilya Sorokin himself. Take the puck to the net and try to get a greasy goal.

Second period

Highlight: There weren’t any. The Flyers sucked in the second, giving up a couple goals and basically killing their chance to win a big division game and build momentum off of the road trip. I want to point out Emil Andrae, who somehow misplayed a puck at the point with the Isles on the power play, allowing New York to take it the other way and eventually set up a Tony DeAngelo one-timer for the 3-0 lead. Not sure why Andrae couldn’t handle the puck, but I’m just about done with him. He has registered no goals and one assist in his last 15 2/3 games, and he’s unnoticeable unless he’s turning the puck over most nights. Maybe he still has the promise of the player we saw in November 2024, but… he’s a long way from it right now.

What I wanna see next period: Trevor Zegras. The guy who propelled this offense for most of the first half needs to step up if they could potentially salvage a point tonight. Or at least just get himself going. In 14 games since the Christmas break (before tonight), Zegras has put up zero points in nine of them. With the Flyers needing to break Sorokin’s 15 save shutout after 40 minutes, I’d like to see Zegras get something going.

Third period

Highlight: N/A.

Final note: This is who this team is- wildly inconsistent. And maybe there’s an argument to be made “this is why they’re doing the ‘rebuild’ this way, so they can learn to win.” But that’s not much of a comfort tonight, when all I can see is a wasted opportunity.

Watch PHLY Flyers Postgame