The Philadelphia Flyers are four games into the 2026-27 season, and the ledger is still empty in the win column. That part is ugly enough on its own. But the first week has also already sorted out a few clear bright spots and a few obvious problems.
Joseph Woll has been the biggest reason the Flyers have stayed alive in two of those games.
He appeared in the team’s games on Thursday, Oct. 1 and again on Saturday, and both outings looked almost identical in the best possible way for Philadelphia. Against the New Jersey Devils, Woll stopped 41 of 44 shots for a .932 save percentage and helped drag the game into overtime. The Flyers couldn’t finish the job, but they at least got a point.
He followed that up with another heavy-lift performance, turning aside 37 of 40 shots for a .925 save percentage. Once again, he gave the Flyers a chance to extend the night. Once again, the offense didn’t do enough to turn that chance into a win.
That’s why Woll stands out as an early winner. In both of his starts, he has been the one keeping Philadelphia from getting buried.
Dan Vladar has had the opposite kind of opening.
It’s a harsh label, especially with the preseason injury still hanging over things, but the results have been rough. In the Flyers’ home opener on Sept. 30, he gave up seven goals against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Philadelphia didn’t score at all to help him out.
He bounced back statistically on Tuesday, stopping 32 of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 35 shots for a .914 save percentage. Even so, the late third-period unraveling ended with a 4-1 Lightning win. Vladar has been cleared for the regular season, so the injury situation is not supposed to be an issue, but the Flyers need him to settle in fast.
Rasmus Ristolainen at least gave the season its first Philadelphia goal.
After the Flyers opened with a 7-0 shutout loss, they were right back on the ice the next day against the Devils, still hunting for anything to get on the board. Eleven minutes into the first period on Oct.
1, Ristolainen broke through and scored the Flyers’ first goal of the season. It was a notable moment for a defenseman who scored just one goal last season, and it immediately kept Philadelphia from spending another night blanked.
The bigger problem, though, is the same one that has followed the Flyers through every game so far.
The offense hasn’t been there.
That was true in the opener, when they couldn’t score at all. It was true again in the games that went to overtime.
It has been the central issue of the first week, and it’s the clearest reason the Flyers are still looking for their first win. They’ll get another chance on Thursday, Oct. 8 against the Ottawa Senators, and they’ll need their forwards to finally start producing if they want to change the story.
In Other News...
Flyers Winless Start Just Made One Lineup Question Impossible To Ignore
The Flyers winless start has only sharpened the scrutiny around a roster that is still taking shape in the early days of the season. Rookie Porter Martone stood out for his effort in the recent loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, another reminder that the team is leaning on young players to provide energy while it searches for more consistent answers at forward.
Michael Buntings arrival has added another layer to the conversation, especially after Philadelphia moved Alex Bump to the Phantoms to make room on the roster. The bigger question now is how Bunting fits into a group that is still sorting out its lineup choices from training camp, and whether the Flyers can find the right balance before the losses start to weigh even more heavily. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Line Chaos Is Making An Already Frustrating Start Worse
The Flyers early-season search for the right forward combinations has already become part of the problem in a frustrating start. Through training camp and the first four games, the club has cycled through line looks without much continuity, leaving most of the group to build chemistry on the fly instead of settling into any kind of rhythm. For a team trying to establish itself quickly, that kind of turnover can make every shift feel like a fresh experiment.
Only one line has really held together long enough to matter, and even that speaks to how scattered the rest of the rotation has been. Compared with the rest of the NHL, Philadelphia has been near the bottom in line consistency this early in the season, which only adds another layer to a start that already feels harder than it should. The hope was that camp would clarify things, but instead the Flyers are still sorting through what their forward groups ought to look like. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Let Another Winnable Game Slip Away For One Frustrating Reason
The Flyers had another one within reach in Ottawa before it slipped away at the Canadian Tire Centre, a familiar kind of loss for a team that has spent too much time looking for cleaner finishes. Philadelphia did get on the board through Matvei Michkov, but the rest of the night felt like a grind through special teams chances and missed opportunities, with the Senators finding answers from Nick Cousins and Carter Yakemchuk.
Philadelphias frustration comes from how close this one stayed, especially with both teams trading power-play looks along the way. The Flyers were still in position late, but a costly penalty opened the door for Ottawa to take control at the end, leaving another game that felt winnable but never quite got away from the Senators for good. [Read more 🡒]