The Flyers don’t have the luxury of sitting on a bad opener. After Wednesday night’s 7-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia is back on the road Thursday to face the New Jersey Devils at 7 PM, and the task is as simple as it is urgent: clean it up fast.
That starts with the details that were missing against Pittsburgh. The Flyers were blown apart in a game where, by Rick Tocchet’s own assessment, too many of the little things never showed up. Breakouts, line changes, and smart decisions all need to be sharper, because the margin for error in this one won’t be any kinder.
Joseph Woll is set to make his first start as a Flyer, giving Philadelphia a chance to see one of its key acquisitions in game action right away. Dan Vladar is also listed among the goalies, but Woll is the one in focus here, and the Flyers need him to provide some stability after a rough opening night.
The Devils, meanwhile, come in with a familiar core leading the way. Jack Hughes paced the club with 77 points in 61 games last season, Nico Hischier led New Jersey with 28 goals, and Jesper Bratt finished with 22 goals and 71 points. Jake Allen is expected to get the start in net after going 17-17-2 with a 2.74 GAA and .904 save percentage in 37 games last season.
Special teams are part of the backdrop too. New Jersey’s power play sits at 22.0 percent, good for 13th, while its penalty kill is at 79.3 percent, which ranks 17th.
For Philadelphia, this is also its first road game of the season, and that matters because the Flyers were far better away from home a year ago. Last season they went 23-14-4 on the road, and those 23 wins ranked seventh in the NHL. The club also had several players who produced on the road in 2025-26: Travis Konecny had 36 points, Owen Tippett 33, Matvei Michkov 30, and Trevor Zegras 30.
There are also some individual matchups worth watching from the Flyers’ side. Tyson Foerster has six goals and nine points in 10 career games against the Devils. Zegras has five goals and seven points in eight games against New Jersey, and Michkov has four goals and six points in seven games.
After the opener, the message from the locker room was blunt. Tocchet said, "I honestly don't have an answer.
I don't know if we won a battle. When you don't win battles, they have the puck.
They out-coached us tonight, they out-played us. They did everything better than us tonight."
He added, "You're on TNT, a headline game, and I just thought, we were down 4-0 and some plays we were making were disturbing plays. Obviously we've got to figure this out quickly. Our D-zone, since I've been here, it's the worst D-zone I've ever seen."
Sean Couturier was just as direct. He said, "At some point, we've got to learn here.
We've got to wake up. Last exhibition game we played was the same way.
Everyone's like, 'oh, it's training camp, we're going to ease our way into the season,' but we've got to wake up here. There's no panic, nothing, but I think we've got to realize we're not that good, what happened last year is last year and it's a fresh year, and we've got to get back to out-working teams and trying to get points.
We're going to move on, but we've got to open our eyes and wake up here and get back to doing the little things."
In Other News...
Flyers Let Season Opener Slip Away In Brutal Late Collapse
The Flyers season opener had all the ingredients of a statement win for a team trying to set a tone early, and for most of the night they looked ready to leave New Jersey with exactly that. Philadelphia built a lead and leaned on Joseph Woll, who handled a heavy workload as the Devils kept coming. Jake Allen was steady enough at the other end, but the Flyers still had the game in their control until the final push.
New Jersey found answers from Dougie Hamilton and Luke Hughes to drag things into overtime, turning a game Philadelphia had spent so much of the night managing into a sudden-death scramble. Jack Hughes then finished it off for the Devils, sending the Flyers home with a loss that will linger because of how close they were to opening the season with a road win. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Just Got Pulled Into A Wild Auston Matthews Debate
A speculative Auston Matthews discussion has somehow pulled the Flyers into the spotlight, and it is the kind of thought experiment that tends to follow a team with real offensive upside. Matt Larkin floated a scenario that would send the Maple Leafs center to Philadelphia during 2027 NHL Draft week, a piece of chatter built more on long-range possibility than any confirmed movement. Matthews is under contract through the 2027-28 season, so any real path to a deal would require a major shift in Torontos plans.
For Flyers fans, the hook is obvious because Matthews would be the sort of star who changes the conversation immediately, while the idea of a deal also touches on the young talent Philly would presumably have to put in play. The article treats it as a hot take, not a rumor, and makes clear that plenty would have to break right before Toronto even considered moving him. Still, once a name like Matthews gets dragged into the discussion, the league starts wondering who would be bold enough to join the bidding. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Earned A Point But This Bigger Problem Should Worry Fans
The Flyers left Newark with a point after a 3-2 overtime loss to the Devils at the Prudential Center, and there was at least one encouraging sign early on. Philadelphia opened the scoring and got goals from Rasmus Ristolainen and Travis Sanheim, but New Jersey controlled much of the game and kept pushing until it could turn the night around.
For a club trying to find some footing, the concern is less the standings point than how the game unfolded once the lead was in hand. The Flyers could not hold off a Devils team that kept coming from behind, and the margin for error was small enough that an extra shift, a cleaner exit or a better finish might have changed the result. [Read more 🡒]