The Flyers keep asking the same group of forwards to be more than they are, and so far the answer has been the same. Philadelphia’s offense has cratered early, and after a 2-1 loss to the struggling Red Wings, the numbers have only sharpened the point: the Flyers’ expected goals percentage at 5-on-5 is 34.54% through nine games, dead last in the NHL by a wide margin.
This is not just a bad patch. The Flyers have not scored more than two goals in a game since Game 3 of their round one series against the Pittsburgh Penguins last season. And while the defense has had its own issues - especially after the injury to Rasmus Ristolainen deepened the problems on the back end - the offense has been the part that has looked truly broken.
That’s what makes this stretch so ugly. Even without elite top-end talent, the Flyers should not be this ineffective.
Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster, Trevor Zegras and the other forwards in that group may not be stars, but they have shown enough at the NHL level to be more than this. Travis Konecny, although currently injured, has been the team’s leading scorer for basically a half decade.
Yet the players who were supposed to drive chances have not done it, and even with an extra skater on the ice, every line has struggled to create dangerous looks.
The front office and fan base have spent a long time hoping internal growth would solve it. Tippett turning into a true play-driving force, Christian Dvorak matching last season’s breakout, Foerster pushing past 30 goals - those were the hopeful steps. But when those benchmarks keep getting missed, the picture starts to look different.
Maybe the Flyers simply have a roster built around complementary pieces. Players who can help a more talented lineup, but need a stronger linemate to really shine.
Maybe Foerster could reach 30 goals if Connor McDavid were feeding him clean looks. Maybe Tippett would be far more dangerous if a Mitch Marner-type playmaker were setting him loose.
Maybe Zegras could handle the 2C role if he had a Mark Stone type on his wing.
Without that kind of difference-maker, though, those players can look like placeholders rather than engines. They can tread water.
They can survive. They just cannot lift a team on their own.
That is where the Flyers have landed: a collection of C+ players, as the source puts it, assembled into a group that does not add up to much more than middling. It is hard to square that with what this team showed last season, when it played above expectations, but the possibility is real. For the pessimistic fan, the current forward group starts to look like a reflection of the franchise’s last decade - steady mediocrity in search of somebody from the outside to change the script.
And that leaves Porter Martone and Matvei Michkov in a brutal spot. The burden now is on them to become top 40 NHL forwards, not just for themselves but to give the rest of the roster any chance to move forward.
Instead of being eased into the lineup, they are already being treated like the stars everyone else has to revolve around. The contrast is stark when compared with someone like Gavin McKenna, who was immediately placed with William Nylander and Auston Matthews as soon as he made his NHL debut.
Whether Martone and Michkov can grow into those roles remains to be seen. What is clear now is that the Flyers do not have enough elite talent around them to make that growth look natural.
The group they have built can help a team. Together, though, it has not been nearly good enough.
In Other News...
Flyers Young Core Is Raising An Early Concern Philadelphia Can't Ignore
Early-season growing pains have shown up quickly for Philadelphia, with young players such as Porter Martone, Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk all trying to find their footing at the NHL level. For a group that figures to matter to the Flyers future, the first few weeks have been a reminder that development does not always move in a straight line, especially when the pace ramps up right away and the margin for error gets thin.
A shorter preseason appears to have left less time for those players to get comfortable before the games started counting, and that has become part of the conversation around the clubs uneven start. Still, the Flyers issues are not limited to the rookies and second-year types, and simply adding more exhibition games would not have guaranteed a cleaner opening stretch. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Fans Finally Have A Date To Watch For The New Jerseys
The wait is finally over for Flyers fans who have been watching the clubs alternate-jersey rollout with curiosity. Philadelphias Hometown Remix look will get its first on-ice appearance this season, giving the team another visual identity to go along with the regular home set and adding a little extra buzz to the building when the new threads arrive.
The debut is set for the first time the Flyers host Minnesota, and the jersey will show up often enough afterward to feel like more than a one-off marketing exercise. The team has said it will use the alternates 13 times this season, with most of those games coming at Xfinity Mobile Arena, though the full design has still not been formally unveiled after a possible version surfaced back in June. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Fans Should Be Watching Mikhail Gulyayevs Start Closely
The early KHL season has offered a useful snapshot of how several NHL prospects are faring overseas, and one of the names worth keeping on the radar from a Flyers perspective is Yegor Zavragin. The young goalie has been getting regular starts, and his team situation has given him a chance to show whether last seasons promise can carry over into a bigger workload.
For Flyers fans, the appeal is obvious: Philadelphia has been tracking goaltending depth closely, and Zavragin remains one of the more interesting long-term pieces in that conversation. His recent run has been strong enough to keep him in the spotlight, even as the wider group of drafted prospects in the KHL continues to shift with injuries, ice time and roster decisions that will shape the rest of the season. [Read more 🡒]