The Philadelphia Flyers’ rough start has reopened a simple question: did the shortened preseason leave too many young players playing catch-up?
That possibility matters in Philadelphia because the group trying to settle in includes names like Porter Martone, Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk. All three are still learning how the NHL works at full speed, and that adjustment is never easy.
The league asks for quicker decisions, tougher puck battles and a lot less room to breathe. Preseason is usually where young players start making sense of all that before the games count.
For the Flyers, that runway was shorter than it might have been. A few more preseason games, maybe three or four more, could have given those younger players more time to get comfortable. It wouldn’t have erased every issue on this roster, because Philadelphia has plenty of them, but it might have eased some of the growing pains that have shown up early.
Martone stands out as one player who could have used the extra reps. The talent is there, but being a promising young player is not the same thing as being ready to make an impact every night.
The same logic applies to Barkey and Bonk, who has been placed on the top pairing. Each is still trying to find his footing this season.
And the Flyers need that footing to come sooner rather than later. This is not a team built to survive multiple young players struggling at the same time, especially when the rest of the lineup has not been steady enough to pick up the slack. When the younger players are fighting the pace of the game, the burden shifts onto the veterans, and so far they have not delivered enough either.
None of that means the preseason was the only thing holding Philadelphia back. There are other problems in play, and simply adding exhibition games would not have solved everything. But the lack of prep is fair to question, particularly for a club that reached the postseason last season and still looks out of sync now.
Right now, the Flyers need their young players to settle in fast. The standings do not leave much room for a slow burn, and Philadelphia has already put itself in a tough spot with just three points, all from overtime losses, in nine games. In that sense, the shortened preseason may not explain everything, but it could have made a difficult start even harder.
In Other News...
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 🡒]
Flyers Have Only Four Real Bright Spots Right Now
The early returns on the 2026-27 Flyers season have been bleak, with the club stumbling to an 0-6-3 start through nine games and struggling to find much traction at either end of the ice. Still, even in a rough opening stretch, a few individual performances have offered some reason for attention, with Matvei Michkov, Denver Barkey, Oliver Bonk and Travis Sanheim standing out as the clearest bright spots so far.
Bonks latest opportunity has made him especially interesting to watch, and the Flyers have wasted little time putting him into a prominent role alongside Sanheim on the top defensive pair. Barkey has also re-entered the picture after a lower-body injury and has already chipped in assists, giving Philadelphia at least a couple of young players whose progress is worth tracking even as the losses pile up. [Read more 🡒]