The Flyers’ dreadful start to the season continues
The Philadelphia Flyers suffered another loss Monday night in a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Flyers are 0-2-2 through their first four games, something they haven’t done since 2013-14, and they’ve been held to two or less goals in each of their four contests.
Forward Matvei Michkov has one goal and is averaging less than 16 minutes a night through four games, and only three players have recorded two points: Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier and Travis Sanheim.
After a 2025-26 campaign that saw the Flyers finish third in the Metropolitan Division and reach the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the start to this season has been underwhelming.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the Flyers’ poor start and if expectations for 2026-27 were too high.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Flyers are one of two teams in the Eastern Conference who still don’t have a win, and they’re the only team in the NHL who does not have a win through four games. Sure, they’ve dragged a couple of games to overtime, but it’s looked bad in Philly.
Carter Hutton: It has looked really bad, and then you look at what they did in the offseason. They moved goaltender Sam Ersson and Joseph Woll came in, little changes but nothing really impactful. Then you think about the offer sheet that was given to Leo Carlsson, and maybe this was something general manager Daniel Briere was forecasting, that the team was going to struggle offensively and they needed to make a push.
Right now, I think it’s concerning. In that market, and I know expectations were low then they made the playoffs and they had a good run, but were they even worthy of that? Were they ready for it? Did that set the bar a little high for failure?
It’s been a disaster so far … and it’s concerning. Again, I don’t know how they mold this together. For a guy who has taken a lot of pressure in head coach Rick Tocchet and with his handling of forward Matvei Michkov, the conversations about his fitness … it’s going to get ugly in Philly, and I don’t know how it gets better any time soon.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…
