Flyers' Worst Start in Franchise History Reaches Eight Games After a Shootout Loss

The worst start in Philadelphia Flyers history is no longer a line they crossed on Sunday. It is a number that keeps growing. Tuesday night’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Seattle Kraken at Xfinity Mobile Arena made it eight games without a win, 0-5-3, in a game the Flyers spent two periods losing, 73 seconds rescuing, and a shootout letting go.

How did a 2-0 deficit turn into another loss?

In three acts, the last of which undid the second. Bobby McMann’s power-play goal and Ville Ottavainen’s shot through traffic put Seattle 2-0 up, and a sparse home crowd settled in for the season’s script, PhillyVoice reports. Then, early in the third, rookie Oliver Bonk carried the puck in and set up Christian Dvorak, and 73 seconds later Travis Sanheim held the puck for a flying Trevor Zegras, whose finish was his first goal of the season, Reuters reports. Goaltender Dan Vladar, who made 29 saves and picked up an assist, held the tie from there. In the shootout, Matvei Michkov was the only Flyer to score, and McMann ended it in the fifth round.

What went wrong inside a game they nearly won?

The same self-inflicted details that have padded the whole run. Zegras took two second-period penalties in scrums with Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer after whistles, and at one point Philadelphia faced a two-man disadvantage for 38 seconds, Reuters reports; the kill held. In overtime the Flyers were called for too many men with 2:39 left and survived that too. Survival, though, is the ceiling right now. After tying the game, Philadelphia went long stretches without a shot, a pattern this desk has seen elsewhere this month in teams protecting a position rather than taking one, from Nathan MacKinnon’s fight night in Dallas to the shootout that rescued Montreal after three disallowed goals.

Why does the record matter beyond the embarrassment?

Because of the company it keeps and the calendar it burns. The Flyers have been outscored 28-8 across the opening stretch and sat last in the league in goals and shots per game, Sportsnet reports, with Travis Konecny, Cam York and Rasmus Ristolainen all missing time injured. The two previous six-game winless starts, in 1999-2000 and 2008-09, both ended in playoff runs, which is the stat the club would like quoted. The stat following them instead is 13 losses in 14 games since they led Pittsburgh 3-0 in last spring’s first round, before Carolina swept them, Sportsnet reports. A slow start is recoverable. A six-month slide wearing a new season’s clothes is the harder diagnosis.

What is the mood around Rick Tocchet now?

Audible. Home fans chanted for the coach’s firing during Sunday’s 4-1 loss to the same Carolina team that swept Philadelphia in May, ESPN reports via Sportsnet, and Tuesday’s better effort arrived in front of a crowd that spent long stretches in near-silence instead. General manager Danny Briere said over the weekend that it is not the time to panic because of a bad stretch, Sportsnet reports. Tocchet, for his part, used Tuesday to praise the response, calling it the kind of energy that has to come naturally to this team rather than once in a while, The Hockey News reports, and singled out Zegras’s game as his best of the season, NBC Sports Philadelphia reports. Captain Sean Couturier’s assessment from Sunday still stands as the bluntest one available: the team cannot skill its way out of this, and will have to work its way out.

What happens next for Philadelphia?

The streak ends or the conversation changes category. Every additional winless game deepens a record the franchise spent 59 years avoiding, and the returning players offer the only obvious lever: Konecny’s scoring and York’s and Ristolainen’s minutes address the exact shortages the numbers show. Around the league, early-season pressure is being resolved in stranger ways, from Winnipeg’s holdout being tracked by a fan-built cost counter to Chicago’s captain returning a month early. Philadelphia’s version is simpler and bleaker. One win does not fix the start. It just stops it being the story of every game that follows. The injury list that ran through this start eventually reached the forward group too, and on October 19 it produced the season’s warmest night so far: Cole Knuble’s debut for his father’s team in a 3-2 win over Colorado.